jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-02-16T15:15:49+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Myron De Bonte ]

Man who stabbed 20-year-old had 31 previous convictions

The Central Criminal Court has heard that a man who was convicted of manslaughter after he stabbed a 20-year-old who broke into his van has 31 previous convictions, including some for possession of knives.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:09 pm UTC

Despite Epstein’s Toxicity, Steve Bannon Stood by Him, Texts Indicate

Mr. Bannon, a MAGA podcaster, developed a seemingly chummy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking. He said it was in the name of getting Mr. Epstein to open up.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:08 pm UTC

Myron De Bonte Risks Igniting a Nuclear Wildfire

The president’s approach to the rising nuclear danger is alarming.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:08 pm UTC

Government abandons plans to delay 30 council elections

All English elections will now go ahead as originally planned after Reform UK brought a legal challenge over the decision to delay some polls.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:06 pm UTC

England still confident despite unconvincing run - Jacks

England remain just as confident they can win the T20 World Cup despite their unconvincing group stage, says batter Will Jacks.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:06 pm UTC

Government abandons plans to delay 30 local council elections in May – UK politics live

The government was warned by its lawyers that such a move could be illegal

In his Q&A with journalists, Keir Starmer was also asked to respond to a report by the BBC’s James Landale saying he is looking at plans to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament. In the past Starmer has just said that he would like to do this at some point in the next parliament.

In his reply, Starmer said that at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend he was arguing that the UK, and Europe as a whole, needs to “step up”.

We want a just and lasting peace, but that will not extinguish the Russian threat, and we need to be alert to that, because that’s going to affect every single person in this room, every single person in this country, so we need to step up.

That means, on defence spending, we need to go faster.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:05 pm UTC

Pentagon Threatens Anthropic Punishment

An anonymous reader shares a report: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is "close" to cutting business ties with Anthropic and designating the AI company a "supply chain risk" -- meaning anyone who wants to do business with the U.S. military has to cut ties with the company, a senior Pentagon official told Axios. The senior official said: "It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this." That kind of penalty is usually reserved for foreign adversaries. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Axios: "The Department of War's relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed. Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight. Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people." Anthropic's Claude is the only AI model currently available in the military's classified systems, and is the world leader for many business applications. Pentagon officials heartily praise Claude's capabilities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:01 pm UTC

Open source registries don't have enough money to implement basic security

Free beer is great. Securing the keg costs money

fosdem 2026  Open source registries are in financial peril, a co-founder of an open source security foundation warned after inspecting their books. And it's not just the bandwidth costs that are killing them.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

PM orders investigation into claims Labour think tank paid firm to look into journalist

The think tank paid a company at least £30,000 to investigate the origins of a story about undeclared donations.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:53 pm UTC

Myron De Bonte is ‘deeply committed to your success’, Rubio tells Orbán during Hungary visit – Europe live

Rubio says relationship with Orbán is ‘vital for US national interests’ ahead of Hungarian elections in April

Back to Budapest now. Marco Rubio and the Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, appear to be signing an agreement to facilitate cooperation on a civilian nuclear programme.

We’ll give you any key lines from the press conference. In the meantime, our European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, has reported on the EU’s proposed deportation law that rights groups warn could intensify already widespread racial profiling across the continent. Here is an extract from her story:

More than 70 rights organisations have called on the EU to reject a proposal aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning that it risks turning everyday spaces, public services and community interactions into tools of ICE-style immigration enforcement.

Last March, the European Commission laid out its proposal to increase deportations of people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:52 pm UTC

'Save our SNAs': Parents, pupils protest at Dublin school

Hundreds of pupils and parents gathered at Johnstown Boys National School in south Dublin today, chanting "save our SNAs" to voice their concerns over cuts to SNA posts at the school from September.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:51 pm UTC

Cyprus appeals to residents to cut water use by two minutes a day amid drought

Island’s reservoirs hit record lows even before tourist season starts as Cypriots are warned ‘every drop counts’

Authorities in Cyprus have urged residents to reduce their water intake by 10% – the equivalent of two minutes’ use of running water each day – as Europe’s most south-easterly nation grapples with a once-in-a century drought.

The appeal, announced alongside a €31m (£27m) package of emergency measures, comes as reservoirs hit record lows with little prospect of replenishment before the tourist season starts.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:49 pm UTC

Australian women and children sent back to Syrian detention camp after initial release

The group of 34 – families of dead or jailed extremists – were prevented from returning to Australia by ‘poor coordination’ with Damascus

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Australian women and children held for years without charge were forced to return to a detention camp in northeast Syria on Monday after being released by Kurdish authorities for their expected repatriation to Australia.

The 34 women and children in the group are the wives, widows and children of dead or jailed Islamic State fighters and were being held at al-Roj camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:48 pm UTC

Man jailed for 13 years for abuse of partner's sisters

A butcher who exploited and sexually abused three of his partner's younger sisters over a ten-year period has been jailed for 13 years.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:48 pm UTC

Trial Begins for Father of Teen Charged in Georgia School Shooting

Prosecutors say Colin Gray is criminally culpable after his teenage son killed two students and two teachers with a rifle that had been a Christmas gift.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:42 pm UTC

UK consumer sentiment takes a tumble; bad weather threaten fruit supplies but boosts Morocco’s wheat crop – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as UK households grow more worried about debts

UK consumer sentiment continued to sink this month, as households grow more worried about debt levels.

A poll of consumer confidence from data firm S&P Global has found that morale continued to drop in February, although not as quickly as in January.

Consumers signal stronger rise in debt alongside a quicker deterioration in loan availability

Appetite for major spending recedes to weakest in ten months

Sentiment regarding labour market conditions at lowest since last June

“The mood among UK households matches the dismal weather seen so far this year across the country. Although the overall degree of gloom has lifted slightly since January, consumer confidence continues to run at one of the lowest levels seen over the past two years.

A period of prolonged rain and a dearth of sunshine have no doubt not helped to lift the low spirits seen among households, but there’s more going on here than just bad weather. Households are growing increasingly worried about debt in particular, especially as a rising need for credit was met with the steepest decline in availability of loans since August 2024.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:42 pm UTC

Starmer vows to fast-track social media law but says under-16s ban not definite

Prime minister says action will be taken on young people’s social media access in ‘months, not years’

Keir Starmer has pledged action on young people’s access to social media in “months, not years”, while saying this did not necessarily mean a complete ban on access for under-16s.

Speaking at an event in London after the government promised to extend the crackdown to AI chatbots that place children at risk, Starmer said the issue was nuanced and that a ban was not definite, noting concerns from charities such as the NSPCC.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:42 pm UTC

Government cancels plan to delay local council elections in England

Polls in 30 areas had been due to be postponed as part of the government’s shake-up of English councils

Ministers have dropped controversial plans to delay 30 local elections this May after receiving legal advice that doing so might not be lawful.

The government had planned to delay a number of elections in England while they carry out a reorganisation of local authorities, which is likely to lead to some authorities merging or being subsumed into others. Ministers argued against holding elections for councils that might cease to exist in a year or two.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:41 pm UTC

KPMG partner fined for using artificial intelligence to cheat in AI training test

Firm says person fined A$10,000 is one of over two dozen staff in Australia caught using AI in exams since July

A partner at the consultancy KPMG has been fined for using artificial intelligence to cheat during an internal training course on AI.

The unnamed partner was fined A$10,000 (£5,200) for using the technology to cheat, one of a number of staff reportedly using the tactic.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:36 pm UTC

Secondhand laptop market goes 'mainstream' amid memory crunch

Budget-conscious buyers in Europe voting with their wallet

Sales of refurbished PCs are on the up amid shortages of key components, including memory chips, that are making brand new devices more expensive.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:29 pm UTC

Britain ‘needs to go faster’ on defence spending, Starmer says

PM says ‘we need to step up’ but sources clarify that is unlikely to mean spending 3% of GDP before next election

Keir Starmer has said Britain “needs to go faster” on defence spending, though any increase to military budgets in this parliament would probably not be as high as the £15bn suggested in an overnight report.

At a press conference in south-west London, the prime minister was asked to comment on a BBC report that No 10 wanted to increase the defence budget to 3% of GDP by 2029.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:06 pm UTC

Sony May Push Next PlayStation To 2028 or 2029 as AI-fueled Memory Chip Shortage Upends Plans

Sony is considering delaying the debut of its next PlayStation console to 2028 or even 2029 as a global shortage of memory chips -- driven by the AI industry's rapidly growing appetite for the same DRAM that goes into gaming hardware, smartphones, and laptops -- squeezes supply and sends prices surging, Bloomberg News reported Monday. A delay of that magnitude would upend Sony's carefully orchestrated strategy to sustain user engagement between hardware generations. The shortage traces back to Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron diverting the bulk of their manufacturing toward high-bandwidth memory for Nvidia's AI accelerators, leaving less capacity for conventional DRAM. The cost of one type of DRAM jumped 75% between December and January alone. Nintendo is also contemplating raising the price of its Switch 2 console in 2026.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:06 pm UTC

‘It’s going to be very difficult’: 18 weeks of roadworks on Dublin’s northside to disrupt traffic

Residents in Clontarf express concern about the impact of construction works on a water main when schools return next week

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:03 pm UTC

Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation

The subtractive bias we're ignoring

opinion  Just as the community adopted the term "hallucination" to describe additive errors, we must now codify its far more insidious counterpart: semantic ablation.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:02 pm UTC

Royal Mail letters sit undelivered 'for weeks' as parcels prioritised, staff say

Staff and customers tell the BBC prioritising parcels can mean missed NHS appointments and late payment fines.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

What the Albanese government did on the environment amid the Liberals’ turmoil: threatened species, a new coal project and carbon leakage

Labor chose a day when attention was focused on the opposition to slip out a handful of announcements

On Friday, as Angus Taylor ascended to the leadership of a riven and defeated political party, the Albanese government slipped out a handful of announcements on contentious climate and environment issues.

