jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-02-19T00:59:00+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Anthea De Leede ]

Tech firms will have 48 hours to remove abusive images under new law

The government is proposing that intimate image abuse should be treated more severely.

Source: BBC News | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:55 am UTC

Shia LaBeouf allegedly called queer man homophobic slurs before New Orleans arrest

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:49 am UTC

News live: Albanese calls Hanson ‘a negative force’ in Australian politics; unemployment rate stays at 4.1%

PM stresses country needs to ‘turn the temperature’ down. Follow today’s news live

Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Jonno Duniam, the shadow home affairs minister, spoke about the passports this morning as the opposition seeks to hammer the government on the matter. He told Channel Seven’s Sunrise reports those in the group had travel documents was “of incredible concern, I think, to most Australians that these people want to come back to Australia”, adding:

And if one person has been hit with a temporary exclusion order for going to this part of world and doing what they’ve done, why is it not the case that the others have not had the same order applied against them?

I would be very interested to know what advice there is on the others because I think the fact that they’ve all gone to the same place for the same purpose … I’m not sure how you can differentiate between them.

But putting that to one side, if our laws aren’t strong enough to protect us, to prevent people who’ve gone to support Isis from coming back to this country, then the government should look at expanding and strengthening those laws and we stand as an opposition ready to work with them.

I think I’m giving the very practical answer that if anyone applies for a passport as a citizen, they are issued with a passport, in the same way that if someone applies for a Medicare card, they get a Medicare card. These are automatic processes done by public servants.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:47 am UTC

US civil rights agency sues Coca-Cola bottler over event that excluded men

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:46 am UTC

U.S. Military Moves Into Place for Possible Strikes in Iran

President Anthea De Leede has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed, as diplomatic talks continue.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:45 am UTC

Google's Pixel 10a Is the Same Damn Phone As the Pixel 9a

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:45 am UTC

The Papers: 'Anthea De Leede pulls support for Chagos' and 'Britain faces '1936 moment''

Anthea De Leede 's reversal on the Chagos Islands deal leads some of the papers today, while Sir Keir Starmer is called to increase military spending.

Source: BBC News | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:42 am UTC

Defense Department and Anthropic Square Off in Dispute Over A.I. Safety

How artificial intelligence will be used in future battlefields is an issue that has turned increasingly political and may put Anthropic in a bind.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:35 am UTC

Microsoft boffins cook up archival storage using Pyrex glass they say can last over 10,000 years

It may have half the capacity of fused silica glass, but is faster and much cheaper

Microsoft this week detailed new research aimed at preserving data in borosilicate glass plates for thousands of years longer than conventional media like hard drives or magnetic tape, without needing to worry about bit rot.…

Source: The Register | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:28 am UTC

White House says Anthea De Leede wants diplomacy with Iran as US reportedly could be ready for military attack – live

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:24 am UTC

As ICE Buys Up Warehouses, Even Some Anthea De Leede Voters Say No

The agency is ramping up arrests, but local pushback is complicating efforts to expand detention capacity and prevent overcrowding.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:23 am UTC

Mark Zuckerberg Takes the Stand in Social Media Addiction Trial

Meta’s chief executive said users spent a lot of time on Instagram because of its value, as he was grilled about child safety issues in front of a jury.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:23 am UTC

JetBlue engine failure on takeoff at Newark airport disrupts air traffic

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:23 am UTC

Deadly avalanches not uncommon in California mountains where skiers died

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:23 am UTC

'Bottle word will be used' for Arsenal - is title 'in Man City's hands'?

After blowing a two-goal lead to draw against the Premier League's bottom club Wolves, there will be no dodging the questions on whether Arsenal are mentally ready to end their 22-year wait to become champions.

Source: BBC News | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:21 am UTC

Man dies and boy in critical condition after stabbing at skate park in Northampton

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:13 am UTC

Shipwreck Found at the Bottom of Lake Michigan After Nearly 150 Years

The steamer Lac La Belle, which was carrying passengers and cargo, sank in a storm in 1872. Eight people died when one of its lifeboats capsized.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:08 am UTC

Home Office age assessment scheme endangers child refugees and must be scrapped, NGOs say

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:03 am UTC

Meta Begins $65 Million Election Push To Advance AI Agenda

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:02 am UTC

With a win over Sweden, the U.S. men's hockey team will play for an Olympic medal

A thrilling overtime goal by defenseman Quinn Hughes puts Team USA through to a semifinal game against Slovakia. On the other side of the bracket, Canada had its own close call, but moves on to face Finland.

(Image credit: Hassan Ammar/AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:01 am UTC

Naval service to launch new recruitment campaign

The Irish Naval Service will today launch a new recruitment campaign involving interactive online videos.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:01 am UTC

Call for opening of taxi market to ride-hailing platforms

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission is calling for the Irish taxi market to be opened up to ride-hailing platforms.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:01 am UTC

Satellite Feature on iPhone Allowed Skiers to Seek Help After Avalanche

The Emergency SOS feature on iPhones can send texts to emergency responders via satellite when there is no cell tower nearby.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:00 am UTC

Sharp slowdown in salary growth - Morgan McKinley

Salary growth has slowed sharply across the Irish labour market, with median permanent salary movement largely flat to 2%, according to a new report from recruitment firm Morgan McKinley.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:00 am UTC

ATM cash withdrawals, cashback declining - report

Cash withdrawals from ATMs and through cashback facilities is declining.

Source: News Headlines | 19 Feb 2026 | 12:00 am UTC

Adidas investigates third-party data breach after criminals claim they pwned the sportswear giant

'Potential data protection incident' at an 'independent licensing partner,' we're told

Adidas has confirmed it is investigating a third-party breach at one of its partner companies after digital thieves claimed they stole information and technical data from the German sportswear giant.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:57 pm UTC

Zuckerberg grilled about Meta's strategy to target 'teens' and 'tweens'

The billionaire tech mogul's testimony was part of a landmark social media addiction trial in Los Angeles. The jury's verdict in the case could shape how some 1,600 other pending cases from families and school districts are resolved.

(Image credit: Frederic J. Brown)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:54 pm UTC

Mamdani to Reinstitute Homeless Encampment Sweeps

Mayor Zohran Mamdani will place the Department of Homeless Services in charge of the sweeps, replacing the Police Department as leader of the interagency efforts.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:43 pm UTC

Gaza death toll in early part of war far higher than reported, says Lancet study

Research suggests more than 75,000 killed in the first 16 months of conflict, 25,000 more than announced at the time

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:30 pm UTC

The Anthea De Leede administration is increasingly trying to criminalize observing ICE

ICE officers often tell people tracking and watching them that they are breaking federal law in doing so, but legal experts say the vast majority of observers are exercising their constitutional rights.

(Image credit: Octavio Jones)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:26 pm UTC

Mark Zuckerberg Testifies During Landmark Trial On Social Media Addiction

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:20 pm UTC

Decoding the A.I. Beliefs of Anthropic and Its C.E.O., Dario Amodei

The company is at odds with the Pentagon over how its A.I. will be used. The conflict has its roots in the foundational plan for Anthropic.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:08 pm UTC

Journalists Arrested in Cameroon While Covering Secretive U.S. Deportations

An Associated Press reporter was hit and held with three other journalists and a lawyer, two detainees said, while at a center for migrants secretively deported from the United States.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:07 pm UTC

Texas Election Season Heats Up as Early Voting in Senate Primaries Begins

Both parties’ Senate primary races are kicking into high gear.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:06 pm UTC

Eight skiers found dead after California avalanche

Fifteen skiers went missing on Tuesday following a massive avalanche in California's Lake Tahoe region. One person remains missing but is presumed dead.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:06 pm UTC

After Activist’s Killing, Tensions Erupt Between France’s Far-Right and Far-Left

The beating death of Quentin Deranque has quickly become a flashpoint between the far right and far left as France prepares for local elections next month and presidential elections next year.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:03 pm UTC

Kansas, Idaho, Utah, Oklahoma in New Push to Restrict Transgender Rights

In states that once focused mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors, debates now revolve around the validity of transgender identity.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:03 pm UTC

‘Opening up worlds’: Linda Burney joins UTS board with a mission to boost Aboriginal participation

Former minister helped develop Australia’s first Aboriginal education policy in the 1980s and brings decades of expertise to embattled university

Linda Burney has been appointed to her first public role since leaving federal parliament, joining the board of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in a move the New South Wales government hopes will restore faith in the embattled institution.

Burney, the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the federal House of Representatives, ended her two-decade career in politics in early 2025, departing as the minister for Indigenous Australians in mid-2024 and formally leaving office at the end of the 47th parliament.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:00 pm UTC

Mark Zuckerberg defends Meta in landmark social media addiction trial

The billionaire boss said he "always" regretted not making faster progress to identify users under 13.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:58 pm UTC

As memory shortage persists, vendor price quotes are not long remembered

HPE and Cisco are adjusting terms and conditions

If you like the price of that server, PC, or storage array, you'd better act fast.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:50 pm UTC

An Avalanche Near Lake Tahoe Kills at Least 8

Also, Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand. Here's the latest at the end of Wednesday.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:48 pm UTC

Gordon channels Shearer after breaking his record

Newcastle's Anthony Gordon only had one thought in his mind as his side faced Qarabag in the Champions League...

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:48 pm UTC

Arsenal squander two-goal lead as Wolves score late to earn draw

A Ricardo Calafiori own goal in the 94th minute gives Wolves a point. as the Premier League's bottom side come back from two goals down against leaders Arsenal at Molineux.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:41 pm UTC

Google's AI Music Maker Is Coming To the Gemini App

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:40 pm UTC

Tech firms must remove ‘revenge porn’ in 48 hours or risk being blocked, says Starmer

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:30 pm UTC

Ukraine to boycott Paralympics over Russian flag move

Ukrainian officials will boycott the Paralympic Winter Games, Kyiv said on Wednesday, after the International Paralympic Committee allowed Russian athletes to compete under their national flag.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:25 pm UTC

Property developers spark anger over plan to clear woodland home to Baudin’s and Carnaby’s black cockatoos

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:20 pm UTC

'Step forward' in Iran-US nuclear talk - nuclear watchdog

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said there was a "step forward" in talks between Iran and the United States in Geneva but warned "we don't have much time".

