The Petersburg Post
Top News Stories for Wednesday, February 18th 2026
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
"Late Show" host Stephen Colbert called CBS' denial of his claim that it blocked the broadcast of his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico "crap." Colbert urged the network and its parent, Paramount Skydance, to stand up to the "bullies" in the Trump administration, including Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr. The host on Monday had said CBS' lawyers told him "in no uncertain terms ...
Source: cnbc.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
Authorities announced late Tuesday night that six people who survived a backcountry avalanche had been rescued, though the search remained for nine others who had been swept up in the slide near Truckee. Search and rescue teams worked through a record-breaking storm after the slide was reported about 11:30 a.m. near Castle Peak in Nevada County. The severity of injuries for those who had been plucked out of the ...
Source: bradenton.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
Feb. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. military has killed 11 people in recent strikes on three boats allegedly transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea. The boats were attacked late Monday, U.S. Southern Command said in a statement , which alleged that the three boats were operated by designated terrorist organizations. No proof was provided. A 39-second video published online by Southern Command ...
Source: upi.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
Australia bans citizen trying to return from IS camp in Syria Australia has barred a citizen linked to the Islamic State (IS) group from the country for up to two years. The person is among the group of 34 Australian women and children who tried to head home after being released from a Syrian camp earlier this week, only to be turned back by Syrian authorities for "technical reasons". The ban was issued "on advice ...
Source: bbc.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
The European Union is going after Shein for hooking customers with what it calls "addictive design." In a press release on Tuesday, the European Commission announced that it had launched a probe into Shein under its Digital Services Act. The Commission said it would investigate Shein for "addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including child ...
Source: businessinsider.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
We might have assumed that gravity always remains steady and unchanging. But that might not be true after all. The strength of gravity actually changes from place to place across Earth. Scientists have found that one of the weakest spots is beneath Antarctica. In a new study published in Scientific Reports , researchers state that the "gravity hole" formed due to the rock's extremely slow movements deep inside the ...
Source: greenmatters.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
Users reported seeing a blank black screen with only the sidebar visible, or a "Something went wrong" message accompanied by pixel art. YouTube experienced an outage affecting thousands of users in the United States and other countries on February 17, 2026. The issue began around 8 PM Eastern Time and was reported by users in Canada, India, the Philippines, Australia, and Russia. Downdetector recorded 338,000 ...
Source: techbriefly.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
The Hollywood star is accused of hitting one man with closed fists and punching another in the nose in the city's French Quarter Reading Time: 2 minutes US actor Shia LaBeouf's Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans allegedly took a violent turn on Tuesday morning, landing him in hospital and facing charges of battery. The New Orleans Police Department confirmed that officers arrested the Megalopolis and Honey Boy ...
Source: scmp.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
Scientists tested the antibiotic resistance of an ancient bacterium found within 5,000-year-old ice layers . According to the study published in Frontiers in Microbiology , the bacterium called Psychrobacter SC65A.3 was extracted from Scărișoara Ice Cave in Romania from about 82 feet below. After testing the strain against 28 antibiotics, the researchers found that it was resistant to 10 of them, across 8 ...
Source: greenmatters.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
A free press depends on people who believe in it. As more outlets cave to the administration's demands to quiet opposing voices, our members enable reporting that holds firm to its values and serves the public interest. Already a member? NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump family company has filed to trademark the use of the president's name on airports but says it doesn't plan on charging a fee — at least for a ...
Source: huffpost.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
News , via Wikimedia Commons US state trial begins for Georgia father of teenage school shooter The trial for the father of the teenager accused of the 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School began Monday, as prosecutors argue the father is culpable for giving his son the gun despite having notice of his son's previous threats. The father, Colin Gray, faces 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder, ...
Source: jurist.org
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the U.S and abroad, advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues from voting rights and job opportunities to education and health care. CHICAGO (AP) — The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader's assassination, died ...
Source: boston.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
WB board officially recommends Netflix deal but asks Paramount to increase price. Warner Bros. Discovery is giving Paramount one more week to make its best and final offer, leaving the door open for a deal that could upend its merger agreement with Netflix. Officially, Warner Bros. is still committed to Netflix. The company today scheduled a special meeting date of March 20 and recommended that shareholders vote ...
Source: arstechnica.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Veteran American actor admired for his roles in Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies "You smell that? Do you smell that? ... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning," says Robert Duvall as the mad, hawkish, surf-loving Lt Col Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola's two-and-a-half hour nightmarish ride ...
Source: theguardian.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
– U.S. Capitol Police in Washington, D.C., arrested an 18-year-old man Tuesday after he ran from his vehicle toward the west side of the Capitol Building armed with a shotgun. Capital Police Chief Michael Sullivan said the unidentified man parked a Mercedes SUV near the Capitol, got out and ran "several hundred yards" toward the building before officers intercepted him and ordered him to the ground. Speaking ...