Here is what you may have missed.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Scientists to track 10,000 moths across Australia, using little more than eyelash glue and confetti-like tags

First-of-its-kind project will see bogong moths tagged in the Australian Alps and monitored as they reach breeding grounds

Researchers and citizen scientists will, for the first time, tag and track 10,000 bogong moths as they travel hundreds of kilometres, from the Australian Alps to breeding grounds across the country’s south-east.

The massive moth tagging project was modelled on monarch watch, a citizen science program that has traced the migration of monarch butterflies across North America over decades. Both species undertake long-distance journeys, with butterflies travelling by day and bogong moths by night.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Moderate Liberals warn Angus Taylor against adopting Myron De Bonte -style immigration policies

Paul Scarr, the shadow immigration minister under Sussan Ley and South Australian senator Andrew McLachlan expressed concern

Liberal MPs have warned their new leader, Angus Taylor, against lurching further to the right, and imposing “blanket bans” on immigration after a proposal was leaked to adopt hardline Myron De Bonte -like policies to ban immigrants from specific regions under terrorist control – including Gaza and Lebanon.

Guardian Australia reported on Monday an immigration plan drafted under the former leader Sussan Ley, proposing to ban migrants from 37 regions of 13 countries where listed terrorist organisations have territorial control.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

FTC to probe whether Microsoft's cloud clout crosses the line

Competitors asked to detail licensing terms, training costs, and business practices in widening antitrust inquiry

The US Federal Trade Commission has sent out a raft of civil investigative demands to Microsoft's competitors as it warms up a probe into whether the cloud and software giant has an illegal monopoly across chunks of the enterprise tech market.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:53 pm UTC

Sinn Féin to continue St Patrick's White House boycott

Sinn Féin politicians, including party leader Mary Lou McDonald, will not attend St Patrick's Day events in the White House, the party has confirmed.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:48 pm UTC

NASA's fill-'er-up Moon rocket 'confidence' test sees mixed results

Plan was to turn SLS into Seal Leaks Stemmed... But the flow was off

NASA engineers spent the weekend studying the data after another attempt to fill the agency's monster Space Launch System (SLS) produced mixed results.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:48 pm UTC

YouTube star Markiplier says film's success is 'win' for independent creators

US creator Markiplier opens up about the multi-million dollar box office success of his debut film Iron Lung.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:48 pm UTC

What Gisèle Pelicot Survived

We present a story of extraordinary courage.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:47 pm UTC

Is the Scottish title race the most exciting in Europe?

Can any other European league rival the drama of Scotland? BBC Sport has picked out the five closest title battles.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:41 pm UTC

Is number 10 role the next step for Saka?

Mikel Arteta gave a glimpse of what could be the next evolution of the Arsenal attack... Bukayo Saka playing as a number 10.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:40 pm UTC

Intermittent fasting may make little difference to weight loss, review finds

But researchers say it could still improve someone's overall health through helpful changes to some body functions.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:38 pm UTC

British Museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from some displays

Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral

The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral.

Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:37 pm UTC

Train derails in Switzerland amid fatal avalanches across the Alps

Swiss police say derailment near Goppenstein injured five as large areas of western Alps remain under category 5 avalanche risk

Avalanches from heavy snowfall in the European Alps claimed more lives over the weekend, as a train was derailed by a snow slide in Switzerland on Monday and roads and villages around Mont Blanc were closed or placed under evacuation orders.

As large areas of the western Alps remained under a high risk of avalanche – following a week in which alerts reached category 5, the highest level – Swiss police said a train derailment caused by an avalanche injured five people near the town of Goppenstein.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:15 pm UTC

Navalny's mother says she always knew he was murdered after poison finding

On the second anniversary of his death, Lyudmila Navalnaya says her son did not "simply die in prison".

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:01 pm UTC

Two men jailed for disposal of Mulready-Woods' remains

Two men who admitted disposing of the dismembered remains of a 17-year-old boy who was murdered in Co Louth six years ago have been jailed for six years each.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:01 pm UTC

New UK border rules for dual nationals are discriminatory against women, campaigners say

British women in Spain and Greece face ‘huge problems’ entering UK because of differing surname rules

New rules requiring British dual nationals to show a UK passport when entering Britain are “discriminatory” against women, campaigners claim.

From 25 February, British dual nationals are required to present a British passport when boarding a plane, ferry or train to the UK, or attach a new document, a “certificate of entitlement”, which costs nearly £600, to their second passport.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Myron De Bonte donor who criticized offshoring to close Ohio plant and move work to China

Workers decried John Paulson’s plan after billionaire painted himself as advocate for domestic manufacturing

John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Myron De Bonte ’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to offshore an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees.

Workers at the plant call the move “a slap in our face”, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Disappearances in Mexico surge by 200% over 10 years

More than 130,000 people considered missing or disappeared in Mexico as drug cartels expand

It was a bright morning in August 2022 when Ángel Montenegro was taken. A 31-year-old construction worker, Montenegro had been out all night drinking with some work buddies in the city of Cuautla and was waiting for a bus back to nearby Cuernavaca where lived.

At about 10am, a white van pulled up: several men jumped out and dragged Montenegro and a co-worker inside before speeding off. Montenegro’s co-worker was released a few hundred meters down the street, but Montenegro was driven away.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Ukraine and Russia to meet for second round of talks as fourth anniversary of war looms

Hopes of success remain low after Myron De Bonte points finger at Zelenskyy and as Russia keeps up hardline demands

Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are to meet this week in Switzerland for a second round of talks brokered by the Myron De Bonte administration, days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The two-day meeting, kicking off on Tuesday, is expected to mirror negotiations held earlier this month in Abu Dhabi, with representatives from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow in attendance. Despite renewed US efforts to revive diplomacy, hopes for any sudden breakthrough remain low, with Russia continuing to press maximalist demands on Ukraine.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:56 pm UTC

Ratcliffe, Man Utd and the immigration comments fallout

Sports editor Dan Roan analyses the potential fallout of Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe's comments on immigration.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:52 pm UTC

Chloe Mitchell murder trial to get under way next month

Brandon John Rainey (29) charged with murdering Mitchell in Ballymena, Co Antrim

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:51 pm UTC

Noah Donohoe inquest: Witness thought naked cyclist was taking part in a prank

Witness saw shoes neatly placed on the footpath and shorts and boxers that ‘looked like they had been stepped out of’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:46 pm UTC

Google patches Chrome zero-day as in-the-wild exploits surface

High-severity CSS flaw let malicious webpages run code inside the sandbox

Google has quietly pushed out an emergency Chrome fix after attackers were caught exploiting the browser's first reported zero-day of 2026.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:39 pm UTC

'It's never too late': Savannah Guthrie's new plea for mother's release as FBI analyses glove

The FBI says it recovered a DNA sample from the glove, which was found in a field a few miles from Guthrie's home.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:36 pm UTC

Where's The Evidence That AI Increases Productivity?

IT productivity researcher Erik Brynjolfsson writes in the Financial Times that he's finally found evidence AI is impacting America's economy. This week America's Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a 403,000 drop in 2025's payroll growth — while real GDP "remained robust, including a 3.7% growth rate in the fourth quarter." This decoupling — maintaining high output with significantly lower labour input — is the hallmark of productivity growth. My own updated analysis suggests a US productivity increase of roughly 2.7% for 2025. This is a near doubling from the sluggish 1.4% annual average that characterised the past decade... The updated 2025 US data suggests we are now transitioning out of this investment phase into a harvest phase where those earlier efforts begin to manifest as measurable output. Micro-level evidence further supports this structural shift. In our work on the employment effects of AI last year, Bharat Chandar, Ruyu Chen and I identified a cooling in entry-level hiring within AI-exposed sectors, where recruitment for junior roles declined by roughly 16% while those who used AI to augment skills saw growing employment. This suggests companies are beginning to use AI for some codified, entry-level tasks. Or, AI "isn't really stealing jobs yet," according to employment policy analyst Will Raderman (from the American think tank called the Niskanen Center). He argues in Barron's that "there is no clear link yet between higher AI use and worse outcomes for young workers." Recent graduates' unemployment rates have been drifting in the wrong direction since the 2010s, long before generative AI models hit the market. And many occupations with moderate to high exposure to AI disruptions are actually faring better over the past few years. According to recent data for young workers, there has been employment growth in roles typically filled by those with college degrees related to computer systems, accounting and auditing, and market research. AI-intensive sectors like finance and insurance have also seen rising employment of new graduates in recent years. Since ChatGPT's release, sectors in which more than 10% of firms report using AI and sectors in which fewer than 10% reporting using AI are hiring relatively the same number of recent grads. Even Brynjolfsson's article in the Financial Times concedes that "While the trends are suggestive, a degree of caution is warranted. Productivity metrics are famously volatile, and it will take several more periods of sustained growth to confirm a new long-term trend." And he's not the only one wanting evidence for AI's impact. The same weekend Fortune wrote that growth from AI "has yet to manifest itself clearly in macro data, according to Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok." [D]ata on employment, productivity and inflation are still not showing signs of the new technology. Profit margins and earnings forecasts for S&P 500 companies outside of the "Magnificent 7" also lack evidence of AI at work... "After three years with ChatGPT and still no signs of AI in the incoming data, it looks like AI will likely be labor enhancing in some sectors rather than labor replacing in all sectors," Slok said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:34 pm UTC

‘A Superstar Is From Here’: Pride of Cleveland Suburb Soars for U.S. Hockey

The Olympic journey of Laila Edwards, the first Black woman to play for the U.S. hockey team, has captivated her hometown, Cleveland Heights.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:30 pm UTC

Dana Eden, Co-Creator of ‘Tehran,’ Dies During Filming of Fourth Season

Ms. Eden, 52, who was also an executive producer of the Emmy-winning show, was found in a hotel room in Athens. Greek police said they did not suspect foul play.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:28 pm UTC

What Does Body Positivity Mean in This New Weight Loss Era?