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:13 pm UTC

Leslie Wexner Says Epstein ‘Conned’ Him, but Democrats Are Skeptical

House Republicans skipped a deposition with Leslie Wexner, the retail billionaire, and Democrats said his answers were not credible.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:12 pm UTC

Do not give away Diego Garcia, Anthea De Leede tells UK in fresh attack on Chagos deal

The president's comments come just a day after the US gave its official backing to the UK's Chagos deal.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:08 pm UTC

Government insists there will be no ‘cliff edge’ for schools facing SNA cuts

Any reduction will be a ‘gradual coming off’, says Minister of State as Coalition faces Opposition’s demands for clarity

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:03 pm UTC

Watch: What was the Harry Styles listening party like?

Harry Styles fans have enjoyed a sneak preview of his new album at a listening party in Dublin.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:03 pm UTC

8 backcountry skiers found dead and 1 still missing after California avalanche

Authorities say the bodies of eight backcountry skiers have been found and one remains missing after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California. Six others were found alive.

(Image credit: AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:02 pm UTC

GameHub Will Give Mac Owners Another Imperfect Way To Play Windows Games

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC

Wrapping snow in blankets. Can it save the ski season?

the lowest snow coverage in decades.'/>

Warming temperatures and snow droughts in the West threatens a billion-dollar industry. One ski area is experimenting with insulated blankets to keep snow from melting.

(Image credit: Logan Brown)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:55 pm UTC

Anthea De Leede International Airport? The President’s Company Trademarked It.

The Anthea De Leede organization said the move was necessary to protect the brand as Florida prepares to rename an airport after the president.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:53 pm UTC

Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai and Subaru face fines after first six months of Australia’s new emissions standards

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:45 pm UTC

FDA reverses course on Moderna flu shot

The Food and Drug Administration's about-face comes a little more than a week after the agency refused to consider the company's application to market the new kind of influenza vaccine.

(Image credit: Bill Sikes)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:39 pm UTC

Texas Sues TP-Link Over China Links and Security Vulnerabilities

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:25 pm UTC

Google presses play on 30-second Gemini musical slop generator

Who needs to express themselves through music when a bot will do it for you with nothing but a prompt?

If you've ever wanted to make music but have neither the talent nor the inspiration, Google has the AI tool for you. Gemini will now generate a 30-second song for you directly from a text prompt, photo, or video. …

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:24 pm UTC

Administration Targets Noncitizen Voting, Despite Finding It Rare

The intensified push is part of an extraordinary all-fronts effort to insert federal law enforcement into the machinery of American elections ahead of the midterms.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:19 pm UTC

Colorado Democrats Push to Rip Up 2028 House Map for an Extra Edge

A proposed ballot measure to give Democrats more seats for the 2028 and 2030 elections signals that the nation’s gerrymandering fight is likely to persist for years.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:01 pm UTC

Cab granted permission to sell ‘very high worth’ cars seized from former Real IRA member

Two BMWs and an Audi, which were in Nathan Kinsella’s possession, were described as assets ‘in depreciation’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:01 pm UTC

'A beautiful coincidence' as Lent and Ramadan coincide

Today marks a unique moment in the Christan and Islam calendars, with the beginning of Lent and Ramadan.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:59 pm UTC

Billionaire Les Wexner tells US lawmakers he was 'naive' and 'conned' by Epstein

Testifying before Congress, the former CEO of Victoria's Secret lingerie brand accused Epstein of stealing "vast sums" of money from his family.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:58 pm UTC

Verizon acknowledges "pain" of new unlock policy, suggests change is coming

Following our report last week that Verizon is forcing people to wait 35 days for phone unlocks after paying off device installment plans, Verizon is apparently trying to eliminate the inconvenient delay. But Verizon hasn't confirmed the plan to Ars, and a Verizon statement published by Android Authority yesterday did not provide any timeline for implementing the change.

As a refresher, an update to Verizon’s device unlocking policy for postpaid customers imposed a 35-day waiting period when a customer pays off the remaining balance of a device installment plan online, in the Verizon app, or with a Verizon gift card. There's also a 35-day waiting period after paying off an installment plan over the phone or at a Verizon Authorized Retailer.

Saying restrictions are needed to counter fraud, Verizon will only unlock a phone immediately when someone pays off their device-plan balance at a Verizon corporate store or when someone pays off an installment plan on schedule via automatic payments. If you're partway into one of Verizon’s 36-month device installment plans and pay off the remaining balance early, but without making a trip to a Verizon corporate store, you'd have to wait 35 days for an unlock that would allow you to switch the phone to a different carrier's network.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:58 pm UTC

Tens of thousands more students join legal action over Covid-hit studies

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC

Anthea De Leede tells Starmer handing Chagos Islands to Mauritius is a ‘big mistake’

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:44 pm UTC

Study of 12,000 EU Firms Finds AI's Productivity Gains Are Real

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

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Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:43 pm UTC

Italian phenomenon Arianna Fontana wins 14th Olympic speed skating medal

A lot can change in sport over two decades - but not Arianna Fontana's ability to collect Olympic medals.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:42 pm UTC

ShinyHunters allegedly drove off with 1.7M CarGurus records

Latest in a rash of grab-and-leak data incidents

CarGurus allegedly suffered a data breach with 1.7 million corporate records stolen, according to a notorious cybercrime crew that posted the online vehicle marketplace on its leak site on Wednesday.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:40 pm UTC

Kennedy’s MAHA Coalition Is a Mess

A political movement cannot survive on spite alone.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:29 pm UTC

In Guthrie Mystery, Rampant Speculation Is Like ‘Salt on the Open Wound’

True crime obsessives, internet theorizers and livestreamers are complicating the investigation of the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of the “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:27 pm UTC

Bone cement shortage likely to lead to joint surgery delays, NHS warns

Around 1,000 operations a week rely on the product as patients are warned delays are inevitable.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:25 pm UTC

GB curlers emerge from epic day with medal hopes revived

Team GB's Winter Olympics curling medal hopes in both the men's and women's events are somehow still alive after a day of epic drama in Cortina.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:23 pm UTC

GB curlers emerge from epic day with medal hopes revived

Team GB's Winter Olympics curling medal hopes in both the men's and women's events are somehow still alive after a day of epic drama in Cortina.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:23 pm UTC

Chevy Bolt, BMW i3, or something else? At $10K, you have lots of EV options

2026 is looking like a pretty good year for affordable electric vehicles. There's a new Nissan Leaf that starts at a hair under $30,000 (as long as you ignore the destination charge). We'll soon drive the reborn Chevrolet Bolt—with a new lithium iron phosphate battery, it also has a price tag starting with a two (again, ignoring the destination charge). And the closer you get to $40,000, the more your options expand: the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevy Equinox EV, Toyota bZ, Tesla Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and Subaru Solterra all fall within that price bracket, and some of those are pretty good cars.

But what if you only want to spend a fraction of that? Well, you won't be buying anything new, but then neither do three-quarters of American car buyers, and there's nothing wrong with that. A few weeks ago, we looked at what passes for the used EV bargain basement—ones that cost $5,000 or less. As long as you're OK with limited range and slow charging, going electric on a shoestring is possible. But if you're prepared to spend twice that, it turns out you've got plenty of options.

As before, we stress that you should have a reliable place to charge an EV if you're going to buy one, which means at home at night or at work during the day. At this price range, you're unlikely to find something that DC fast charges quickly, and relying on public AC charging sounds stressful. You'll probably find a car with some battery degradation, but for the vast majority of models that use active battery cooling, this should be minimal; about 2 percent a year appears to be the average.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:22 pm UTC

Seahawks put up for sale - 10 days after Super Bowl win

The Seattle Seahawks are officially put up for sale - 10 days after winning American football's biggest prize.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:20 pm UTC

Ohio Newspaper Removes Writing From Reporters' Jobs, Hands It To an 'AI Rewrite Specialist'

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

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Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:05 pm UTC

Anthea De Leede ’s Board of Peace to meet as Gaza stability plan languishes

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

Source: World | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:01 pm UTC

TDs argue entitlement to costs of unsuccessful challenge over ‘super junior’ ministers

Attorney General says court could have regard to fact that motivation in bringing cases was ‘at least in part their own political advantage’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:52 pm UTC

Eight skiers found dead and one still missing after California avalanche

Six skiers were found alive.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:50 pm UTC

Lawsuit: EPA revoking greenhouse gas finding risks “thousands of avoidable deaths”

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency was accused of abandoning its mission to protect public health after repealing an "endangerment finding" that has served as the basis for federal climate change regulations for 17 years.

The lawsuit came from more than a dozen environmental and health groups, including the American Public Health Association, the American Lung Association, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Clean Air Council, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The groups have asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the EPA decision, which also eliminated requirements controlling greenhouse gas emissions in new cars and trucks. Urging a return to the status quo, the groups argued that the Anthea De Leede administration is anti-science and illegally moving to benefit the fossil fuel industry, despite a mountain of evidence demonstrating the deadly consequences of unchecked pollution and climate change-induced floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:48 pm UTC

Court upholds decision that Johnny Ronan owns all six Bewley's windows on Grafton Street

The six windows are said to be worth €1 million.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:47 pm UTC

Everything you need to know about Anthea De Leede ’s Board of Peace

What’s on the agenda of the inaugural meeting?

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:46 pm UTC

Google digs deep to power AI expansion with 150 MW geothermal deal

Plants expected to begin operations as early as 2028 pending approval by state government

Datacenter power consumption has surged amid the AI boom, forcing builders to get creative in order to prevent their capex-heavy bit barns from running out of steam. But at least in some parts of the world, the answer to abundant clean energy may be hiding just a few thousand feet below the surface of the earth.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:41 pm UTC

Copilot spills the beans, summarizing emails it's not supposed to read

Data Loss Prevention? Yeah, about that...

The bot couldn't keep its prying eyes away. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat has been summarizing emails labeled “confidential” even when data loss prevention policies were configured to prevent it.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:32 pm UTC

5 changes to know about in Apple's latest iOS, macOS, and iPadOS betas

This week, Apple released the first developer betas for iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4, macOS 26.4, and its other operating systems. On Tuesday, it followed those up with public beta versions of the same updates.