Source: news4jax.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Feb. 17 (UPI) -- A third round of U.S.-brokered peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were due to get underway in Switzerland on Tuesday with low expectations of any meaningful progress amid ongoing Russian strikes and Ukrainian counter-strikes. Overnight, at least three people were killed and nine injured in Ukraine after a major aerial assault by Russian forces with 400 drones and 30 missiles targeting 12 ...
Source: upi.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Billionaire says he exercised 'terrible judgment' in maintaining contact with sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell The billionaire Thomas Pritzker has stepped down as executive chair of the hotel chain Hyatt, after revelations over his ties with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . Pritzker said he had exercised "terrible judgment" in maintaining contact with the sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell , who was ...
Source: theguardian.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By KEN SWEET NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration is throwing its support behind the prediction market operators Kalshi and Polymarket in a critical legal battle between the growing prediction market industry and states that wish to ban these platforms. The move by Michael Selig, the recently appointed chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, could ...
Source: orlandosentinel.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Thousands of lawsuits accuse the agrochemical maker of failing to warn people that its weedkiller could cause cancer The agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25bn settlement on Tuesday to resolve thousands of US lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer. The proposed settlement comes as the US supreme ...
Source: theguardian.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
Washington — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Trump administration of a "continuing cover-up" over its handling of the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . "There's something about this administration's attitude toward this, which I think really leads us to conclude they have something to hide," Hillary Clinton told the BBC in an interview ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's relationship with U.S. Coast Guard officials has become strained throughout her first year leading the department, according to two U.S. officials, a Coast Guard official and a former Coast Guard official. The tensions between Noem and the only branch of the U.S. military overseen by DHS stem from some early decisions she made that rankled Coast Guard ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP) — A person who opened fire during a youth hockey game at an ice rink in Rhode Island on Monday killed their ex-wife and one son, Pawtucket Chief of Police Tina Goncalves said Tuesday. Goncalves said the victims were the shooter's ex-wife Rhonda Dorgan and adult son Aidan Dorgan. The shooter injured three others during the shooting Monday afternoon in Pawtucket, among them the shooter's ...
Source: pbs.org
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
A free press depends on people who believe in it. As more outlets cave to the administration's demands to quiet opposing voices, our members enable reporting that holds firm to its values and serves the public interest. Already a member? President Donald Trump on Tuesday reacted to the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson by taking a dig at Democrats and former President Barack Obama . Trump started his statement by ...
Source: huffpost.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
As the talks began, local media announced that Iran had fired live missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz Reading Time: 3 minutes Iran fired live missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz while its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the US warship deployed in the Gulf could be sunk, as nuclear talks between the two countries started. "We constantly hear that they [the US] have sent a warship towards ...
Source: scmp.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
The Trump administration was sued over the Feb. 9 abrupt removal of the Pride rainbow flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City. The monument is across from the Stonewall Inn, the site of the 1969 uprising that ignited the gay rights movement in the United States. The suit calls the Pride flag's removal "a textbook example of an arbitrary and capricious act." A person secures the flags during a ...
Source: cnbc.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
While no immediate danger exists, the companies have been notified and are working on fixes to protect millions of users' password vaults. Bitwarden, LastPass, and Dashlane are less secure than you might expect, at least if you go by the findings of security researchers at ETH Zurich and the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano. They've allegedly discovered serious security vulnerabilities in ...
Source: pcworld.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
's activities in the UK. Essex Police became the fourth force in recent days to confirm that it was examining allegations laid bare in the release of the Epstein files. Detectives are 'assessing information' that has emerged from the bombshell trove which suggests the paedophile financier trafficked sex victims to the UK on private flights via Stansted airport. The latest line of inquiry will heap further pressure ...
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
By World of Warcraft remains one of the most influential video games in history, and decades after its original release, a massively requested feature is finally making its way to the game: player housing. In addition, World of Warcraft is partnering with Zillow for a new feature. In a press release sent to Men's Journal , Blizzard Entertainment announced it will be partnering up with Zillow to create " Zillow for ...
Source: miamiherald.com
Tuesday, Feb 17th, 2026 -
GrokAI Non-Consensual Sexual Imagery Raises Official Hackles European regulatory pressure on Elon Musk's X social media network intensified this week with new probes into potential breaches of privacy roles by Grok AI chatbot. The Irish Data Protection Commission on Tuesday opened an investigation into Grok's generation and publication of non-consensual intimate and sexualized imagery of real people, including ...
Source: cuinfosecurity.com