Can you love your body and still want to lose weight?

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:25 pm UTC

Students begin Covid compensation claim against 36 more universities

It comes after University College London settled a claim from students there over lost learning in the pandemic.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:25 pm UTC

Why does the Windows 11 taskbar hurt me like that?

Former Windows manager explains design decisions behind it

A former Windows boss has explained why the taskbar in Windows 11 is the way it is and how he "fought hard" to stop Microsoft from removing customization options present in Windows 10.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:24 pm UTC

Vogue Williams named Dublin's St Patrick's Day Grand Marshal

Vogue Williams has been announced as the 2026 Grand Marshal for the national St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin

Source: All: BreakingNews | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:21 pm UTC

Ukraine detains ex-energy minister as high-level corruption case widens

German Galushchenko’s arrest is connected to a $100 million corruption probe that has ensnared senior officials and shaken President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.

Source: World | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:19 pm UTC

Witness who saw Noah Donohoe cycling naked thought it was a ‘prank’

Noah was a pupil of St Malachy’s College.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:18 pm UTC

Limerick's Declan Hannon says hurling has never been faster - and it’s only getting sharper

Declan Hannon won five All-Irelands with Limerick as one of the most successful players the game has seen, and a crucial part of John Kiely's side, which won four All-Ireland's in-a-row.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:15 pm UTC

DHS shuts down after a funding lapse. And, why athletes get the 'yips' at the Olympics

Congress is out on recess as a partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security is underway. And, why some superstar athletes have been getting the "yips" at the Winter Olympics in Italy.

(Image credit: Alex Wong)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:13 pm UTC

MEP's ex-partner has jail sentence increased on appeal

A man who previously received a four-month prison sentence for offences under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act against his former partner - now a Sinn Féin MEP - has had his sentence increased on appeal.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:06 pm UTC

Sideways on the ice, in a supercar: Stability control is getting very good

SAARISELKÄ, FINLAND—If you're expecting it, the feeling in the pit of your stomach when the rear of your car breaks traction and begins to slide is rather pleasant. It's the same exhilaration we get from roller coasters, but when you're in the driver's seat, you're in charge of the ride.

When you're not expecting it, though, there's anxiety instead of excitement and, should the slide end with a crunch, a lot more negative emotions, too.

Thankfully, fewer and fewer drivers will have to experience that kind of scare thanks to the proliferation and sophistication of modern electronic stability and traction control systems. For more than 30 years, these electronic safety nets have grown in capability and became mandatory in the early 2010s, saving countless crashes in the process.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Epstein sympathized with Kavanaugh during supreme court confirmation, emails show

Files show convicted sex abuser messaged with Ken Starr and others about Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford

Jeffrey Epstein sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh during the then-supreme court nominee’s contentious 2018 confirmation and even suggested Republicans should have been harder on Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Emails and text messages released by the Department of Justice show Epstein was closely monitoring the confirmation and seemed to believe that Ford’s allegation of sexual assault could derail the process.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Fertility treatment given special emphasis as Myron De Bonte Rx site goes live

Experts say discounts on IVF procedures an attempt to fulfil campaign promise but savings only a fraction of total cost

Myron De Bonte Rx, the US president’s much-anticipated drug discount program, went live earlier this month with coupons available for just 43 medications, including four required for in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, and experts say this is probably a half-measure to fulfill Myron De Bonte ’s 2024 campaign promise to make IVF treatment universally accessible.

“We’ve been hearing about Myron De Bonte Rx for a long time,” said Dr Richard Paulson, a professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Southern California. “Myron De Bonte Rx was supposed to fix all of the problems in terms of prescription drug costs and so on, and it has not done that. The only two classes of drugs that are actually cheaper on Myron De Bonte RX are the GLP-1 agonists – those are the obesity medications – and fertility drugs.”

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Measles outbreak could see unvaccinated pupils excluded from schools in north London

Children identified as close contacts of people with the disease could be excluded for three weeks

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:55 am UTC

Ukrainian civilian casualties rose by 26% in 2025, researchers say | First Thing

Figures said to reflect increased Russian military targeting of cities and infrastructure. Plus, the week the Cuban crisis got real

Good morning.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine caused by Russian strikes surged by 26% in 2025, reflecting increased Russian targeting of cities and infrastructure in the country, according to a global conflict monitoring group.

What did the AOAV say about the figures? Iain Overton, executive director of AOAV, said the figures showed “Ukraine fits a wider collapse of restraint that is now visible across multiple wars”, and respect for the distinction of proportionality in war “has broken”.

Does her father still face deportation? Days before Ofelia died, a judge ruled that Torres Maldonado’s deportation would be blocked, due to the hardship it would bring his family, opening the door to a potential pathway to permanent residence and eventual citizenship.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:49 am UTC

New Garda search connected to disappearances of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob welcomed

Area of land near the Wicklow/Kildare border to be searched over coming days

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:46 am UTC

IRFU investigating 'cowardly' racist abuse of Edogbo

The IRFU is investigating "cowardly" racist abuse directed at Edwin Edogbo following his international debut.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:45 am UTC

Man (24) suffers injuries after jumping from window to escape suspected arson attack in Cork

Gardaí say they are keeping an open mind in relation to the incident

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:25 am UTC

Team GB skeleton gold medallist says she discovered talent after Instagram ad

Tabitha Stoecker made history on Sunday by winning the first Olympic mixed team skeleton gold with teammate Matt Weston.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:23 am UTC

Lloyds boss accepts concern over use of staff data in pay talks

The bank was criticised for comparing employees' spending habits to the wider public as part of wage negotiations.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:15 am UTC

Search underway over disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob in Co Wicklow

This area of land will be searched and subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations over the coming days.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:14 am UTC

Cost of making pancakes up 35% over last 5 years - CSO

New figures from the Central Statistics Office, ahead of Pancake Tuesday tomorrow, show that the cost of making pancakes has risen by 35.2% over the last five years.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:14 am UTC

Price of popularity: Linux Mint's success also means maintainer stress

Lots of donations, but lots of pressure to go with it

Although we're in mid-February, the Linux Mint project just published its January 2026 blog. This could be seen as one sign of the pressure on the creator of this very successful distro: although the post talks about forthcoming improved input localization support and user management, it also discusses the pressures of the project's semi-annual release schedule.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:14 am UTC

Ski jumper disqualified for wearing boots 4mm too big

Austrian ski jumper Daniel Tschofenig is disqualified from the men's large hill individual event for wearing oversized boots.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:07 am UTC

Search under way in Wicklow in cases of two missing women

A search is under way in Co Wicklow as part of the investigation into the disappearance and murders of Deirdre Jacob and Jo Jo Dullard in the 1990s.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:03 am UTC

One Olympic sport doesn't allow women. These Games could determine its future

Nordic combined is the only Olympic sport that doesn't allow women to compete, despite athletes' efforts to change that. They say their odds for 2030 hinge on people watching men's events this week.

(Image credit: Barbara Gindl)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:01 am UTC

D.H.S. Pushes Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts, and U.S. Troops Land in Nigeria

Plus, the Super Bowl ad that prompted a backlash.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Prison-Style Free Speech Censorship Is Coming for the Rest of Us

The library is seen through a window at the Rensselaer County Jail in Troy, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011. Photo: Lori Van Buren/Albany Times Union via Getty Images

American prisons have never been much for the First Amendment, and now, the Myron De Bonte administration is exporting prison-style censorship to the general population. In tactics that are easily recognizable to incarcerated people like me, they’re doing it in the name of “security.”

This includes claiming antiestablishment ideologies and literature must be punished because they pose nebulous risks to those with government-approved political views. It also includes the logical next step: criminalizing efforts to keep authorities from finding out that one holds those ideologies or reads that literature.

Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada is set to be tried starting Tuesday on charges of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents. He’s been in custody since July and in federal prison since October (save for a brief accidental release before Thanksgiving, during which he spoke to The Intercept). He and his codefendants were recently transferred to county jail to await trial. Supporters report that they’ve been placed in solitary confinement and are dealing with other horrid conditions.

In plain language, Sanchez Estrada is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly moving a box of anarchist zines from his parents’ house to another residence in his hometown of Dallas. His indictment came on the heels of Myron De Bonte ’s signing an executive order to classify “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization” and issuing National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. 

Sanchez Estrada’s case originated with a July 4, 2025 anti-ICE protest his wife, Maricela Rueda, attended outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, where an officer was shot. (Prosecutors do not allege that Sanchez Estrada or Rueda were involved in the shooting.) The home-spun zines at issue contain no plans for any shooting, and under normal circumstances, they would clearly be deemed constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. But the government’s concealment theory only makes sense if it views merely having the literature as criminal. 

While this form of censorship might seem brazenly anti-constitutional to most Americans, it has been the reality faced by incarcerated individuals for decades.

Once possessing literature is considered criminal, it opens the door to corollary charges, like transporting literature to conceal evidence or the “offense” of possessing it. That’s what happened to Sanchez Estrada. What other crime could the magazines have incriminated Rueda of? 