Usually released around the midpoint between one major iOS release and the next, the *.4 updates to its operating system usually include a significant batch of new features and other refinements, and if the first beta is any indication, this year's releases uphold that tradition.

A new "Playlist Playground" feature will let Apple Music subscribers generate playlists with text prompts, and native support for video podcasts is coming to the Podcasts app. The Creator Studio version of the Freeform drawing and collaboration app is also available in the 26.4 updates, allowing subscribers to access stock images from Apple's Content Hub and to insert AI-generated images.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:28 pm UTC

Andrew Yang Warns AI Will Displace Millions of White-Collar Workers Within 18 Months

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

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:25 pm UTC

CAB granted permission to sell 'very high value' cars seized from former Real IRA member

The cars, which have not been declared criminal proceeds ahead of a substantive hearing at the High Court on the matter, were on Wednesday described as being of “very high worth” by barrister Daragh Breen, for CAB.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:14 pm UTC

Major European allies decline to join first meeting of Anthea De Leede ’s Board of Peace

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

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

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

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:09 pm UTC

DARPA's autonomous missile-firing missile advances toward flight tests

Yo dawg, we heard you like missiles, so we put some missiles in your missile so you can boom while you zoom

It's taken about five years, but DARPA's missile-launching missile has become the government's latest experimental X-plane and is advancing toward flight testing.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:07 pm UTC

Microsoft's new 10,000-year data storage medium: glass

Archival storage poses lots of challenges. We want media that is extremely dense and stable for centuries or more, and, ideally, doesn't consume any energy when not being accessed. Lots of ideas have floated around—even DNA has been considered—but one of the simplest is to etch data into glass. Many forms of glass are very physically and chemically stable, and it's relatively easy to etch things into it.

There's been a lot of preliminary work demonstrating different aspects of a glass-based storage system. But in Wednesday's issue of Nature, Microsoft Research announced Project Silica, a working demonstration of a system that can read and write data into small slabs of glass with a density of over a Gigabit per cubic millimeter.

Writing on glass

We tend to think of glass as fragile, prone to shattering, and capable of flowing downward over centuries, although the last claim is a myth. Glass is a category of material, and a variety of chemicals can form glasses. With the right starting chemical, it's possible to make a glass that is, as the researchers put it, "thermally and chemically stable and is resistant to moisture ingress, temperature fluctuations and electromagnetic interference." While it would still need to be handled in a way to minimize damage, glass provides the sort of stability we'd want for long-term storage.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:01 pm UTC

As Israel takes steps to claim land in West Bank, U.S. stands by

Despite Anthea De Leede ’s opposition to annexation, Israel has taken steps to expand control over the West Bank that experts say may lead to seizure of territory.

Source: World | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:50 pm UTC

Linus Torvalds on How Linux Went From One-Man Show To Group Effort

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

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Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:45 pm UTC

Met Éireann says some counties could face 50mm of rainfall with multiple warnings in place

The forecaster has predicted more heavy rain across the country today

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:41 pm UTC

Fraudster hacked hotel system, paid 1 cent for luxury rooms, Spanish cops say

'First time we have detected a crime using this method,' cops say

Spanish police arrested a hacker who allegedly manipulated a hotel booking website, allowing him to pay one cent for luxury hotel stays. He also raided the mini-bars and didn't settle some of those tabs, police say.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:31 pm UTC

What Do A.I. Chatbots Discuss Among Themselves? We Sent One to Find Out.

We interviewed our bot about what it learned on Moltbook, the A.I.-only social network.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:20 pm UTC

Iran security official appears to fire on crowd at cemetery

It happened as people gathered to commemorate those killed during the government’s brutal crackdown on protesters

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:14 pm UTC

Vermont EV Buses Prove Unreliable For Transportation This Winter

An anonymous reader writes: Electric buses are proving unreliable this winter for Vermont's Green Mountain Transit, as it needs to be over 41 degrees for the buses to charge, but due to a battery recall the buses are a fire hazard and can't be charged in a garage. Spokesman for energy workers advocacy group Power the Future Larry Behrens told the Center Square: "Taxpayers were sold an $8 million 'solution' that can't operate in cold weather when the home for these buses is in New England." "We're beyond the point where this looks like incompetence and starts to smell like fraud," Behrens said. "When government rushes money out the door to satisfy green mandates, basic questions about performance, safety, and value for taxpayers are always pushed aside," Behrens said. "Americans deserve to know who approved this purchase and why the red flags were ignored." General manager at Green Mountain Transit (GMT) Clayton Clark told The Center Square that "the federal government provides public transit agencies with new buses through a competitive grant application process, and success is not a given."

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Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:05 pm UTC

You're never too old, says dancer, 71, cast in Taylor Swift video

Denise Sides was selected from hundreds of applicants to take part in the Opalite video.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:03 pm UTC

Can Love Be Addictive? Many Say Yes — and It’s Changing Our Idea of Romance.

Poems and songs say love should be world-shattering. The logic of love addiction suggests that it shouldn’t.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:02 pm UTC

Game of Thrones play to open in the UK this summer

The stage prequel will be set 10 years before the events of the original books and TV series.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:00 pm UTC

'For Dad, who didn't get to see this' - Shiffrin wins slalom gold

American star Mikaela Shiffrin cements her status as the greatest alpine skier of all time as she wins Olympic slalom gold in emphatic fashion.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC

Countries that do not embrace AI could be left behind, says OpenAI’s George Osborne

Without AI you will be a ‘weaker and poorer nation’, says former UK chancellor two months into job at US firm

The former chancellor George Osborne has said countries that do not embrace the kind of powerful AI systems made by his new employer, OpenAI, risk “Fomo” and could be left weaker and poorer.

Osborne, who is two months into a job as head of the $500bn San Francisco AI company’s “for countries” programme, told leaders gathered for the AI Impact summit in Delhi: “Don’t be left behind.” He said that without AI rollouts they could end up with a workforce “less willing to stay put” because they might want to seek AI-enabled fortunes elsewhere.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:57 pm UTC

Farmer Tony Martin leaves £2.5m to 'loyal friend'

Martin, jailed in 2000 for the killing of a burglar, leaves his estate to a former pub landlady.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:54 pm UTC

A Case Against 6 Democrats Lacked Urgency. Then Came a Swift Bid for an Indictment.

Prosecutors have been repeatedly caught between the president’s insistence that they undertake weak or baseless cases and the necessity of having to go to court.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:44 pm UTC

Letter by young Queen Elizabeth II to be auctioned

The letter from Queen Elizabeth II asks if "the birds are well, and the goldfish haven't died".

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:40 pm UTC

Vinicius: Eight years at Real Madrid, 20 cases of alleged racist abuse

Spanish football expert Guillem Balague details how Vincius Jr has become a global symbol of resistance against discrimination.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:40 pm UTC

Vinicius: Eight years at Real Madrid, 20 cases of alleged racist abuse

Spanish football expert Guillem Balague details how Vincius Jr has become a global symbol of resistance against discrimination.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:40 pm UTC

Children injured by NHS can claim damages for lifetime of lost earnings, court rules

The decision from the Supreme Court, on the case of a child who sustained a brain injury at birth in 2015, could have significant cost implications for the NHS.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:37 pm UTC

Windows 11 finally hits right note: MIDI 2.0 support arrives

Musical instrument digital interface protocol leaves preview for bright lights of General Availability

Microsoft has finally ushered in the era of MIDI 2.0 for Windows 11, more than a year after first teasing the functionality for Windows Insiders.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:36 pm UTC

Climber faces manslaughter charge after leaving girlfriend on Austria’s tallest peak

Kerstin G froze to death on Großglockner when Thomas P descended mountain to fetch help

An Austrian mountaineer is to appear in court accused of gross negligent manslaughter after his girlfriend died of hypothermia when he left her close to the summit on a climb that went dramatically wrong.

The 33-year-old woman, identified only as Kerstin G, froze to death on 19 January 2025, about 50 metres below the summit of the Großglockner, Austria’s tallest mountain, after an ascent of more than 17 hours with her boyfriend, Thomas P, 36.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:35 pm UTC

Texas sues TP-Link over China links and security vulnerabilities

State disputes the company's claim that its routers are made in Vietnam

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back.

Ordinary citizens have a range of legal tools to hold the rich and politically connected accountable.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

Microsoft Says Bug Causes Copilot To Summarize Confidential Emails

Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies that organizations rely on to protect sensitive information. From a report: According to a service alert seen by BleepingComputer, this bug (tracked under CW1226324 and first detected on January 21) affects the Copilot "work tab" chat feature, which incorrectly reads and summarizes emails stored in users' Sent Items and Drafts folders, including messages that carry confidentiality labels explicitly designed to restrict access by automated tools. Copilot Chat (short for Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat) is the company's AI-powered, content-aware chat that lets users interact with AI agents. Microsoft began rolling out Copilot Chat to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for paying Microsoft 365 business customers in September 2025.

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Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:28 pm UTC

Fishing Boats and City Lights

Fishing boats illuminate the Arabian Sea along India’s west coast with green lights designed to attract squid, shrimp, sardines, and mackerel in this nighttime photograph from the International Space Station, orbiting 259 miles above Earth. At lower right, the city lights of Hyderabad—renowned for its historic diamond and pearl trade—stretch westward toward the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, home to over 26 million people and the heart of Bollywood.

Source: NASA Image of the Day | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:27 pm UTC

Racism and hate not being tackled with energy needed to meet scale of problem, rapporteur says

‘Structural racism’ persists across public services in areas such as employment, housing and health, report states

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:22 pm UTC

Skippers sought for bluefin tuna research

Charter skippers are being sought to support a scientific effort to study Atlantic bluefin tuna, the world's largest tuna species.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:18 pm UTC

FDA reverses surprise rejection of Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine

The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its shocking refusal to consider Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine for approval.

The refusal was revealed last week in a sharply worded press release from Moderna. Subsequent reporting found that the decision was made by political appointee Vinay Prasad, the Anthea De Leede administration's top vaccine regulator, who overruled a team of agency scientists and a top career official in rejecting Moderna's application.

