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US  
The big new controversy over the Epstein files, explained
- ( The Hill ) – When the Department of Justice released more than 3 million pages of documents relating to the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein on Jan. 30, the sheer volume of the material was dizzying. It always seemed plausible that important elements of the release would take time to emerge as reporters and researchers dug into the massive trawl. This is exactly what has happened. Major news ...

Source: wfla.com
US  
Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked 2026: Galaxy S26 Ultra, Privacy Display, Buds 4 Pro
- : Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked 2026: Galaxy S26 Ultra, Privacy Display, Buds 4 Pro From the Galaxy S26 phones to new earbuds and agentic AI, here's everything unveiled at Samsung Unpacked this week. Follow ZDNET:  Add us as a preferred source  on Google. Samsung's first Unpacked event of the year is in the rearview mirror, with the company launching new Galaxy S26 phones, the Galaxy Buds 4 ...

Source: zdnet.com
WORLD   POLITICS  
U.S. clears some diplomatic staff to leave Israel as tension with Iran continues despite talks
- The U.S. State Department authorized non-emergency personnel and their family members to leave Israel on Friday, citing unspecified "safety risks." The change in guidance from the State Department comes as the U.S. continues negotiations with  Iran on a potential nuclear deal, which Tehran hopes will avert a potential American military assault President Trump has prepared for with a massive deployment to the ...

Source: cbsnews.com
U.S. hockey player Brady Tkachuk slams White House TikTok as 'clearly fake' after anti-Canada slur
- OTTAWA, Ontario — American hockey player Brady Tkachuk said Thursday that he did not appreciate a doctored TikTok video shared by the White House that made it look like he was disparaging Canadians after winning Olympic gold , calling it fake and something he would never say. The video includes fabricated audio of Tkachuk referring to Canadians as "maple syrup eating (expletive)," with the expletive bleeped ...

Source: nbcnews.com
US  
Anthropic to US DoD: No compromise on AI ethics
- CEO Dario Amodei is still resisting US government demands to use Anthropic's AI to build autonomous weapons and conduct mass surveillance of US citizens. Faced with demands from the US Department of Defense to allow its technology to be used for purposes the company considers unsafe or antidemocratic, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei 's stance remains firm: "We cannot in good conscience accede to their request," he wrote ...

Source: cio.com
US  
Paramount to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion - TechBriefly
- Netflix declined to match a superior proposal from Paramount Skydance for Warner Bros. Discovery, ending its $82.7 billion acquisition bid. Paramount, backed by Larry Ellison, will acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery for approximately $111 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery will pay a $2.8 billion termination fee to Netflix, which Paramount has agreed to cover. The deal creates a media conglomerate ...

Source: techbriefly.com
WORLD  
Pakistan is in 'open war' with Afghanistan, defense minister says
- ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan considers itself in an "open war" with neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan's defense minister said Friday, in the worst escalation of violence since a Qatar-mediated ceasefire in October. The comments by Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif came after Afghanistan launched a cross-border retaliatory attack on Pakistan overnight that saw Islamabad hit back with airstrikes on Kabul. ...

Source: bostonglobe.com
AI Governance: The New Geopolitical Chessboard – What WEF 2026 Means for Your Business Strategy
- In a world where artificial intelligence isn't just a tool but a strategic asset rivaling nuclear power, the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos 2026 painted a stark picture: AI governance is no longer a tech silo—it's the frontline of global competition. As geoeconomic confrontation tops the Global Risks Report 2026, with AI anxiety skyrocketing from 30th to 5th place in long-term ...

Source: customerthink.com
An investment chief shares which one of Nvidia's high-upside businesses she thinks is being overlooked
- Nvidia investors may be overlooking a small but rapidly growing part of the AI chipmaker's business, according to one investment chief. After Nvidia's earnings beat failed to push the stock higher , Nancy Tengler — the CEO and CIO at Laffer Tengler Investments — highlighted sovereign AI as an area of Nvidia's revenue that investors may be missing. "The big takeaway from Nvidia earnings is that no one's ...

Source: businessinsider.com
POLITICS  
Mamdani Praised for Unexpected Tactic in Dealing With Trump
- By A surprise White House meeting between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump on Thursday is drawing widespread attention after Mamdani offered Trump an unusual gift, provoking a viral discussion about the younger leader's diplomatic methodology. The unannounced hour-long meeting between the Republican president and Democratic mayor took place at the White House and focused primarily on a ...

Source: miamiherald.com
US   POLITICS  
The Strangest Beliefs of Our Likely Next Surgeon General
- Reading time 5 minutes Casey Means is perhaps the most well-known person associated with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, outside of its founder, current U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And she's now inches away from becoming the nation's foremost doctor. On Wednesday, Means testified before the Senate HELP committee on her nomination for U.S. surgeon general. Though plenty of people ...

Source: gizmodo.com
POLITICS  
Green party wins Gorton and Denton byelection, pushing Labour to third place
- Hannah Spencer elected as party's first MP in northern England as vote share for Keir Starmer's party plummets The Green party has pulled off a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection in a significant blow to Keir Starmer , who vowed to "keep on fighting" after the humiliating defeat. Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor , was elected as the party's first MP in northern England ...