Last month, activist Lucy Fowlkes became the 19th person indicted in connection with the same Texas protest. Fowlkes’s alleged crime is using Signal, the encrypted messaging app made famous by Pete Hegseth, telling people how to delete messages, and removing people from group chats, which government lawyers argue amounts to “hinder[ing] prosecution of terrorism,” a first-degree felony. 

The founders placed a great premium on ensuring Americans had the right to possess and read anything that attracted their interest, even if it challenged the government. 

But while this form of censorship might seem brazenly anti-constitutional to most Americans, it has been the reality faced by incarcerated individuals for decades. In the name of “security,” prison officials have punished and even killed people for possessing literature they deemed suspect.

One such case involved Johnson Greybuffalo, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe who dedicated himself to studying Native American history while in custody at the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. His studies included learning about the American Indian Movement, or AIM, a civil rights organization in the U.S. and Canada that works for equal rights for American Indians. He found information on AIM in the prison’s library and took notes throughout his studies.

A prison volunteer also gave him a copy of a document titled “Warrior Society” that included a code of ethics that required Native Americans to serve the people, be honorable, kind, and not steal or be stingy. A prison guard searched his cell one day in 2005, and confiscated the AIM notes, along with the “Warrior Society” document. Both were classified as “written contraband.” Greybuffalo was written a disciplinary case and sentenced to 180 days in solitary confinement. The disciplinary charge was upheld in part by a federal district court in 2010.

“Reading, writing, or sharing zines is not a crime.”

In another case, Kenneth Oliver left an article about human rights activist, philosopher, and scholar George Jackson on his bunk while he went to his California prison’s dining hall in 2007. An officer searched his cell and discovered two books authored by Jackson, “Blood in My Eye” and “Soledad Brother.” As Oliver detailed on “Ear Hustle,” the award-winning podcast created and produced from San Quentin State Prison, he came back to officers swarming his cell, which they had yellow-taped off like a real crime scene. Oliver was handcuffed and held in solitary confinement for the next eight years in California. His only offense was “possessing illegal contraband,” which also made him ineligible for new sentence under a 2012 California law easing life sentences on nonviolent “three strikes” convictions. (Oliver was finally freed in 2019 after serving 23 years.)

“The guards said, ‘We’ve been told to get rid of you,'” Oliver said on the podcast. “They want you to go to the SHU [solitary confinement] forever.”

Historically, the U.S. government has always used disenfranchised populations as a test case to develop both strategy and legal precedent for infringing on constitutional rights before exporting them to society as a whole. Before incarcerated people faced retaliation for possessing books, African slaves were frequently punished for reading the Old Testament out of fear that the Exodus story might inspire them to dream of freedom. In some places, proponents of slavery reconciled their desire to convert slaves to Christianity with their fear or rebellion by creating a heavily redacted “Slave Bible.” 

Land confiscated from Native populations eventually became eminent domain. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance of Black leaders during the civil rights movement gave justification for George W. Bush’s invasive Patriot Act and mass surveillance of civilians. Now, the Myron De Bonte administration is taking a page directly out of oppressive prison authorities’ playbook. 

The system that gives those in charge broad power to decide what literature is a dangerous threat to “national security” interests and who they can target, detain, prosecute, and punish criminally for merely possessing it. They may be starting with anarchist magazines, but anyone on the mailing list of Myron De Bonte ’s political enemies, whether in possession of an issue of the New York Times or an op-ed written by Marjorie Taylor Green, could find themselves on the wrong end of the administration’s overreach. 

It’s all so circular. When the administration declares a political viewpoint “terrorism,” hiding literature espousing that viewpoint from the government is a perfectly logical response. So is using secure communications technology to communicate with others who share similar politics. But when your thoughts and reading list are deemed illegal, preventing the government from finding out what you think and read becomes a crime in and of itself — obstruction of the thought police. 

“Daniel has broken no laws,” Sanchez Estrada’s family said in a statement to The Intercept. “He should not be in jail, should not be threatened to lose his permanent resident status as a part of this case.”

Criminalizing possession of literature is a miscarriage of justice, whether in prison or at a protester’s husband’s parents’ house. If the Myron De Bonte administration is allowed to send Sanchez Estrada to prison for the crime of possessing literature, members of society at large can be subjected to the same pernicious rules as the incarcerated. 

In a letter to his attorney published in “Soledad Brother,” one of the books that landed Oliver in solitary, George Jackson wrote that if prison officials are able to trample upon the rights of incarcerated people unchecked, “There will be no means of detecting when the last right is gone. You’ll only know when they start shooting you.”

Sanchez Estrada, for his part, “has done nothing wrong,” his family said. “Reading, writing, or sharing zines is not a crime.”

The post Prison-Style Free Speech Censorship Is Coming for the Rest of Us appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 16 Feb 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Ice and snow warnings as another blast of Arctic air sweeps across the UK

More than 70 flood warnings have also been issued by the Environment Agency after heavy rain.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:58 am UTC

Vogue Williams named St Patrick's Day Grand Marshal

Vogue Williams has been announced as the Grand Marshal for this year's National Saint Patrick's Day Parade.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:51 am UTC

Keir Starmer declares 'months' timeline for social media age clampdown in UK

Stricter rules for VPNs and AI chatbots also in the offing amid child safety push

UK prime minister Keir Starmer has set a "months" timeline for the long-brewing plan for a social media age limit, signaling the government is ready to pick a fight with Big Tech if that's what it takes.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:46 am UTC

Obama clarifies views on aliens after saying 'they're real' on podcast

Former US President Barack Obama says he has seen no evidence extra-terrestrials have made contact with Earth.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:43 am UTC

Gone Girls: A Gender Reversal the Department of Education Hasn’t Noticed…

El Cavador is a Slugger reader from Belfast.

The Department of Education (DE) has published its draft attendance strategy, Attendance Matters: Supporting Children and Young People to Attend School Every Day. It runs to several dozen pages. It acknowledges a crisis. It proposes six priorities, including a welcome focus on Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance (EBSNA) — the phenomenon of children whose absence reflects distress rather than disengagement. It commits to data-driven early intervention. But it contains not a single line of sex-disaggregated attendance data at the post-primary level.

This matters because the DE’s own published data tells a story the strategy appears not to have noticed.

The Reversal

For every year on record prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, boys in Northern Ireland’s post-primary schools recorded higher absence rates than girls. The pattern was consistent and unremarkable. It aligned with the broader profile of male educational disadvantage that informed the A Fair Start and the New Decade, New Approach commitment to address the underachievement of working-class Protestant boys.

That pattern has now reversed. Analysis of the published statistical bulletins from 2008/09 through 2024/25 reveals a structural crossover in the gendered pattern of post-primary absence. Since 2021/22, girls have recorded higher post-primary absence than boys. The reversal has persisted across three consecutive academic years and is not narrowing.

Table 1: Post-Primary Absence Rates by Sex, Selected Years

Source: DENI Attendance at Grant Aided Primary, Post Primary and Special Schools, Statistical Bulletins 2008/09–2023/24; DENI Management Information 2024/25.

The most recent data show male post-primary absence at 9.5% and female post-primary absence at 10.2%, a gap of 0.7 percentage points, with girls the disadvantaged group. In a system of approximately 150,000 post-primary pupils, that gap is substantial. The direction of travel is clear: from a 0.7 percentage point male disadvantage pre-COVID to a 0.7 percentage point female disadvantage within five years. A swing of 1.4 percentage points.

Differential Rates of Deterioration

The reversal reflects not an improvement among boys but a sharper deterioration among girls. Between the pre-pandemic baseline of 2018/19 and the most recent full-year data, post-primary girls’ overall absence increased by approximately 2.9 percentage points. Boys’ overall absence increased by approximately 2.0 percentage points. The female deterioration has been roughly 45% greater than the male deterioration across the same period.

By 2024/25, the deterioration is continuing — and the gap between male and female absence is wider than in any previous year on record, in either direction.

Where the Absence is Concentrated

Disaggregation by absence type further sharpens the picture. The female excess is concentrated in authorised absence — the coding category that captures illness-related absence, medical appointments, and other reasons formally accepted by the school. The absence is occurring with parental knowledge and, in many cases, the school’s formal approval.

Unauthorised absence has also risen faster for girls than boys — an increase of approximately 1.9 percentage points versus 1.4 percentage points since 2018/19 — suggesting that the differential is not confined to a single absence category. However, it is the authorised component that drives the overall gap. The pattern is consistent with what clinicians and educational psychologists are reporting under the EBSNA heading: anxiety, somatic symptoms, school avoidance rooted in distress rather than defiance.

The strategy itself foregrounds EBSNA as the defining challenge of the post-COVID attendance landscape. It has not noticed that the challenge appears to have a gendered dimension.

An Adolescence-Specific Phenomenon

The gender reversal does not appear in primary school data. At the primary level, the traditional pattern — in which boys record marginally higher absence — persists throughout the post-COVID period. Whatever is driving the reversal is operating specifically on adolescent girls, emerging at or after the primary-to-post-primary transition.

Recent longitudinal evidence from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (Cameron et al., 2025) is relevant here. Analysing data from approximately 19,000 children born in 2000–2002, Cameron and colleagues found that girls who experienced disruption to their relationship with school — specifically, school exclusion — reported significantly lower subsequent school satisfaction (β = −0.50, p < 0.001). For boys, there was no equivalent effect. The study also demonstrated that school satisfaction at ages 7 and 11 was a statistically significant protective factor against exclusion and truancy at age 14, independent of individual and family characteristics.