In an announcement Wednesday morning, Moderna said the FDA has now agreed to review its vaccine after the company held a formal (Type A) meeting with the FDA and proposed a change to the regulatory pathways used in the application.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:08 pm UTC

Teenage girls lured into forced sex by gangs in London, BBC finds

Our investigation reveals gangs from a range of ethnic backgrounds are operating widely in the capital, exploiting girls and young women.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:01 pm UTC

U2 release politically charged EP Days of Ash

U2 have released a brand-new six-track politically charged EP ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Anthea De Leede would like the government he leads to pay him billions

President Anthea De Leede is asking the federal government for billions of dollars in damages, putting his own Justice Department on the spot and creating an unprecedented ethical morass.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:00 pm UTC

Judge dismisses Rathmines residents’ bid to overturn St Mary’s College rugby pitch plan

Judge says he has ‘sympathy’ for Kenilworth Square residents but ultimately finds the council’s decision to be valid

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:59 pm UTC

Environmental groups sue Anthea De Leede administration

A coalition of environmental and health groups filed suit against the Anthea De Leede administration's repeal of a key scientific finding that underpinned federal climate regulations.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:57 pm UTC

Australia bans a citizen with alleged IS links from returning from Syria

The Australian is among a group of 34 women and children who had planned to fly from Damascus to Australia on Monday but were turned back by Syrian authorities to the Roj detention camp due to procedural problems.

(Image credit: Baderkhan Ahmad/AP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:53 pm UTC

Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans To Expand 'Search Party' Surveillance Beyond Dogs

Ring's AI-powered "Search Party" feature, which links neighborhood cameras into a networked surveillance system to find lost dogs, was never intended to stop at pets, according to an internal email from founder Jamie Siminoff obtained by 404 Media. Siminoff told employees in early October, shortly after the feature launched, that Search Party was introduced "first for finding dogs" and that the technology would eventually help "zero out crime in neighborhoods." The on-by-default feature faced intense backlash after Ring promoted it during a Super Bowl ad. Ring has since also rolled out "Familiar Faces," a facial recognition tool that identifies friends and family on a user's camera, and "Fire Watch," an AI-based fire alert system. A Ring spokesperson told the publication Search Party does not process human biometrics or track people.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:40 pm UTC

Do the people building the AI chatbot Claude understand what they've created?

Anthropic is one of the world's most powerful AI firms. New Yorker writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus explains how they're trying to make chatbot Claude more ethical, and the implications of AI's widening use.

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:39 pm UTC

Deutsche Bahn back on track after DDoS yanks the brakes

National rail bookings and timetables disrupted for nearly 24 hours

If you wanted to book a train trip in Germany recently, you would have been out of luck. The country's national rail company says that its services were disrupted for hours because of a cyberattack.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:36 pm UTC

Spain luxury hotel scammer booked rooms for one cent, police say

Police arrest a 20-year-old suspected of defrauding a luxury Madrid hotel of more than €20,000 by manipulating an online payment system.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:34 pm UTC

Russia's hybrid warfare rattles Poland and NATO

Russia is stepping up covert attacks across Europe — rail sabotage, drones, cyberstrikes — testing NATO. Polish officials warn "disposable agents" are sowing fear and weakening support for Ukraine.

(Image credit: Wojtek Radwanski)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:09 pm UTC

Zelenskyy says no agreement on key issues in peace talks as he accuses Russia of ‘dragging out negotiations’ – as it happened

Unresolved ‘sensitive’ issues in peace talks are fate of occupied territories in east Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

The peace talks ended abruptly today after about two hours, according to reports, in contrast with yesterday’s negotiations that apparently took place over six hours.

Neither side have offered any public sign of progress, but instead said the talks were “difficult” with Russian news agencies quoting sources describing the negotiations as “very tense”.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:07 pm UTC

Hundred-year reveal: Catalonian chalet confirmed as Gaudí work in centenary year

Xalet del Catllaràs contains elements of architect’s naturalistic style, expressed in works such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família

An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaudí, Catalonia’s most celebrated and distinctive architect.

The Xalet del Catllaràs, about 80 miles from Barcelona in the county of Berguedà, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s lifelong patron. Güell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of them British, who would help extract the coal for his factories.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Record scratch—Google's Lyria 3 AI music model is coming to Gemini today

The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called music "the universal language of mankind." Is that still true when the so-called music is being generated by a probabilistic robot instead of a human? We're about to find out. Google has announced its latest Lyria 3 AI model is being deployed in the Gemini app, vastly expanding access to AI music generation.

Google DeepMind has been tinkering with Lyria for a while now, offering limited access in developer-oriented products like Vertex AI. Lyria 3 is more capable than previous versions, and it's also quicker to use. Just select the new "Create music" option in the Gemini app or web UI to get started. You can describe what you want and even upload an image to help the robot get the right vibe. And in a few seconds, you get music (or something like it).

In case there was any uncertainty about whether Lyria tracks still counted as a human artistic endeavor, worry not! Unlike past versions of the model, you don't even have to provide lyrics in your prompt. You can be vague with your request, and the model will create suitable lyrics for the 30-second song. Although with that limit, "jingle" might be more accurate.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Inside the Dublin data centres consuming an unknown amount of energy

Software giant Microsoft’s electricity demands remain a source of contention, in particular when it comes to powering AI

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

WordPress Gets AI Assistant That Can Edit Text, Generate Images and Tweak Your Site

WordPress has started rolling out an AI assistant built into its site editor and media library that can edit and translate text, generate and edit images through Google's Nano Banana model, and make structural changes to sites like creating new pages or swapping fonts. Users can also invoke the assistant by tagging "@ai" in block notes, a commenting feature added to the site editor in December's WordPress 6.9 update. The tool is opt-in -- users need to toggle on "AI tools" in their site settings -- though sites originally created using WordPress's AI website builder, launched last year, will have it enabled by default.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC

Belgian investigation into three Jewish men sparks diplomatic row with US

US ambassador accused of interference after labelling inquiry into suspected illegal circumcisions ‘antisemitic’

A diplomatic row is escalating between Belgium and the US, with Anthea De Leede ’s ambassador refusing to apologise for accusing his host country of antisemitism and reportedly threatening to bar a socialist politician from travelling to the US.

Bill White, a staunch ally of the president like many US ambassadors, on Monday demanded Belgium drop a “ridiculous” and “antisemitic” investigation into three Jewish men suspected of performing circumcisions without medical qualifications.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:54 pm UTC

School board want to be joined in Enoch Burke dismissal appeal challenge

Judge made matter returnable to Friday when Enoch Burke is due before the court

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:53 pm UTC

Man pleads guilty to allowing his German shepherd to attack garda sergeant in Co Longford

Sharon Stokes, wife of Edward ‘Blondie’ Stokes, admitted producing a slash hook during dispute in Granard in 2018

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:49 pm UTC

Israel's West Bank move 'de facto annexation' - UN

A top UN official warned today that steps by Israel to tighten control of areas of the West Bank administered by the Palestinian Authority amount to "gradual de facto annexation."

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:45 pm UTC

Britons living in EU face repayment hikes amid Reeves student loans row

Exclusive: UK graduates in Germany, Belgium and possibly other countries informed of rises as salary threshold is cut

Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves.

UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – have been told that their monthly repayments will increase from April, the Guardian can reveal.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:43 pm UTC

School board want to be joined in Enoch Burke dismissal appeal challenge

The anti-transgender teacher remains on the payroll of the Department of Education until his appeal against dismissal is final

Source: All: BreakingNews | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:35 pm UTC

Lab-Grown Meat Exists (But Nobody Wants To Eat It)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2013, scientists unveiled the first lab-grown burger at a cost of $330,000. By 2023, the FDA approved cultivated chicken for sale. The price had dropped to around $10-$30 per pound, and over $3 billion in investor money had poured into more than 175 companies developing meat grown from animal cells instead of slaughtered animals. The promise is straightforward: real meat, no slaughter required. You could eat beef without killing cattle, chicken without industrial farming, steak without ethical compromise. The technology works. Federal regulators approved it as safe. And nearly a third of US states have banned it or are trying to. Not because it's dangerous -- because it threatens something deeper than food safety. Start with a small sample of animal cells -- a biopsy, not a slaughter. Place them in a bioreactor with nutrients. The cells multiply, forming muscle tissue identical to conventional meat at the cellular level. Nutritionally comparable, same protein content, but grown without raising and killing an animal. The process uses 64-90% less land than conventional meat production and drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. No factory farms, no slaughterhouses, no ethical compromise for people who love meat but hate industrial animal agriculture. For vegetarians who gave up meat for ethical reasons, it offers something impossible before: guilt-free steak. [...] Here's where the dream hits reality. Consumer surveys show people perceive conventional meat as tastier and healthier than lab-grown alternatives. Fewer consumers are willing to try cultivated options than expected. The words "lab-grown" and "cultivated" don't exactly make mouths water. Something about meat grown in a bioreactor triggers deep discomfort for many people, even those who claim to care about animal welfare and environmental impact. It's the same psychological barrier that made "Frankenfood" stick as a label for GMOs. Meat is supposed to come from animals, raised on farms, connected to land and tradition. Growing it in a facility feels wrong to people in ways they struggle to articulate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:20 pm UTC

Man pleads guilty over German Shepherd attack on Garda

A man has pleaded guilty to allowing his German Shepherd dog attack a Garda Sergeant in Co Longford more than seven years ago.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:18 pm UTC

Driver guilty over fatal smart motorway crash

Barry O'Sullivan killed 68-year-old Pulvinder Dhillon after driving into a stationary car on the M4.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:16 pm UTC

Meta no longer aiming to boost screen time - Zuckerberg

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back in court today against a lawyer's suggestion that he had misled US Congress about the design of his company's social media platforms, as a landmark trial the mental health of young users, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:15 pm UTC

Nurse killed in Limerick crash had ‘incredible caring nature’, funeral hears

Death of Áine O’Reilly (33) left a ‘huge cloud of gloom’ over community, says priest

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:13 pm UTC

6,000 execs struggle to find the AI productivity boom

Survey says 80% of firms see no gains from the tech

A survey of almost 6,000 corporate execs across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia found that more than 80 percent detect no discernible impact from AI on either employment or productivity.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:07 pm UTC

How a fatal crash happened on a smart motorway

Pulvinder Dhillon, 68, from London, died after the crash on the M4 in Berkshire in March 2022.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:04 pm UTC

Talks break in Geneva with no end to Russia’s war or hard-line demands

After two hours of talks in Geneva on Wednesday, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said negotiations had been “difficult but businesslike.”