Source: theguardian.com
US   POLITICS  
Donald Trump Celebrates Major Ballroom Win
- A federal judge has declined to block President Donald Trump's plan to build a massive ballroom on the site of the now-demolished East Wing of the White House, after preservationists challenged the move. On December 12, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit against the plans, deeming them unlawful. However, in Wednesday's ruling, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ...

Source: bradenton.com
US  
eBay cuts 800 jobs across company operations just days after dropping $1.2B on trendy Gen Z fashion app
- Company says cuts will help 'reinvest across our business and align our structure with our strategic priorities' E-commerce giant eBay announced Thursday it is slashing hundreds of jobs, just days after the company dropped $1.2 billion in cash to acquire a trendy Gen Z fashion app and settled a federal stalking lawsuit involving former executives. Multiple outlets have reported that eBay will cut a total of 800 ...

Source: foxbusiness.com
US   POLITICS  
Trump halts $250M in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over alleged fraud
- Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The Trump administration announced Wednesday it is pausing more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over alleged fraud, a move state officials called the latest act of political retribution against a Democratic-led state. "We are going to start very aggressively in the administration cracking down on people and the organizations that are defrauding Americans," Vice ...

Source: upi.com
Instagram Will Notify Parents When Teens Use Search Terms Related to Suicide
- Reading time 2 minutes Instagram will soon notify parents if their teens repeatedly search for terms related to suicide or self-harm within a short period of time. The social media platform announced the new safety feature on Thursday and said it will begin rolling out in the coming weeks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Instagram claimed the majority of teens do not try to search ...

Source: gizmodo.com
US  
Los Angeles Board of Education to discuss school superintendent after FBI searched his home
- LOS ANGELES (AP) — The governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District will meet in a closed session on Thursday to discuss the superintendent , a day after the FBI served search warrants at his home and the district's headquarters. The calendar for the Board of Education notes a special afternoon meeting to discuss Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, but there were no additional details. The district ...

Source: apnews.com
Columbia Student Taken by DHS After Officers Reportedly Lied to Gain Entry to Residence
- A Columbia University student was reportedly taken by federal immigration agents who lied in order to gain entry into her residence, the university's president said in a statement on the Thursday morning arrest, which critics have described as an abduction. The detained student has been identified as Ellie Aghayeva, an undergrad majoring in neuroscience and political science. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said ...

Source: truthout.org
Is Florida the Next Data Center Hot Spot?
- Several signs suggest 2026 could be a tipping point for Florida when it comes to large-scale data centers, the facilities that house thousands of servers for AI and other tech programs. (TNS) — There are several signs that suggest 2026 could be a tipping point for Florida when it comes to large-scale data centers, the warehouse facilities that house thousands of servers for artificial intelligence and other ...

Source: govtech.com
At least 1 U.S. citizen killed in Cuba boat incident, another injured
- At least one U.S. citizen was killed and another was injured in the confrontation between Cuban authorities and a Florida-linked speedboat, according to media reports. The clash left four people dead and six others wounded in Cuban waters. The incident occurred Wednesday morning about one nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel near Cayo Falcones in Villa Clara province, on Cuba's north-central coast. Cuban ...

Source: bnonews.com
POLITICS  
US federal court rules third-country removal policy unlawful
- News , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons US federal court rules third-country removal policy unlawful A US federal court ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy is unlawful because it fails to provide migrants a chance to object or raise safety concerns.  The case, before the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, came out of a class action lawsuit ...

Source: jurist.org
US   MARKETS  
US mortgage rates fall below 6% for first time in years
- By Mortgage rates have fallen below 6% for the first time in more than three years, offering a glimmer of hope that a frozen housing market may be set to thaw. The average 30-year mortgage rate in the United States fell to 5.98%, the mortgage-financing giant Freddie Mac said Thursday, down from nearly 7% around the same time last year. The last time the rate was below 6% was in September 2022. "That amounts to ...

Source: miamiherald.com
WORLD   POLITICS  
Fraud conviction overturned for Hong Kong's Jimmy Lai, ex-media mogul and democracy activist
- An appellate court in Hong Kong reversed fraud convictions against former media tycoon Jimmy Lai. It was a rare victory for the prominent pro-democracy activist, who is a fierce critic of Beijing and has faced a litany of legal battles. Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China's ruling Communist Party who founded the now-defunct Apple Daily, will stay in prison because  he was sentenced to 20 years weeks ago ...

Source: cbsnews.com
US   POLITICS  
At least 10 FBI agents who worked on Trump investigation fired
- The FBI has fired roughly 10 members, all of whom participated in a probe into Donald Trump's handling of classified documents after his first term. Their termination on Wednesday, confirmed by the BBC's US partner CBS, was announced shortly after FBI director Kash Patel told Reuters that federal agents subpoenaed his phone records when he was a private citizen during the documents investigation. Susie Wiles, now ...