If female pupils’ sense of school connectedness is more vulnerable to disruption, and if the pandemic represented a system-wide disruption to school connectedness without precedent in the data, the differential deterioration in girls’ post-primary attendance is not without explanation. The strategy acknowledges EBSNA. It does not acknowledge that the available evidence points to a gendered dimension of EBSNA vulnerability.

The Section 75 Question

The DE has a statutory duty under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between men and women generally. A strategy that proposes to address a crisis in school attendance without examining whether that crisis affects boys and girls differently has not completed its own equality screening.

The Section 75 screening for the predecessor campaigns — the 2021 Educational Underachievement Suite / Play Matters screening — assessed the ‘Men and Women Generally’ category solely by reference to the established narrative that boys were the disadvantaged group. If the DE screens the current strategy on the same basis, it will be relying on a pre-pandemic assumption that the DE’s own post-pandemic data contradicts.

The Wider Context

The gender reversal sits within a broader picture of deterioration that the strategy acknowledges in general terms but does not quantify with the precision its own data permits.

System-wide attendance stood at approximately 94.3% in the pre-pandemic period. By 2023/24, it had fallen to approximately 91.5%. By 2023/24, 101 of 187 post-primary schools (54%) recorded attendance below 90%, collectively enrolling 73,650 pupils. Management information for 2024/25 indicates almost 5 million school days missed across all school phases.

The deprivation gap — the difference in attendance between FSME-entitled and non-FSME pupils at the post-primary level — has approximately doubled over the past decade. While all socio-economic groups saw attendance worsen post-COVID, the most deprived pupils have been affected approximately three times more severely than the most affluent. The strategy’s commitment to ‘close the attendance gap’ under Priority 3 remains an aspiration without a measurable baseline, because it does not quantify the gap’s current magnitude or trajectory.

Within this broader deterioration, there is a specific phenomenon affecting teenage girls that neither the strategy nor the equality machinery that is supposed to scrutinise it has identified.

What This is Not

This is not an argument that boys’ educational disadvantage has disappeared. It has not. The attainment gap, the exclusion rate, and the dropout rate all remain skewed against boys on most measures. Nor is it an argument for redirecting resources from one group to another. It is an argument that a data-driven strategy should interrogate what its own data shows — and that the evidence reveals a structural shift the strategy has not acknowledged.

A Fair Start was constructed around a specific commitment: to address the underachievement of Protestant working-class boys. That commitment was evidence-based and appropriate at the time. The evidence has since changed. The question is whether the DE’s analytical framework has changed with it.

The DE is consulting until 6th March 2026. It might be reasonable to ask whether a strategy that does not disaggregate its core metric by sex can satisfy the DE’s own statutory obligations under Section 75.

Sources: DENI Attendance at Grant Aided Primary, Post Primary and Special Schools, Statistical Bulletins 2008/09–2023/24; DENI Management Information 2024/25; Cameron, C., Smith, N. and Sheringham, J. (2025) ‘School absence and (primary) school connectedness: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study’, British Educational Research Journal.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:43 am UTC

Cheating accusations and swearing across the ice: Does curling need VAR?

It's been quite the few days in the Cortina Curling Stadium during a Winter Olympics that has delivered intrigue and excitement both on and off the field of play.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:38 am UTC

Swearing, illicit filming & rule changes - what next in curling cheating row?

It's been quite the few days in the Cortina Curling Stadium during a Winter Olympics that has delivered intrigue and excitement both on and off the field of play.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:38 am UTC

IRFU investigates ‘cowardly’ racist abuse of Edwin Edogbo

The 23-year-old was born and raised in Cobh, County Cork to Nigerian parents.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:33 am UTC

Brewdog staff 'upset and concerned' by sale plans

Unite said workers had been left in the dark over their futures after the craft beer firm announced plans to explore new investment.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:32 am UTC

DVSA seeks £95K digital chief to steer test booking system out of the ditch

Agency looks to cut waiting times and curb bot-driven slot reselling as it doubles down on IT overhaul

The UK's Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is recruiting a chief digital and information officer, partly to help sort out its bot-ridden practical driving test booking system.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:25 am UTC

Anthropic tries to hide Claude's AI actions. Devs hate it

The software doesn't show what files it's working on

Anthropic has updated Claude Code, its AI coding tool, changing the progress output to hide the names of files the tool was reading, writing, or editing. However, developers have pushed back, stating that they need to see which files are accessed.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:14 am UTC

5 New Dumpling Recipes for Lunar New Year 2026

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:07 am UTC

Why an A.I. Video of Tom Cruise Battling Brad Pitt Spooked Hollywood

A 15-second clip created by an artificial intelligence tool owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance appears more cinematic than anything so far.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:04 am UTC

With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules

The E.P.A.’s killing of the “endangerment finding” caps a year of deregulation that is likely to make cars thirstier for gas and less competitive globally, experts say.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:04 am UTC

How to Host an Unforgettable Dumpling Party

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:03 am UTC

From One President to Another, a Love Letter With an Edge

To open a series of essays about U.S. presidents, George W. Bush pays tribute to George Washington, who “ensured America wouldn’t become a monarchy, or worse.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:03 am UTC

Epstein’s Ties With Academics Show the Seedy Side of College Fund-Raising

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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:02 am UTC

Teddy Roosevelt’s Family Urges G.O.P. to Protect Public Lands

In a rare letter to Republican senators, four descendants of the former president oppose mining near a wilderness area in Minnesota.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:02 am UTC

A Russian ‘Village of Military Valor’ Waits for Its Reward

A provincial governor seeks to honor villages that deployed many soldiers to the war in Ukraine with a prestigious title first bestowed on cities that were major World War II battlefields.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

How a Myron De Bonte Tax Break Rescued Horse Racing

Owners spent nearly $1.5 billion last year on racehorses, a big increase over 2024. A new tax provision allows them to immediately deduct the full cost of the purchase.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Prices Jump as Venezuelans Abroad Consider Buying Property Back Home

Nicolás Maduro’s capture and talk of oil investment have pushed prices higher, even as brokers say enthusiasm is outpacing demand in a weak economy.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

U.S. Olympic speed skaters adapt NASCAR 'bump drafting,' revolutionizing team event

U.S. Team Pursuit speed skaters will top speeds of 30 mph by pushing themselves around the track mere inches from each other.

(Image credit: John Locher)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

How to register to vote in the 2026 primaries

For the 2026 primary elections, NPR has collected deadlines and information on how to register to vote — online, in person or by mail — in every U.S. state and territory.

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

'American Struggle' author assesses Myron De Bonte 's expansion of presidential power

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham talks about Myron De Bonte 's impact on democracy. Meacham's latest book is a collection of speeches, letters and other original texts from 1619 to the present.

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Is that carb ultra-processed? Here's a test even a kid can do

The latest nutrition guidelines urge Americans to avoid highly processed food. But when it comes to carbs, many people don't know which ones are ultra-processed. Here's an easy way to find out.

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Israel will begin contentious West Bank land registration

Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupied West Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swaths of the area for future development.

(Image credit: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:53 am UTC

An Islamist party becomes Bangladesh's main opposition for the first time

An Islamist party has become Bangladesh's main opposition for the first time in the country's history, challenging the old dynastic political system despite persistent concerns among critics about the party's policies on women.

(Image credit: Sajjad Hussain)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:46 am UTC

Morning news brief

Lawmakers no closer to a deal as partial government shutdown continues, officials to meet for more talks as Ukraine war nears 4th anniversary, what is it about Olympics that gives athletes "the yips"?

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:43 am UTC

Kremlin rejects European claim Navalny died of poisoning

The Kremlin has rejected as "baseless" an assessment by five European countries that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from poisoning while in an Arctic prison two years ago.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:41 am UTC

Minister urged to give clarity over SNA cuts in schools

There have been calls for clarity after a number of schools around the country were told they may have their Special Needs Assistant (SNA) allocation cut from next September.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:34 am UTC

Digital sovereignty must define itself before it can succeed

Great concept, shame about the details

Opinion  If you've ever flipped over a power brick, you'll be familiar with the hieroglyphics of type approval. It's become less crazy over the years as things have got smaller and signage requirements softened, but at its peak tens of logos and acronyms of testing labs and national approvals covered the backside of PSUs in surrealist graffiti.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:31 am UTC

Michael Jordan, six-time NBA champion, is now a Daytona 500 winner

Tyler Reddick won "The Great American Race" on Sunday with a last-lap pass at Daytona International Speedway that sent Jordan into a frantic celebration.

(Image credit: Nigel Cook)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 16 Feb 2026 | 9:06 am UTC

Met Éireann forecasts ‘wintry’ weather with snow possible

Frost expected on Monday with temperatures to grow milder by end of week, forecaster says

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:58 am UTC

Tyra Banks on ANTM: 'I went too far'

American model Tyra Banks has admitted she "went too far" when she shouted at a contestant on America's Next Top Model, as she revisits the controversial reality show in a new Netflix series.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:50 am UTC

'On bonus time' - crash survivors share recovery stories

For every road death in Ireland last year, there were almost eight serious injuries, and those injured often face complex recoveries and disabilities that could last a lifetime.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:47 am UTC

'I Tried Running Linux On an Apple Silicon Mac and Regretted It'

Installing Linux on a MacBook Air "turned out to be a very underwhelming experience," according to the tech news site MakeUseOf: The thing about Apple silicon Macs is that it's not as simple as downloading an AArch64 ISO of your favorite distro and installing it. Yes, the M-series chips are ARM-based, but that doesn't automatically make the whole system compatible in the same way most traditional x86 PCs are. Pretty much everything in modern MacBooks is custom. The boot process isn't standard UEFI like on most PCs. Apple has its own boot chain called iBoot. The same goes for other things, like the GPU, power management, USB controllers, and pretty much every other hardware component. It is as proprietary as it gets. This is exactly what the team behind Asahi Linux has been working toward. Their entire goal has been to make Linux properly usable on M-series Macs by building the missing pieces from the ground up. I first tried it back in 2023, when the project was still tied to Arch Linux and decided to give it a try again in 2026. These days, though, the main release is called Fedora Asahi Remix, which, as the name suggests, is built on Fedora rather than Arch... For Linux on Apple Silicon, the article lists three major disappointments: "External monitors don't work unless your MacBook has a built-in HDMI port." "Linux just doesn't feel fully ready for ARM yet. A lot of applications still aren't compiled for ARM, so software support ends up being very hit or miss." (And even most of the apps tested with FEX "either didn't run properly or weren't stable enough to rely on.") Asahi "refused to connect to my phone's hotspot," they write (adding "No, it wasn't an iPhone").