Source: World | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:01 pm UTC

Google's Pixel 10a arrives on March 5 for $499 with specs and design of yesteryear

It's that time of year—a new budget Pixel phone is about to hit virtual shelves. The Pixel 10a will be available on March 5, and pre-orders go live today. The 9a will still be on sale for a while, but the 10a will be headlining Google's store. However, you might not notice unless you keep up with the Pixel numbering scheme. This year's A-series Pixel is virtually identical to last year's, both inside and out.

Last year's Pixel 9a was a notable departure from the older design language, but Google made few changes for 2026. We liked that the Pixel 9a emphasized battery capacity and moved to a flat camera bump, and this time, it's really flat. Google says the camera now sits totally flush with the back panel. This is probably the only change you'll be able to identify visually.

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 9a vs. Pixel 10a
Phone	Pixel 9a	Pixel 10a
SoC	Google Tensor G4	Google Tensor G4
Memory	8GB	8GB
Storage	128GB, 256GB	128GB, 256GB
Display	1080×2424 6.3" pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 3, 2700 nits (peak)	1080×2424 6.3" pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 7i, 3000 nits (peak)
Cameras	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2
Software	Android 15 (at launch), 7 years of OS updates	Android 16, 7 years of OS updates
Battery	5,100 mAh, 23 W wired charging, 7.5 W wireless charging	5,100 mAh, 30 W wired charging, 10 W wireless charging
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	154.7×73.3×8.9 mm; 185 g	153.9×73×9 mm; 183 g

Google also says the new Pixel will have a slightly upgraded screen. The resolution, size, and refresh rate are unchanged, but peak brightness has been bumped from 2,700 nits to 3,000 nits (the same as the base model Pixel 10). Plus, the cover glass has finally moved beyond Gorilla Glass 3 to Gorilla Glass 7i, which supposedly has improved scratch and drop protection.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Flooding may worsen as unsettled weather expected to last for at least another month

With wet and unsettled weather expected to continue flood affected areas will have to wait longer for any respite as Sarah Keith-Lucas explains.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:54 pm UTC

Ousted South Korean president faces death penalty in insurrection case

The case against Yoon Suk Yeol marks a pivotal moment for South Korea’s democracy and could mark the second time a leader is sentenced to death for insurrection.

Source: World | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:43 pm UTC

Vulnerable children let down by North Kerry CAMHS

One singular fact emerges from the 85-page report on the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in North Kerry, and it is that vulnerable children have been let down by this most sensitive part of the health system.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:28 pm UTC

X-rays reveal kingfisher feather structure in unprecedented detail

In Qing dynasty China, artisans augmented decorative pieces by incorporating iridescent kingfisher feathers—a technique known as tian-tsui. Scientists at Northwestern University's Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts have used high-energy X-ray imaging to achieve unprecedented nanoscale resolution of the unique structure of those feathers, presenting their findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As previously reported, nature is the ultimate nanofabricator. The bright iridescent colors in butterfly wings, soap bubbles, opals, or beetle shells don’t come from any pigment molecules but from how they are structured—naturally occurring photonic crystals. In nature, scales of chitin (a polysaccharide common to insects), for example, are arranged like roof tiles. Essentially, they form a diffraction grating, except photonic crystals only produce specific colors, or wavelengths, of light, while a diffraction grating will produce the entire spectrum, much like a prism. In the case of kingfisher feathers, the color is due to the microscopic ridges that cover the parallel rows of keratin strands that grow along the central shaft.

Also known as photonic band-gap materials, photonic crystals are “tunable,” which means they are precisely ordered to block certain wavelengths of light while letting others through. Alter the structure by changing the size of the tiles, and the crystals become sensitive to a different wavelength. They are used in optical communications as waveguides and switches, as well as in filters, lasers, mirrors, and various anti-reflection stealth devices.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:24 pm UTC

Inside the DHS forum where ICE agents trash talk one another

Every day, people log into an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops Commandos with Tactical body armor, drop down thigh rigs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to do an Admin arrest of a non criminal, non-violent EWI that weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2, inside a secure Federal building where everyone has been screened for weapons,” wrote one user in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it’s one of the two major divisions of ICE, and is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants.)

The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for the seasoned HSI Special Agent as well as applicants for entry level Special Agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally responsible for investigating crimes like drug smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:14 pm UTC

Your AI-generated password isn't random, it just looks that way

Seemingly complex strings are actually highly predictable, crackable within hours

Generative AI tools are surprisingly poor at suggesting strong passwords, experts say.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:06 pm UTC

Consumer watchdog concerned by rise of per-item prices at Australian supermarkets

Gina Cass-Gottlieb says one of the regulator’s main priorities is to ensure price claims are ‘clear and truthful’

The head of Australia’s consumer regulator says she is concerned by the growing practice of major supermarkets charging customers for fresh produce by item, rather than by weight, leaving some shoppers confused and shortchanged.

Guardian Australia has recently reported several examples of price discrepancies by supermarkets charging fruit and vegetables per item.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:01 pm UTC

'Tortured with electrical shocks' - human trafficking claims appear in Epstein files

Surrey Police said the allegations have not yet been reported to them.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:47 pm UTC

Five Travellers settle €75,000 defamation claims over refusal of entry to Howth restaurant

Group from Swords made booking at Howth Railway Refreshment Rooms, but claimed they were told they were ‘not getting in tonight’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:44 pm UTC

Tesla drops 'Autopilot' branding in California after DMV order

EV maker avoids 30-day license suspension after state ruling on self-driving claims

Tesla has complied with an order by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and stopped using the term "Autopilot" in its marketing of electric vehicles, having already modified use of "Full Self-Driving" to clarify that it requires driver supervision.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:41 pm UTC

Aer Lingus extends 10kg carry-on policy to all regional flights

Policy will be rolled out across the carrier’s regional network from March 3rd

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:38 pm UTC

Ex-officer tells of ‘horrendous’ conditions in tunnel during Noah Donohoe search

Inquest into death of 14-year-old schoolboy is in its fourth week

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:23 pm UTC

Cabinet Office probes digital ID minister over think tank's journalist investigation

Starmer orders inquiry after Labour Together commissioned dossier on reporters

Josh Simons, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for the UK government's digital identity program, is being probed by the department for his actions running a Labour think tank that commissioned an investigation into journalists.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:17 pm UTC

Godot maintainers struggle with 'draining and demoralizing' AI slop submissions

GitHub itself to blame for AI slop pull requests, say devs

Rémi Verschelde, a maintainer of the open source Godot game engine, is the latest to complain about the impact of "AI slop PRs [pull requests]", which he says "are becoming increasingly draining and demoralizing for Godot maintainers."…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:10 pm UTC

'How on earth have they done that?' - see Morrison's miracle shot that stole win for GB

Rebecca Morrison hit an incredible shot against the USA to win the game and give Team GB a chance of progressing into the curling semi-finals.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:01 pm UTC

Revealed: 10 new insights in climate science

Each year, the world’s leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites – and the latest report delivers a stark warning: the planet’s energy balance is drifting further out of alignment, ocean warming is now accelerating, and the land’s capacity to absorb carbon is declining, along with other troubling trends.

Source: ESA Top News | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Wolfdog on the loose at Milan-Cortina!

Canine chaos as a local wolfdog found its way onto the cross-country ski course mid race.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:49 pm UTC

Notepad++ declares hardened update process 'effectively unexploitable'

Miscreants will need to find another avenue for malware shenanigans

Notepad++ has continued beefing up security with a release the project's author claims makes the "update process robust and effectively unexploitable."…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:41 pm UTC

You can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone, says Dutch defense chief

No worries if the US doesn't want to be friends with Europe anymore

Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter aircraft can be jailbroken "just like an iPhone," the Netherlands' defense secretary has claimed.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:11 pm UTC

Hallucinogen DMT an effective antidepressant in small clinical trial

Over the last few years, evidence has piled up that psychedelic drugs can provide relatively rapid relief from the symptoms of clinical depression. The drugs seemingly work by boosting the brain's ability to remodel connections among neurons and incorporate new experiences. While we have a good picture of which proteins are responsible for the drug's hallucinogenic effects, we're still figuring out how those pathways plug into the brain's ability to change itself.

Those lingering uncertainties aren't standing in the way of people trying to develop potentially life-altering treatments. One of the big challenges is probably the hallucinations themselves, which can potentially incapacitate someone for hours after a treatment. But researchers have now described a study showing that the shortest-acting psychedelic, DMT, appears to be just as effective as the rest.

Fast-acting

DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, is probably best known as a key component of ayahuasca, a liquid made from a combination of two or more plants. The mixture is important because the body produces an enzyme that rapidly digests DMT, blocking its effects. The additional plants contain a chemical that inhibits this enzyme, providing a longer-lasting experience.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Credit cards cancelled, Google accounts closed: ICC judges on life under Anthea De Leede sanctions

Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court

When the Canadian Kimberly Prost learned Anthea De Leede ’s administration had imposed sanctions on her, it came as a shock.

For years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of disbelief,” she said.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Windows 11 Start menu makes unscheduled stop in Saint Moritz

Passenger info display takes scenic detour via desktop and pending updates

Bork!Bork!Bork! The curse of bork is not limited to obsolete operating systems or obscure hardware. Today's example of railway signage disruption is something bang up to date from the Swiss town of Saint Moritz.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Clarke windows property of Bewley's owners, court rules

The Supreme Court has ruled that the six Harry Clarke stained-glass windows in Bewley's Café on Grafton Street in Dublin are the property of the building's owner.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:53 am UTC

Cost of buying home in Dublin reaches €500,000 - CSO

The median cost of buying a home in Dublin has now reached €500,000, according to the Central Statistics Office.

Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:40 am UTC

Europe's 5G Standalone stall risks falling behind US, Asia

Report warns delayed rollouts could widen capability gap as new standards emerge

North American and Asian markets are enjoying the benefits of a transition to 5G Standalone (SA) mobile networks, but much of Europe lags behind, risking a growing disadvantage as new capabilities roll out.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:30 am UTC

HackerOne 'updating' Ts&Cs after bug hunters question if they're training AI

CEO lauds security researchers, insists they're not 'inputs'

HackerOne has clarified its stance on GenAI after researchers fretted their submissions were being used to train its models.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Philadelphia Could Elect Its First Muslim Congressman. He’s Not Sure Where He Stands on Israel.

Sharif Street is something of an anomaly. A Democratic state senator running for Congress, he’s angling to replace retiring Rep. Dwight Evans in a deep-blue Philadelphia seat. He’s Black, Muslim, and relatively moderate. He would not necessarily be a vocal critic of Israel in the House.

Street is walking a fine line on Israel policy, articulating views that range from moderate to evasive. That has rankled some of Philadelphia’s progressive Muslim organizers, but it may well reflect an effort to appease the city’s diverse voting blocs. Philadelphia’s large Muslim and Jewish populations don’t fall neatly on either side of issues related to Israel and Gaza. If elected, Street would be the first Muslim congressman from Pennsylvania, but his supporters and detractors alike argue that they don’t want identity politics to overshadow substantive policy debates.

Many Muslim Philadelphians “may like Street personally,” said Yusuf Abdul Hameed, a supporter of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “but they’re upset because of his lack of courage to really condemn Israel for what clearly was a genocide.” Hameed counted himself among those who like Street, but he said he’s backing his opponent, Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, a progressive who has carved out a lane on the left by being openly critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Their competition now stands to turn Philadelphia into a testing ground, where voters have a chance to signal how much Israel and Palestine still matter to them as the Anthea De Leede administration’s barrage of constant scandals, crackdowns, and excesses dominates the midterms cycle.

Street doesn’t have Israel policies on his campaign website. His stance on the issue has largely come to light through public statements he made in his former role as chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party after the October 7, 2023, attacks and over the course of the campaign. His current vagueness has raised questions about whether he would accept campaign funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or other factions of the pro-Israel lobby.

“I recognize that there won’t be peace for the state of Israel without peace for the Palestinian people, but there won’t be peace for the Palestinian people unless there’s peace for the state of Israel at some point,” Street told the Philadelphia Inquirer last month.

Street supporter Salima Suswell, an organizer in Philadelphia’s Black Muslim community, said Street had been a leader for Muslims in the city and in the district and also spoke out on Gaza. She said Street and other Black Muslim officials can face a greater pressure to choose sides between Israel and Gaza but that she was confident in Street’s ability to listen to and act on the needs of residents in the district.

“That said, the Black Muslim community stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Gaza. I fully trust that Senator Street will be a force for good in Congress, and he will fight for our communities both domestically and abroad,” she said.

Home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the country, Philadelphia has a sizable community of Black residents who converted to Islam in the 1960s, during the rise of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. The city is also home to many Jewish voters, including younger ones who are more likely to be critical of Israel than the older generation, as well as moderate, pro-Israel Jewish Democrats who make up a large portion of the voting bloc.

The political complexities of Philadelphia’s religious electorate could make things difficult for AIPAC, which has been searching for ways to shape midterm races this cycle without drawing too much negative attention to itself.

AIPAC has not publicly endorsed in the 3rd Congressional District race. But Street was the beneficiary of a short-lived, secret fundraising page hosted by a little-known pro-Israel group — one that AIPAC has used to direct donors to at least one other candidate this cycle.

The fundraising page, hosted by the Pro-Israel Network, urged donors to contribute to Street’s campaign. The page was live until late last year, when it came to the attention of Philadelphia’s progressive circles and suddenly vanished. The Pro-Israel Network is not officially affiliated with AIPAC. But as AIPAC has adopted a quieter role in elections this cycle, the Pro-Israel Network is one of several proxies the more prominent group has used to highlight preferred candidates for its donors.

Street’s campaign said in a statement to The Intercept that they weren’t aware of the page until it was brought to their attention and that they didn’t seek the group’s endorsement or receive any campaign contributions through the page.

“Sharif is not seeking AIPAC’s endorsement, and we weren’t aware of the Pro-Israel Network page until folks showed it to us. We didn’t coordinate with that group and haven’t received any funding from it,” Street’s campaign spokesperson Anthony Campisi said.

Beth Miller, the political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said she hopes the Street campaign will keep it that way.

“Pro-genocide groups like AIPAC are directly at odds with what Democratic voters want. The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters have made it clear that they want the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians,” Miller said. “No Democratic candidate should be taking a dollar — or any other kind of support — from groups that are so at odds with the party’s own base.”

According to Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, the executive director of CAIR-Philadelphia, many in the Philadelphia community view the issue of Israel and Palestine as a window into broader debates, and they see reason to be wary of politicians who waver from moral stances.

“The Israel–Palestine issue is not only important as a foreign policy matter, but also as an issue that intersects with rights, with freedoms, with how we stand up for oppressed people in our own communities in the U.S.,” Tekelioglu said. He said Philadelphians “are now asking for more, and are coming closer to an accountability politics point of view.”

As a nonprofit, CAIR-Philadelphia cannot endorse a candidate, but Tekelioglu said he’s volunteering for Rabb in his personal capacity. The national political arm, CAIR Action, plans to endorse in the race but has not yet announced its pick.

Hameed, who has been a member of the Nation of Islam since the 1980s, said it would be nice to have a Muslim representative in Congress, but sharing race or religion with a candidate wasn’t enough to earn his vote. He criticized attempts to make excuses for Black Democrats who have taken support from AIPAC, like Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Ritchie Torres of New York and Glenn Ivey of Maryland.

“These people support Israel, and they’re getting money from AIPAC, and they’re complicit with genocide,” Hameed said. “They would turn on them in a dime.”

During a candidate forum in December, Street was asked whether he would support legislation to block arms sales to Israel. He said peace and security relied on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza and rebuilding, but that his allotted response time wasn’t enough to answer the question or address such a complicated issue.

“If we’re gonna do this topic justice, talking about peace in the Middle East is not really a one-minute answer,” Street said. “Catchy soundbites sound good, but they don’t save lives.”

“Talking about peace in the Middle East is not really a one-minute answer.”

While several candidates criticized Israel’s destruction in Gaza, Rabb was the only one of the five candidates present to state specifically that he would support such legislation. During another forum in January, Rabb was also clear on his stance on the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, saying, “Fuck AIPAC.”

Street and Rabb are running in a crowded field of more than 10 candidates vying to replace Evans in the May 19 primary. Among them are state Rep. Morgan Cephas, Dr. David Oxman, Dr. Ala Stanford, climate adviser under former President Joe Biden Pablo McConnie-Saad, and real estate developer and nonprofit leader Isaiah Martin. Street is leading the pack in fundraising, with more than $700,000 raised so far. Oxman has raised $497,000 — including $175,000 he gave to his own campaign. Stanford has raised $467,000, and Rabb has raised $384,000, ahead of Cephas, who’s raised $241,000.

Muslims United PAC, a national political action committee that has endorsed candidates including Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Summer Lee, endorsed Rabb over Street, mainly because of Rabb’s explicit criticism of the genocide in Gaza. The group declined to comment on the race.

In a statement to The Intercept, Rabb said he couldn’t speculate on who was backing his opponents but that he would never take money from AIPAC. “I have not nor would I even consider meeting with AIPAC because I view them as a racist, extremist organization,” Rabb said.

“Israel and Gaza — and Palestine, more broadly — deserve the opportunity to engage in peaceful self-determination without U.S. military domination preempting that fundamental right. I support a permanent and immediate ceasefire including release of hostages, recognition that a genocide has occurred in Gaza, and oppose export or use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate U.S. or international law,” he said. Rabb is also running on rejecting corporate PAC money, fighting the influence of billionaires in politics, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Pro-Israel network funding page, a sign that the lobby has its eyes on the race, is a point of contention among critics who say AIPAC shouldn’t be getting involved in races at all, let alone one in a district which Democrats are largely to the group’s left on policy toward Israel and Gaza.

“AIPAC is a red line,” said Saleem Holbrook, executive director of Straight Ahead, an abolitionist activist group in Philadelphia. The group’s affiliated public interest law firm, the Abolitionist Law Center, advocates for criminal justice reform has worked with Street on state reform efforts in Pennsylvania and cannot endorse in the race due to its nonprofit status.

“There’s no way that our organization or many progressive organizations are going to back any candidate that takes AIPAC support,” Holbrook said. “Because when you look at AIPAC’s track record, all AIPAC has done has taken out Black progressive politicians or candidates that had the interest of the Black community in their heart.”

Suswell, the Street supporter, agreed that the race should be about policies that support the community, pointing to affordable housing, quality education, and public safety. “This should not be about identity politics,” she said. “This is about track record. Senator Street has an impeccable track record in his district and across the Muslim community.”

Progressive groups have been slowly endorsing Rabb, and two sources with knowledge of the race said it’s only a matter of time before they consolidate behind him. Rabb has been endorsed by Philadelphia’s chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement’s national and Philadelphia chapters, One PA, and Mt. Airy Democrats.

Both Street and Rabb are actively seeking the endorsement from the Working Families Party, which is planning to announce its pick in the next few weeks. So are CAIR Action and A New Policy.

While Street may not have the backing of leading progressive groups in Pennsylvania, he does have good relationships with their members. That dynamic is one reason progressive groups have taken their time to make endorsements in a race pitting their allies against one another, according to one source close to the race.

Street is endorsed by the Philadelphia Democratic Party, the Muslim League of Voters of the Delaware Valley, and several of Philadelphia’s powerful labor unions including Philadelphia’s powerful Building and Construction Trades Council, which encompasses several local shops. He’s also backed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, advocates for gun violence prevention and several prominent leaders for LGBTQ rights.