Source: bbc.com
Near-blind Rohingya refugee dies after US agents left him far from home
- A nearly blind Rohingya refugee from Myanmar has been found dead in Buffalo, New York, days after the United States Border Patrol left him miles away from his home following his release from a county jail, authorities said. The body of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was located by police officers in the city in upstate New York on Tuesday evening, a Buffalo Police Department spokesperson said on Wednesday. Shah Alam had ...

Source: aljazeera.com
US  
Trump pitches new retirement accounts with up to $1,000 annual federal match as soon as 'next year'—how to save now
- President Donald Trump says he plans to roll out a new type of retirement account for workers who don't have access to a 401(k) or another type of workplace plan. "Half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer," Trump said during his  State of the Union address  Tuesday. "To remedy this gross disparity, I'm announcing that next ...

Source: cnbc.com
DIGITAL  
Google reveals Nano Banana 2 AI image model, coming to Gemini today
- Google's new image model replaces the previous versions immediately. The last year has been big for Google's AI efforts. Its rapid-fire model releases have brought it to parity with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic and, in some cases, pushed it into the lead. The Nano Banana image generator was emblematic of that trend when it debuted last year , and subsequent updates only made it better. Now, Google has ...

Source: arstechnica.com
US   POLITICS  
Pro-Trump lawyers push president to declare emergency to overhaul voting: reports
- Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Swipe for next article Claims of Chinese election interference will propel a national emergency declaration to give Trump unprecedented power over voting, a new report says Lawyers in support of Donald Trump are pushing the president to declare a national emergency to expand his powers ahead of the ...

Source: independent.co.uk
US  
Oregon company recalls frozen blueberries over possible Listeria contamination
- An Oregon company is recalling nearly 56,000 pounds of frozen blueberries due to possible Listeria contamination, which federal regulators this week classified as the most serious type of recall. In an online  notice , the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Oregon Potato Company distributed the product in Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Canada. The agency said the blueberries were not sold to ...

Source: cbsnews.com
US  
NYC police arrest man after officers were pelted during a snowball fight
- NEW YORK (AP) — A social media content creator was arrested Thursday after New York City police said he was one of a number of people who pelted officers with snow and ice during a massive snowball fight in Washington Square Park this week. Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, was charged with obstructing governmental administration, a misdemeanor, and harassment, a non-criminal violation. He appeared in handcuffs and ...

Source: apnews.com
HEALTH   MEDICINE  
Women suffer heart attacks too. Understanding risks, symptoms and how to save yourself
- Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By LAURA UNGAR, AP Medical Writer Lori Sepich smoked for years and sometimes skipped taking her blood pressure medicine. But she never thought she'd have a heart attack . The possibility "just wasn't registering with me," said the 64-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, who suffered two of them 13 years apart. She's far from alone. More than 60 million women in the U.S. ...

Source: orlandosentinel.com
US   POLITICS  
Trump's Favorite Voter-ID Bill Would Probably Backfire
- Politics Trump's Favorite Voter-ID Bill Would Probably Backfire Congressional Republicans are trying to pass a strict "election integrity" law that seems almost custom-designed to disenfranchise their own supporters. Save On the surface, the debate over the SAVE America Act is familiar, even predictable. At Donald Trump's urging, Republicans are pushing yet another voter-ID bill, ostensibly to prevent fraud and ...

Source: theatlantic.com
Former US Air Force pilot charged with unauthorized Chinese military training
- A former U.S. Air Force officer was arrested and charged for allegedly imparting unauthorized defense services to Chinese military pilots. Gerald Eddie Brown Jr. was arrested Wednesday in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and charged in violation of the Arms Export Control Act , which provides the Secretary of State with the legal authority to control the export of defense articles and services, according to a Wednesday ...

Source: militarytimes.com
MEDICINE   SCIENCE  
The science behind the 'super-ager' brain
- Older adults who remain cognitively sharp as they age have a genetic advantage over their peers, new research shows. Scientists at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago found that so-called super-agers generate twice as many new neurons in the hippocampus — a part of the brain critical to learning and memory — as typical older adults. Their research was published Wednesday in the ...

Source: nbcnews.com
US   POLITICS  
Appeals court gives OK to IRS to keep sharing information with ICE
- A federal appeals court this week denied a request from immigrants' rights groups to bar the IRS from continuing to share taxpayer names and addresses with ICE. The three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said in an opinion issued Tuesday that Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, and Inclusive Action for the City were "unlikely to succeed on the merits" of two ...

Source: fedscoop.com
MEDICINE   SCIENCE  
Neanderthal DNA loss tied to ancient interbreeding dynamics
- The human genome is a rich, complex record of migration, encounters, and inheritance written over thousands of millennia. In this month of love, amid the exchange of flowers and cards, genomic research by members of Sarah Tishkoff's lab at the University of Pennsylvania are revisiting a particularly intimate chapter, suggesting that ancient mating patterns between modern humans and Neanderthals shaped why ...

Source: news-medical.net
New York Sues Valve, Saying Game Developer Promotes Illegal Gambling
- New York's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Valve, accusing the game developer of promoting illegal gambling among young people through its use of in-game "loot boxes." Valve makes wildly popular games such as Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2. Valve's loot boxes amount to "quintessential gambling," which is prohibited under New York's constitution and penal law, Attorney General Letitia ...

Source: cnet.com