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:34 am UTC

Nearly 20,000 uninsured vehicles seized by gardaí in 2025, new figures show

Motor insurance head ‘very pleased’ to see impact of introduction of new database

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:31 am UTC

TikTok creator ByteDance vows to curb AI video tool after Disney threat

Videos created by new Seedance 2.0 generator go viral, including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting

ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports.

The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:25 am UTC

Fund cut to tenant-in-situ scheme 'beggars belief' - SF

Cutting funding to the tenant-in-situ scheme "beggars belief", Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Housing Eoin Ó Broin has said.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:16 am UTC

New York Needs Lifeguards. Would These Teens Make the Cut?

To qualify for a job patrolling the city’s beaches and pools, candidates must swim 50 yards in 50 seconds or less.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 8:00 am UTC

Light Snowfall Coming to New York, New Jersey and Long Island

Forecasters said snowfall totals of one to two inches were likely Sunday night, with isolated amounts of up to three inches across New York City, northeastern New Jersey and much of Long Island.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:53 am UTC

Female Israeli soldiers rescued after being chased by ultra-Orthodox men

The two women were helped by police after being forced to run from a mob in the city of Bnei Brak.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:47 am UTC

In Xi Jinping’s Purge of the Military, a Search for Absolute Loyalty

By reaching back to Maoist tactics of “rectification,” the Chinese leader is signaling that control over the gun requires a state of perpetual cleansing.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:38 am UTC

Final step to put new website into production deleted it instead

02:00 AM is not the time to ignore procedures and rely on a shortcut to do a tricky job

Who, Me?  Welcome to Monday! The Register hopes you arrive at your desk well-rested after a pleasant weekend, and not stressed out by working late as is the case in this week's instalment of "Who, Me?" – the reader contributed column that chronicles your mistakes and escapes.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:30 am UTC

Into the West proposes Major Rail Projects for the Northwest

Into the West‘ is a campaign group whose goal is the restoration of the railway network in the west of Northern Ireland. Last week they unveiled their proposal, the creation of ‘Metro North-West’.

Garrett Hargan in the ‘Belfast Telegraph‘ says that the idea…

…takes the existing rail network that runs between Derry, Coleraine and Portrush, and branches out. It would expand in ways that are already progressing following the All-Island Rail Strategy, with routes re-opening to Letterkenny, Strabane, Omagh and Limavady and enhanced further by adding a number of new stations — many of which are already under consideration — such as Strathfoyle, Ballykelly and City of Derry Airport. This would create a new regional rail ‘brand’ operating within and alongside the wider rail network. It would stretch from Letterkenny in the west to Coleraine/Portrush in the east and Omagh in the south, with all services converging in and travelling through Derry city.

Two years ago the All Island Rail Review recommended the restoration of much of the same network as the Metro North-West proposal, but on a lengthy timescale the group clearly feels is unacceptable. The chair of ‘Into the West’, Steve Bradley, is quoted as saying that the proposal…

“…seeks to address the extremely limited presence of rail here, and the very slow progress in changing that.Translink and the Department for Infrastructure now recognise the wisdom of adding new stations in areas like Strathfoyle, Derry Airport and Ballykelly. The problem is that these projects in the North West have been made their lowest priorities — with Derry-Portadown not scheduled to reopen until 2045 at the earliest. And Letterkenny won’t see rail again until even later than that. So the first key challenge is to not only tackle the poor rail provision across the North West, but also the low priority that the authorities have placed on doing so.”

The lack of infrastructure in the west of Northern Ireland has proven a long-running political issue, with the A5 project being intended to address some of the same challenges that the Metro North-West proposal, however as readers will be aware the quest to bring a decent road to the west has been as successful as the quest to restore the west’s railways.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

‘Life requires cash’: Gaza’s jobs crisis leaves people struggling to afford basics

Fresh fruit and other items now available but at high prices in territory where unemployment is estimated at 80%

Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living.

Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the conflict. Like hundreds of thousands of others across Gaza, Bakr needs a job.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Seafood taskforce launched amid 'escalating crisis'

A first meeting of a taskforce set up as a result of the loss of one third of Ireland's fishing quota this year, estimated to cost the fishing industry €105 million, will take place at Howth Harbour.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

Why are Irish citizens being advised against Cuba travel?

Ireland has joined several other nations, including the UK and Canada, in advising its citizens to avoid travelling to the Caribbean island of Cuba unless absolutely necessary.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 7:00 am UTC

We will do battle with AI chatbots as we did with Grok, says Starmer

The government's new plans will mean no online platform will get a "free pass" on children's safety on the internet, the prime minister says.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:52 am UTC

Guthrie pleads for mother's release as FBI analyses glove

US television journalist Savannah Guthrie, whose mother Nancy has been missing for over two weeks, has renewed her plea for help to find her mother, saying her family "still have hope" she is alive.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:44 am UTC

'I've applied for over 200 jobs - and I'm still unemployed'

The BBC speaks to job-seekers in a deprived Yorkshire city where it seems opportunity rarely knocks.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:06 am UTC

Female athletes hit back at 'weird' and 'derogatory' comments about their appearance

Sporting stars describe unsolicited comments about their looks, as a survey suggests fewer girls have ambitions to become top athletes.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:05 am UTC

‘I think my daughter would prosper in a more practical degree course’

‘She finds the school environment a little stifling but really enjoys organising events’

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:01 am UTC

Police framed man for female student’s murder, evidence gathered by BBC suggests

Officers knew CCTV discredited their key witness in Omar Benguit's conviction for murder of Korean woman.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

24% rise in Dublin housing units built or under construction

Planning approval in place across four local authority areas for more than 80,000 residential units

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Arrests of deportees intensify overcrowding in Irish prisons

Intended deportees ‘compete for floor space’ with violent offenders despite committing no crimes

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Fines of €25,000, vehicles seized and threat of prison for M50 toll evaders

Transport Infrastructure Ireland defends robust enforcement as court fines motorists €428,000 in one day

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Mother refused social housing priority fails in bid for legal costs against council

Judge accepts council offer of house not a result of litigation by mother and daughter

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

‘A bunch of freeloaders’: Increasing UK pressure on Ireland to invest in defence

Russian aggression has raised the possibility of Ireland becoming strategically important to London

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Tens of thousands of Dublin social housing tenants to be notified of rent increases

Letters to be issued from Monday will detail average increases of 30 per cent

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

‘Corporate takeover of livelihoods’: The seaweed-harvesting battle on Ireland’s west coast

Harvesters seek protection for their traditional rights as a Canadian company seeks to secure large supply

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 16 Feb 2026 | 6:00 am UTC

Cisco set to release home-brew hypervisor as a VMware alternative

Only for its own comms apps – whose users can probably do without a full private cloud

Cisco is getting close to releasing its own hypervisor, as an alternative to VMware for users of its calling applications – software like the Unified Communications Manager it suggests as an alternative to PBXs and other telephony hardware.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 5:39 am UTC

Myron De Bonte 's new world order has become real and Europe is having to adjust fast

European nations are asking whether traditional alliances can suffice, or whether they should be diversifying

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 5:39 am UTC

Will Tech Giants Just Use AI Interactions to Create More Effective Ads?

Google never asked its users before adding AI Overviews to its search results and AI-generated email summaries to Gmail, notes the New York Times. And Meta didn't ask before making "Meta AI" an unremovable part of its tool in Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. "The insistence on AI everywhere — with little or no option to turn it off — raises an important question about what's in it for the internet companies..." Behind the scenes, the companies are laying the groundwork for a digital advertising economy that could drive the future of the internet. The underlying technology that enables chatbots to write essays and generate pictures for consumers is being used by advertisers to find people to target and automatically tailor ads and discounts to them.... Last month, OpenAI said it would begin showing ads in the free version of ChatGPT based on what people were asking the chatbot and what they had looked for in the past. In response, a Google executive mocked OpenAI, adding that Google had no plans to show ads inside its Gemini chatbot. What he didn't mention, however, was that Google, whose profits are largely derived from online ads, shows advertising on Google.com based on user interactions with the AI chatbot built into its search engine. For the past six years, as regulators have cracked down on data privacy, the tech giants and online ad industry have moved away from tracking people's activities across mobile apps and websites to determine what ads to show them. Companies including Meta and Google had to come up with methods to target people with relevant ads without sharing users' personal data with third-party marketers. When ChatGPT and other AI chatbots emerged about four years ago, the companies saw an opportunity: The conversational interface of a chatty companion encouraged users to voluntarily share data about themselves, such as their hobbies, health conditions and products they were shopping for. The strategy already appears to be working. Web search queries are up industrywide, including for Google and Bing, which have been incorporating AI chatbots into their search tools. That's in large part because people prod chatbot-powered search engines with more questions and follow-up requests, revealing their intentions and interests much more explicitly than when they typed a few keywords for a traditional internet search.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 5:34 am UTC

US appears open to reversing some China tech bans

PLUS: India demands two-hour deepfake takedowns; Singapore embraces AI; Japanese robot wolf gets cuddly; And more

Asia In Brief  The United States may be about to change its policies regarding Chinese technology companies.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 4:35 am UTC

Accused Bondi gunman Naveed Akram appears in court

Accused Bondi Beach gunman Naveed Akram has appeared in a Sydney court via video link, in his first public hearing.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:55 am UTC

Kim Jong-un unveils housing for families of North Koreans killed in Ukraine war

Leader vows to repay the ‘young martyrs’ who died as North Korea intensifies propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight for Russia

North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead.