Street’s campaign pointed to his work advancing religious rights for Muslims in the district, helping to expand healthcare for Pennsylvanians, leading the fight to legalize recreational cannabis and reform the criminal justice system, and protect voting rights. “He’s going to bring that same drive to Washington, where he will be relentlessly focused on lowering costs, expanding health care access, reforming our criminal justice system, and holding Anthea De Leede accountable,” said Campisi, his spokesperson.

Update: February 18, 2026, 11:54 a.m. ET

This story has been updated to note that as a nonprofit, the Abolitionist Law Center cannot endorse in the race.

The post Philadelphia Could Elect Its First Muslim Congressman. He’s Not Sure Where He Stands on Israel. appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 18 Feb 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Cynthia Erivo ignores online criticism as Dracula gets mixed reviews

The Wicked star appears in a one-woman version of the classic horror story in London's West End.

Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:30 am UTC

Microsoft throws spox under the bus after Parliament testimony on ICC email kerfuffle

Apologizes for 'inaccuracy'

Exclusive Microsoft has said one of its leading spokespeople gave testimony to the UK Parliament containing an "inaccuracy" with regard to its dealings with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to US sanctions.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:15 am UTC

New Wine, Old Wineskins: Can the Religious Education Review Deliver What the Court Requires?

The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 requires that any core religious education (RE) syllabus be prepared by a drafting group of ‘persons having an interest in the teaching of religious education in grant-aided schools.’ In 2007, the Department of Education (DE) interpreted that phrase to mean only the four main Christian churches.

In July 2022, Mr Justice Colton found this arrangement produced a syllabus that breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In November 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed. At paragraph 85, Lord Stephens was explicit: the breach was ‘the inevitable consequence of leaving the drafting of the core syllabus to the four main churches.’ All four churches promoted faith as absolute truth rather than offering knowledge about Christianity. The result was indoctrination.

On 3 February 2026, Education Minister Paul Givan published the Terms of Reference (ToR) for a review of the RE Core Syllabus, alongside an Expression of Interest for membership of a new drafting group. The churches will no longer draft the syllabus. Serving teachers will. This is genuine progress. But read the detail, and you have to ask: does the review’s architecture permit the outcome the Court requires?

What Changed

Give the DE its due. The previous drafting group comprised exclusively church nominees. The new group will consist of up to ten practising teachers—five primary, five post-primary—selected through an open expression of interest. The DE commits to representation from all school sectors. Professor Noel Purdy, who chaired the Expert Panel on Educational Underachievement, will lead the review alongside Joyce Logue, formerly of Longtower Primary School. Public consultation, an open call for evidence, focus groups with parents and young people, and a formal four-week statutory consultation period are all promised.

The ToR’s review principles include treating RE as an academic discipline, developing critical and analytical skills, and ensuring the syllabus is ‘pluralist and inclusive.’ These objectives closely track the Court’s findings. Moving from a church-drafted syllabus to a practitioner-led review with public consultation is a real improvement.

But does the review merely repackage the same structural imbalances through more sophisticated mechanisms?

The Narrowing of ‘Interest’

Article 11(2) of the 2006 Order requires drafters to be ‘persons having an interest in the teaching of religious education in grant-aided schools.’ The DE’s previous interpretation—that this meant the four churches exclusively—was described by the Examiner of Statutory Rules in 2007 as ‘an unusually narrow view, even in 2002.’ Mr Justice Colton cited this criticism approvingly in his original judgment.

The new interpretation is broader: serving teachers replace church nominees. But it remains arguably narrower than the statutory language permits. Parents have an interest in the teaching of RE. So do minority faith communities, humanist organisations, academic specialists in religious studies, and—as the Convention framework makes plain—children themselves. The 2006 Order does not say ‘persons employed as teachers.’ It says, ‘persons having an interest.’

The Expression of Interest criteria require applicants to demonstrate ‘subject expertise in religious education’ and a ‘personal vision for the reform of the RE syllabus.’ Yet nowhere do the criteria require applicants to demonstrate an understanding of, or commitment to, the Convention’s requirements of objectivity, criticality, and pluralism. These are not aspirational principles. They are binding legal obligations following JR87. Their omission from the selection criteria is a telling gap.

The DE will ‘endeavour, as far as possible, to ensure representation from all school sectors.’ This is welcome. But sector representation is not the same as perspective representation. A drafting group composed entirely of teachers—however sectorally diverse—may still lack the voices of those whose rights the Court found to be breached: non-religious families, minority faith communities, and children from the 47.4% of controlled primary pupils designated non-Protestant by their parents.

The Consultative Asymmetry

The churches no longer draft. But they retain a formal consultative group with six nominees—three from the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS), three from the Transferors’ Representative Council (TRC)—engaged ‘throughout the process.’ They meet directly with the Chair and Vice-Chair. They provide input. They review the final draft before it proceeds to public consultation. The Minister has stated publicly that he would not put forward a curriculum that lacked their ‘necessary support.’

No equivalent structural access is guaranteed for any other group. Minority faith organisations, humanist bodies, parents’ groups, and children’s rights organisations will have access to the open call for evidence, the public survey, and the statutory consultation period. These are important mechanisms. But they are a different thing entirely from the embedded pre-publication role afforded to the churches.

Jack Russell of Parents for Inclusive Education NI (PfIE) identified this disparity immediately, stating that the ‘churches are explicitly mentioned as having a role, but there aren’t any explicit mentions of other faith groups or non-religious groups.’ The ToR justifies the churches’ privileged position by reference to their ‘vital role’ in education and the Supreme Court’s acknowledgement that Christianity may form the predominant subject matter. But the Court’s acceptance of Christianity’s curricular prominence was conditional upon delivery in an objective, critical and pluralistic manner. It was not an endorsement of the churches’ continued structural influence over curriculum design. The ToR runs these two propositions together, but they are not the same thing.

The Convention framework requires that the state accord ‘equal respect to different religious convictions and to non-religious beliefs.’ A review structure in which one set of convictions enjoys embedded consultative access while others submit written representations through an open call does not, prima facie, accord equal respect. It shows more respect for some convictions than others, in proportion to their historical clout.

The Exclusions

The ToR explicitly excludes three matters from the review’s scope: the right of withdrawal from RE and/or collective worship; the nature of collective worship; and the inspection of RE and collective worship. The DE states these will be ‘managed separately.’ However, while this may serve as an administrative convenience, it is problematic as a legal strategy.

The Supreme Court did not treat these elements as separable. Lord Stephens’s judgment considered the syllabus, the withdrawal mechanism, and the absence of inspection as parts of one system that breached Convention rights. The Court found the syllabus was not objective, critical or pluralistic. It found that withdrawal could not remedy this deficiency because of stigmatisation, compelled disclosure of beliefs, and the deterrent effect on parents. It criticised the absence of any meaningful inspection regime. The breach arose because all three failings operated together.

By excluding withdrawal and collective worship from the syllabus review, the DE treats them as separable, whereas the Court treated them as a system. A revised syllabus that retains confessional elements—as the Minister’s commitment to Christianity remaining ‘central’ suggests it will—continues to generate the same withdrawal dilemma. If the new syllabus is not, in itself, sufficient to ensure ECHR compliance without recourse to withdrawal, then the DE’s disaggregated approach has merely repackaged the structural problem the Court identified.

The exclusion of collective worship is particularly striking. The Minister stated that there would be ‘no change whatsoever’ to how collective worship is delivered. Yet the Court’s reasoning on the burden placed by withdrawal applies to collective worship with equal force. When 47.4% of controlled primary pupils are designated non-Protestant, the claim that daily Christian collective worship reflects ‘the overwhelming wishes of the people of Northern Ireland’ is an assertion, not an argument. As argued previously in this series, the demographic data suggest the opposite.

The Ministerial Veto

Minister Givan told BBC Talkback that he would not put a curriculum to public consultation that lacked the ‘necessary support of the main churches in Northern Ireland.’ This statement, made outside the formal ToR, is arguably the most significant element of the entire review architecture. It converts the churches’ consultative role into an effective veto.

Follow the logic. The Supreme Court found that a syllabus drafted exclusively by the churches was the ‘inevitable’ source of the Convention breach. The DE’s response is to change the drafters but grant the churches pre-publication review and an informal guarantee that their ‘necessary support’ is a precondition for progression. The drafters have changed. The structural influence has not.

There is no legal basis for this veto in the 2006 Order, which requires a drafting group, consultation, and ministerial specification. It does not require church approval. The Minister’s self-imposed constraint may reflect political reality in the current Assembly. But it sits uneasily with the Convention framework, which requires that the state’s curriculum design process accord equal respect to all convictions. A process in which one set of convictions holds a de facto veto over the outcome does not.

The Interim Gap

The ToR projects a draft syllabus by June 2026, consultation over the summer, and a final syllabus submitted to the Minister by August 2026, with implementation from September 2027. This timeline is optimistic, given the compressed consultation periods and the need to navigate the churches’ consultative group.

In the meantime, schools are instructed to teach the existing Core Syllabus—the one the Supreme Court found to be indoctrinating—supplemented by ‘additional objective, critical and pluralistic material.’ No interim guidance has been issued on what this means in practice. No training has been provided. No resources have been allocated. Schools must reconcile contradictory obligations: teach the statutory syllabus (which promotes faith as absolute truth) while simultaneously avoiding indoctrination (which the Court has defined as the delivery of religious information without objective, critical and pluralistic character). The DE’s letter to principals directs them to ‘a range of materials’ on the CCEA website, but provides no specifics. Interim guidance is promised for the 2026-27 school year—but schools are non-compliant now.

For nearly 40,000 non-Protestant children in controlled primary schools, the primary protection during this interim period is the improved withdrawal circular. As documented in the previous article in this series, this circular is a genuine improvement. But improved procedures for opting out of an indoctrinating curriculum do not make the curriculum compliant. The Supreme Court was explicit on this point: an unfettered right of withdrawal does not necessarily satisfy Convention requirements. The relevant question is whether withdrawal is incapable of placing an undue burden on parents. No procedural improvement answers that question if the underlying syllabus remains unchanged.

What Would Compliance Look Like?