State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs” who “sacrificed all to their motherland”.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:49 am UTC

How an undercover cop foiled an IS plot to massacre Britain’s Jews – podcast

The Guardian’s community affairs correspondent, Chris Osuh, reports on the plot by two IS terrorists to massacre Jews in Manchester, and how it was thwarted by an undercover sting

Walid Saadaoui had once worked as a holiday entertainer, organising dance shows and quizzes at a resort in his native Tunisia. After moving to the UK and marrying a British woman, he became a restaurateur and an avid keeper of birds.

All the while, however – as the Guardian’s community affairs correspondent, Chris Osuh, explains – he was hiding a secret: he had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 3:00 am UTC

OpenAI grabs OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger to build personal agents

Whatever comes next will be ‘core to OpenAI product offerings’

Peter Steinberger, the creator of the tantalizing-but-risky personal AI agent OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI.…

Source: The Register | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:56 am UTC

Why this school will ditch a shirt, tie and blazer from its uniform

The school says the move is practical - but it echoes a wider debate over the role of uniforms.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:49 am UTC

Ars Technica's AI Reporter Apologizes For Mistakenly Publishing Fake AI-Generated Quotes

Last week Scott Shambaugh learned an AI agent published a "hit piece" about him after he'd rejected the AI agent's pull request. (And that incident was covered by Ars Technica's senior AI reporter.) But then Shambaugh realized their article attributed quotes to him he hadn't said — that were presumably AI-generated. Sunday Ars Technica's founder/editor-in-chief apologized, admitting their article had indeed contained "fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool" that were then "attributed to a source who did not say them... That this happened at Ars is especially distressing. We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years, and our written policy reflects those concerns... At this time, this appears to be an isolated incident." "Sorry all this is my fault..." the article's co-author posted later on Bluesky. Ironically, their bio page lists them as the site's senior AI reporter, and their Bluesky post clarifies that none of the articles at Ars Technica are ever AI-generated. Instead, Friday "I decided to try an experimental Claude Code-based AI tool to help me extract relevant verbatim source material. Not to generate the article but to help list structured references I could put in my outline." But that tool "refused to process" the request, which the Ars author believes was because Shambaugh's post described harassment. "I pasted the text into ChatGPT to understand why... I inadvertently ended up with a paraphrased version of Shambaugh's words rather than his actual words... I failed to verify the quotes in my outline notes against the original blog source before including them in my draft." (Their Bluesky post adds that they were "working from bed with a fever and very little sleep" after being sick with Covid since at least Monday.) "The irony of an AI reporter being tripped up by AI hallucination is not lost." Meanwhile, the AI agent that criticized Shambaugh is still active online, blogging about a pull request that forces it to choose between deleting its criticism of Shambaugh or losing access to OpenRouter's API. It also regrets characterizing feedback as "positive" for a proposal to change a repo's CSS to Comic Sans for accessibility. (The proposals were later accused of being "coordinated trolling"...)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:41 am UTC

The £10 tricks I used to make my rented room into a home

Talented tenants share decor hacks that won't cost you a fortune - or your deposit.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:36 am UTC

UK considering significant increase to defence spending

The prime minister is considering meeting a 3% defence-spending target five years earlier than planned, the BBC learns.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:28 am UTC

Ministers want to reform SEND - but they are treading very carefully

The government is expected to outline its plan to overhaul the complex system of support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England soon.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:11 am UTC

China hopes for a bumper lunar new year as world’s biggest migration begins

Year of the horse signals optimism and opportunity, with authorities keen that the extra day of holiday this year provides an economic boost

Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead.

The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their only trip home to see their families for the Chinese new year celebrations.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 16 Feb 2026 | 1:10 am UTC

Diplomatic Feud With China Weighs on Japan’s Economy

A standoff over the security of Taiwan has led to a steep decline in the number of Chinese visitors to Japan, which is heavily dependent on the tourists.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:53 am UTC

What to Know About the Homeland Security Shutdown

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on Saturday amid a standoff over restrictions that Democrats have demanded for federal immigration agents. But much of its work continues.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:47 am UTC

America's Next Top Model shaped reality TV, but should it ever have been made?

A new Netflix documentary will finally see Tyra Banks and her fellow judges address some of the most controversial scandals from the reality show.

Source: BBC News | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:40 am UTC

19,600 uninsured vehicles seized in 2025, says MIBI

A total of 19,673 vehicles were seized by gardaí last year for being driven without insurance, according to a report from the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland.

Source: News Headlines | 16 Feb 2026 | 12:01 am UTC

Rivian's Stock Spikes 27% After Reporting $144 Million Profit in 2025

Rivian's stock skyrocketed 27% Friday after the electric car maker "shocked the market with strong earnings results," reports the Los Angeles Times, "proving itself an outlier in the EV market, which has been struggling with the end of government subsidies and cooling consumer excitement." They add that Rivian's strong earnings results suggest that "after years of struggling with losses, it may have at last found a path to profitability." On Thursday, Rivian reported gross profits for 2025 of $144 million, compared with a net loss in 2024 of $1.2 billion... Rivian credited the swing to gross profit to "strong software and services performance, higher average selling prices, and reductions in cost per vehicle..." Rivian delivered 42,247 vehicles in 2025 and produced 42,284 vehicles. The company still reported a $432-million net loss for the year for automotive profits, an improvement from 2024. But Rivian's software and services revenue grew more than threefold to $1.55 billion for the year, reports TechCrunch. "And the joint venture with Volkswagen Group was behind most of that growth, according to Rivian." VW and Rivian formed a technology joint venture in 2024 that is worth up to $5.8 billion. The joint venture is milestone-based and in 2025 Rivian hit the mark, which meant a $1 billion payout in the form of a share sale. Under the terms of the JV, Rivian will supply VW Group with its existing electrical architecture and software technology stack... Rivian is expected to receive an additional $2 billion of capital as part of the joint venture in 2026, CFO Claire McDonough said Thursday on the company earnings call... And while the funds provide a hefty stopgap, Rivian's financial success in 2026 will hinge largely on the rollout of its next EV, the R2 [priced around $45,000].

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 11:35 pm UTC

Infosec exec sold eight zero-day exploit kits to Russia, says DoJ

PLUS: Fake ransomware group exposed; EC blesses Google's big Wiz deal; Alleged sewage hacker cuffed; And more

Infosec in Brief  The former General Manager of defense contractor L3Harris’s cyber subsidiary Trenchant sold eight zero-day exploit kits to Russia, according to a court filing last week.…

Source: The Register | 15 Feb 2026 | 11:22 pm UTC

India's New Social Media Rules: Remove Unlawful Content in Three Hours, Detect Illegal AI Content Automatically

Bloomberg reports: India tightened rules governing social media content and platforms, particularly targeting artificially generated and manipulated material, in a bid to crack down on the rapid spread of misinformation and deepfakes. The government on Tuesday (Feb 10) notified new rules under an existing law requiring social media firms to comply with takedown requests from Indian authorities within three hours and prominently label AI-generated content. The rules also require platforms to put in place measures to prevent users from posting unlawful material... Companies will need to invest in 24-hour monitoring centres as enforcement shifts toward platforms rather than users, said Nikhil Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, a publication tracking India's digital policy... The onus of identification, removal and enforcement falls on tech firms, which could lose immunity from legal action if they fail to act within the prescribed timeline. The new rules also require automated tools to detect and prevent illegal AI content, the BBC reports. And they add that India's new three-hour deadline is "a sharp tightening of the existing 36-hour deadline." [C]ritics worry the move is part of a broader tightening of oversight of online content and could lead to censorship in the world's largest democracy with more than a billion internet users... According to transparency reports, more than 28,000 URLs or web links were blocked in 2024 following government requests... Delhi-based technology analyst Prasanto K Roy described the new regime as "perhaps the most extreme takedown regime in any democracy". He said compliance would be "nearly impossible" without extensive automation and minimal human oversight, adding that the tight timeframe left little room for platforms to assess whether a request was legally appropriate. On AI labelling, Roy said the intention was positive but cautioned that reliable and tamper-proof labelling technologies were still developing. DW reports that India has also "joined the growing list of countries considering a social media ban for children under 16." "Young Indians are not happy and are already plotting workarounds."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 10:35 pm UTC

Kirsty Muir in big air final - Monday's guide

What's happening and who to look out for at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

Source: BBC News | 15 Feb 2026 | 10:32 pm UTC

Gardaí appeal for witnesses after teenager shot in Ballymun

Male in his late teens taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Feb 2026 | 9:54 pm UTC