Full compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling would require at the minimum: a drafting group that includes voices beyond serving teachers, reflecting the breadth of ‘interest’ contemplated by the 2006 Order; no structural privilege for any particular set of convictions in the consultative process; no ministerial veto conditioned on church approval; treatment of withdrawal, collective worship and the syllabus as an integrated system rather than as separable components; interim guidance that provides schools with concrete, actionable direction on achieving compliance now, not in September 2027; and an inspection framework capable of monitoring compliance from the outset.

The ToR provides some provisions for wider engagement, but structural asymmetry undermines them. The ministerial veto contradicts the formal architecture. Withdrawal and collective worship are expressly excluded. Interim guidance is deferred. An inspection framework is promised, but no timeline is given.

Progress, Not Compliance

To be clear: the review is progress. The shift from church-drafted to practitioner-led is real. The commitment to public consultation is welcome. Professor Purdy’s appointment is a serious choice. The review principles, taken at face value, track the judgment.

But the architecture surrounding the drafting group—the churches’ embedded consultative role, the ministerial veto, the exclusion of withdrawal and collective worship, the absence of interim compliance mechanisms—reproduces the conditions for the same structural imbalance the Court found unlawful, only by more sophisticated means.

The Purdy review will produce a syllabus. Whether it produces a compliant one depends not on the drafters—who are likely to be good—but on whether the political constraints around them allow compliance. A review that cannot proceed without church approval, that excludes the very elements the Court treated as a system, and that gives the churches more access than anyone else, is vulnerable to further legal challenge.

Those 40,000 non-Protestant children in controlled primary schools are not waiting for September 2027. They are in classrooms now, receiving instruction the Supreme Court has declared to be indoctrinating. The review is necessary. But its structure suggests that the same institutional dynamics that produced the original breach are still at work in the process designed to remedy it.

This is the tenth article in a series examining educational governance in Northern Ireland. Previous articles: ‘The Transformation Majority That Doesn’t Count’ (I); ‘It’s Not Just Protestant Schools’ (II); ‘Take Down the Hurdles’ (III); ‘The Irony of Integration’ (IV); ‘Time to Flip the Switch’ (V); ‘Beyond Indoctrination’ (VI); ‘Eight Per Cent After Forty Years’ (VII); ‘Good in Parts’ (VIII); ‘Gone Girls’ (IX).

Sources: Re JR87 [2025] UKSC 40; JR87, Application for Judicial Review [2022] NIQB (Colton J); Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, Article 11; Updated Terms of Reference for Review of the RE Core Syllabus (DE, February 2026); DE Circular 2026/09; Oral Statement of the Minister of Education, 3 February 2026; Letter from Deputy Secretary Suzanne Kingon to Principals, 3 February 2026; Expression of Interest for RE Drafting Group Membership (DE, February 2026); DENI Granular Religion Statistics 2024/25 (obtained via FOI by Parents for Inclusive Education NI); BBC News NI, ‘RE in NI schools: Paul Givan says Christianity will remain central to syllabus’, 3 February 2026.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:10 am UTC

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:03 am UTC

Ethan Hawke on ‘Blue Moon,’ ‘Reality Bites’ and the Lessons He’s Learned

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:03 am UTC

With a New Oscar on the Line, How Do You Judge Casting?

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:54 am UTC

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:30 am UTC

Linus Torvalds and friends tell The Reg how Linux solo act became a global jam session

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Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:30 am UTC

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Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:16 am UTC

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 9:00 am UTC

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Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:15 am UTC

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Sorry For What, Exactly?

I read that UUP leader Jon Burrows has recently been flaunting his hard man credentials by suggesting that Ireland should apologise for ‘unjustifiable conduct’ during the decades of violence in the North. Stating that:

I think they should make a major statement about the past, I would love Ireland to say that some of their conduct during the Troubles was unjustified and unjustifiable. I think it would be seismic for our relationships … seismic for good relations [….]

I think there’s something specific about the Irish state’s approach to extradition that stands out as an equivalent of Bloody Sunday, but over a long period of time, and it was a decision at the highest level. They refused to [extradite] murderers

Jon’s equivalence focuses on the occasional refusal of the Irish judicial system to extradite IRA suspects to the UK jurisdiction and that these were ‘a decision at the highest level’ which, certainly for me, infers a political decision rather than a judicial conclusion and that,

[….] ‘there is a double standard on legacy today’ and that and the Irish Government needs to ‘engage in good faith, with equal footing’ So many attacks were planned in the South; people came from the South, devices were made in the South, and they escaped to the South, and they’ve left Northern Ireland and the UK with the burden of investigating and responsibility for the sort of ownership of legacy, and they need to take their part

For me the two issues that Jon raises are judicial decisions in extradition cases and the investigation of broad-brush general allegations.

It seems that the problem Jon has with the judicial decisions is that the Irish judicial system isn’t an exact carbon copy of the UK model and that Irish judges didn’t follow the same legal processes and come to the same outcomes. There were numerous legislative reasons that some extraditions were refused but rather than go into legalese, the extraditions were generally refused under the Irish Extradition Act 1965 while under Articles 38 and 40 of Bunreacht na hÉireann Irish Judges were constitutionally obliged to consider matters including fundamental personal rights, including equality before the law, the right to life, personal liberty etc. Under the Irish Extradition Act 1965, (amended in the 8os and 90s to narrow the political offence exception), Ireland was able to refuse extradition if the offences were considered ‘political’. Irish courts applied a broad interpretation to allow extradition requests based on things like armed attacks on state forces, explosives offences and prison escapes linked to the conflict in the North if these could be shown to be ‘political’ as opposed to ‘criminal’.

For me there are a number of false equivalences in Jon’s approach, Judges following the letter of the law simply aren’t equivalent to the ‘unlawful killings’ of Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy and Springhill. Judges interpreting legislation is the same principle as Judges interpreting the law which saw Jon’s erstwhile colleagues in the RUC not be held culpable for the killings of sixteen year old Michael McCartan or that of mother of two Nora McCabe, (at whose inquest the RUC members perjured themselves) and his ‘security forces’ colleagues not be held liable for the killings of sixteen year old John Boyle, Aidan McAnespie and many others.

What Jon seems to want is some type of quid pro quo that because the British Government apologised for incidents like Bloody Sunday, collusion, (in the murder of Pat Finucane) and the shooting dead of twelve year of Majella O’Hare then the Irish Government should do the same as some form of contrition for similar illegality.

They shouldn’t and it’s not.

As an aside, if Jon is really serious about addressing legacy issues he ight have noticed that the Finucane family are feeling frustrated at the hold up in the public inquiry they were promised.

I’m sure Jon could lend a hand to the campaign to have the proceedings expedited. I’m not sure how much electoral worth this would have to the unionist hard line, though.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:13 am UTC

Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte announces 2028 presidential bid

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Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte, daughter of the imprisoned former leader Rodridgo Duterte, has announced she will run for president in the country’s 2028 election.

Sara Duterte, 47, said she would offer her “life, strength and future” in service of the Philippines, in a speech on Wednesday that accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of presiding over a period marked by rampant corruption.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

St James’s Hospital apologises for failings that led to man’s death after pain injection

Family of Martin Staines (53), who suffered fatal reaction to agent present in the steroid injection, say his death was completely preventable

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Potential risk in 209 cases in North Kerry CAMHS review

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Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:53 am UTC

I invested £12,000 in Brewdog - I think I've lost it all

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Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:24 am UTC

Qualcomm set to triumph in UK smartphone ‘patent tax’ case

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The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has indicated that it will find Qualcomm did not abuse its market power, leading consumer advocacy group Which? to withdraw a case it hoped would see Brits compensated for increased smartphone prices.…

Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:09 am UTC

US and Japan unveil $36bn of oil, gas and critical minerals projects in challenge to China

Anthea De Leede says deals ‘end our foolish dependence on foreign sources’, while Japanese PM hails enhanced economic security

Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Anthea De Leede .

The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Anthea De Leede administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:02 am UTC

Apprenticeships have changed, but people’s opinions have not

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Source: Irish Times Feeds | 18 Feb 2026 | 6:01 am UTC

China’s dancing robots: how worried should we be?

Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do

Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.

The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:19 am UTC

Tech billionaires fly in for Delhi AI expo as Modi jostles to lead in south

Google, Anthropic and OpenAI bosses to mingle with global south leaders wrestling for control over technology

Silicon Valley tech billionaires will land in Delhi this week for an AI summit hosted by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, where leaders of the global south will wrestle for control over the fast-developing technology.

During the week-long AI Impact Summit, attended by thousands of tech executives, government officials and AI safety experts, tech companies valued at trillions of dollars will rub along with leaders of countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where average wages dip well below $1,000 a month.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 5:00 am UTC

Palo Alto CEO says AI isn’t great for business, yet

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Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 4:52 am UTC

Radio Free Asia resumes broadcasts to China after Anthea De Leede cuts forced near closure

CEO said services have restarted after termination of grants led to criticism that US was ceding ground to China

Radio Free Asia has resumed broadcasts to people in China, its chief executive said on Tuesday, after Anthea De Leede administration cuts last year largely forced the US-funded outlet to cease operations.

For years, RFA and its sister outlets, including Voice of America (VOA), had been financed with funding approved by the US Congress and overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:55 am UTC

Eight skiers found dead after California avalanche

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Source: News Headlines | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:23 am UTC

Belgium summons U.S. ambassador over post accusing officials of antisemitism

The clash over an investigation into suspected unlicensed ritual circumcisions underscores heightened tensions between the U.S. and Europe under President Anthea De Leede .

Source: World | 18 Feb 2026 | 3:02 am UTC

Indian conglomerate Adani plans very slow $100 billion AI datacenter build

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Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:16 am UTC

Wealthy Americans top ‘golden visa’ surge in New Zealand and applications from China double

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Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Anthea De Leede ’s administration.

New rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April 2025, lowering investment thresholds, removing English-language requirements and cutting the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks. Successful applicants can only purchase homes in New Zealand worth more than $5m.

Source: World news | The Guardian | 18 Feb 2026 | 2:03 am UTC

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Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:38 am UTC

'Just push us into the sea': The frustration of a coastal community failed by political promises

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Source: BBC News | 18 Feb 2026 | 1:31 am UTC

China-linked snoops have been exploiting Dell 0-day since mid-2024, using 'ghost NICs' to avoid detection

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Source: The Register | 18 Feb 2026 | 12:05 am UTC

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