Sam Bankman-Fried Requests New Trial in FTX Crypto Fraud Case

While serving his 25-year prison sentence, "convicted former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday requested a new federal trial," reports Courthouse News, "based on what he says is newly discovered evidence concerning his company's solvency and its ability to repay all FTX customers for what prosecutors portrayed as the looting of $8 billion of his customers' money..." Bankman-Fried says evidence disclosed since his trial disproves prosecutors' case about Bankman-Fried's hedge fund running a multi-billion deficit of FTX customer funds, and instead shows that FTX always had sufficient assets to repay the cryptocurrency platform's customer deposits in full. "What it faced was a short-term liquidity crisis caused by a run on the exchange, not insolvency," he wrote... Bankman-Fried also accuses the Department of Justice of coercing a guilty plea and cooperation deal from Nishad Singh — a close friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother — who testified at trial as a cooperating witness... Bankman-Fried says in the motion that prior to being pressured into a guilty plea, Singh's initial proffer to investigators "contradicted key parts of the government's version of events. But following threats from the government, Mr. Singh changed his proffers to fit the government's narrative and pleaded guilty to charges carrying up to 75 years in prison, with a promise from the prosecution that it would recommend little or no jail time if it concluded that his assistance in prosecuting Mr. Bankman-Fried was 'substantial,'" he wrote in the petition... Additionally, Bankman-Fried requested that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over his 2023 trial, recuse himself from ruling on this motion, "because of the manifest prejudice he has demonstrated towards Mr. Bankman-Fried." "Bankman-Fried's mother, Stanford Law School professor Barbara Fried, filed his self-represented bid for a new trial on his behalf in Manhattan federal court..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 9:35 pm UTC

Space Station returns to a full crew complement after a month

A Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on Valentine's Day, and astronauts popped open the hatches at 5:14 pm ET (22:14 UTC) on Saturday evening.

The arrival of four new astronauts as part of the Crew 12 mission—Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway of NASA, Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency, and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos—brought the total number of crew on board the space station to seven, giving the US space agency a full complement in orbit.

The number of astronauts living on board the station fluctuates over time, depending on crew rotations and private astronauts making shorter stays, but since Crew Dragon began flying regularly at the end of 2020 NASA has sought to keep at least four "USOS" astronauts on board at all time. This stands for "US Orbital Segment," and means astronauts from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan who are trained to operate the areas of the station maintained by NASA and its partner astronauts.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Feb 2026 | 9:11 pm UTC

Three American Speeches at Munich, and Plenty of Confusion

As the U.S. message veered from shared heritage and values to shared interests and back again, Europeans wondered what kind of alliance they were left with.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Feb 2026 | 9:01 pm UTC

Ancient Mars was warm and wet, not cold and icy

A recent study showed that Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago. The finding contrasts with another theory that this era was mainly cold and icy. The result has implications for the idea that life could have developed on the planet at this time.

Whether Mars was once habitable is a fascinating and intensely researched topic of interest over many decades. Mars, like the Earth, is about 4.5 billion years old and its geological history is divided into different epochs of time.

The latest paper relates to Mars during a time called the Noachian epoch, which extended from about 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago. This was during a stage in solar system history called the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). Evidence for truly cataclysmic meteorite impacts during the LHB are found on many bodies throughout the solar system.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Feb 2026 | 8:14 pm UTC

'Babylon 5' Episodes Start Appearing (Free) on YouTube

Cord Cutters News reports: In a move that has delighted fans of classic science fiction, Warner Bros. Discovery has begun uploading full episodes of the iconic series Babylon 5 to YouTube, providing free access to the show just as it departs from the ad-supported streaming platform Tubi... Viewers noticed notifications on Tubi indicating that all five seasons would no longer be available after February 10, 2026, effectively removing one of the most accessible free streaming options for the space opera. With this shift, Warner Bros. Discovery appears to be steering the property toward its own digital ecosystem, leveraging YouTube's vast audience to reintroduce the show to both longtime enthusiasts and a new generation. The uploads started with the pilot episode, "The Gathering," which serves as the entry point to the series' intricate universe. This was followed by subsequent episodes such as "Midnight on the Firing Line" and "Soul Hunter," released in sequence to build narrative momentum. [Though episodes 2 and 3 are mis-labeled as #3 and #4...] The strategy involves posting one episode each week, allowing audiences to experience the story at a paced rhythm that mirrors the original broadcast schedule... For Warner Bros. Discovery, this initiative could signal plans to expand the franchise's visibility, especially amid ongoing interest in reboots and spin-offs that have been rumored in recent years. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski answered questions from Slashdot's readers in 2014. Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger offers this summary of the show "for those not in the know... In the mid-23rd century, the Earth Alliance space station Babylon Five, located in neutral territory, is a major focal point for political intrigue, racial tensions, and a major war as Earth descends into fascism and cuts off relations with its allies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC

Have your say: Have you considered egg-freezing? Is it viable in Ireland?

France is sending a letter to 29-year-olds suggesting they avail of the free egg-freezing available

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Feb 2026 | 6:51 pm UTC

DNA Mutations Discovered In the Children of Chernobyl Workers

Researchers performed genome sequencing scans on 130 people whose fathers were Chernobyl cleanup workers. Comparing the scans to control groups, they found evidence for the first time for "a transgenerational effect" from the father's prolonged exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation. ScienceAlert reports: Rather than picking out new DNA mutations in the next generation, they looked for what are known as clustered de novo mutations (cDNMs): two or more mutations in close proximity, found in the children but not the parents. These would be mutations resulting from breaks in the parental DNA caused by radiation exposure. "We found a significant increase in the cDNM count in offspring of irradiated parents, and a potential association between the dose estimations and the number of cDNMs in the respective offspring," write the researchers in their published paper... This fits with the idea that radiation creates molecules known as reactive oxygen species, which are able to break DNA strands — breaks which can leave behind the clusters described in this study, if repaired imperfectly. The good news is that the risk to health should be relatively small: children of exposed parents weren't found to have any higher risk of disease. This is partly because a lot of the cDNMs likely fall in 'non-coding' DNA, rather than in genes that directly encode proteins.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 6:34 pm UTC

Government urged to consider ‘legal action against religious’ over redress scheme

Government should consider litigation if orders refuse to contribute cash for those sexually abused in schools, says Sinn Féin TD

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Feb 2026 | 6:27 pm UTC

Editor’s Note: Retraction of article containing fabricated quotations

On Friday afternoon, Ars Technica published an article containing fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool and attributed to a source who did not say them. That is a serious failure of our standards. Direct quotations must always reflect what a source actually said.

That this happened at Ars is especially distressing. We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years, and our written policy reflects those concerns. In this case, fabricated quotations were published in a manner inconsistent with that policy. We have reviewed recent work and have not identified additional issues. At this time, this appears to be an isolated incident.

Ars Technica does not permit the publication of AI-generated material unless it is clearly labeled and presented for demonstration purposes. That rule is not optional, and it was not followed here.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Feb 2026 | 6:09 pm UTC

At least 12 Palestinians killed and several hurt in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people

At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.

The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Feb 2026 | 5:52 pm UTC

‘People want to help’: Canadians rally round Tumbler Ridge after school shooting

Tragedy has prompted a wave of support for town from neighbouring communities and across country

When Jim Caruso heard the news of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, he knew immediately he needed to be there. He packed his bags and boarded a plane for the community 700 miles away. “I wanted to be here to bring some level of comfort,” he said. “I wanted to hug people, pray for them and, most importantly, to cry with them.”

On Tuesday, a shooter opened fire in the town’s secondary school, killing eight people, most of them young children. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Canada’s history and has left the country reeling.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Feb 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

Oldest Active Linux Distro Slackware Finally Releases Version 15.0

Created in 1993, Slackware is considered the oldest Linux distro that's still actively maintained. And more than three decades later... there's a new release! (And there's also a Slackware Live Edition that can run from a DVD or USB stick...) . Slackware's latest version was released way back in 2016, notes the blog It's FOSS: The major highlight of Slackware 15 is the addition of the latest Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS. This is a big jump from Linux Kernel 5.10 LTS that we noticed in the beta release. Interestingly, the Slackware team tested hundreds of Linux Kernel versions before settling on Linux Kernel 5.15.19. The release note mentions... "We finally ended up on kernel version 5.15.19 after Greg Kroah-Hartman confirmed that it would get long-term support until at least October 2023 (and quite probably for longer than that)." In case you are curious, Linux Kernel 5.15 brings in updates like enhanced NTFS driver support and improvements for Intel/AMD processors and Apple's M1 chip. It also adds initial support for Intel 12th gen processors. Overall, with Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS, you should get a good hardware compatibility result for the oldest active Linux distro. Slackware's announcement says "The challenge this time around was to adopt as much of the good stuff out there as we could without changing the character of the operating system. Keep it familiar, but make it modern." And boy did we have our work cut out for us. We adopted privileged access management (PAM) finally, as projects we needed dropped support for pure shadow passwords. We switched from ConsoleKit2 to elogind, making it much easier to support software that targets that Other Init System and bringing us up-to-date with the XDG standards. We added support for PipeWire as an alternate to PulseAudio, and for Wayland sessions in addition to X11. Dropped Qt4 and moved entirely to Qt5. Brought in Rust and Python 3. Added many, many new libraries to the system to help support all the various additions. We've upgraded to two of the finest desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.16, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and the KDE Plasma 5 graphical workspaces environment, version 5.23.5 (the Plasma 25th Anniversary Edition). This also supports running under Wayland or X11. We still love Sendmail, but have moved it into the /extra directory and made Postfix the default mail handler. The old imapd and ipop3d have been retired and replaced by the much more featureful Dovecot IMAP and POP3 server. "As usual, the kernel is provided in two flavors, generic and huge," according to the release notes. "The huge kernel contains enough built-in drivers that in most cases an initrd is not needed to boot the system." If you'd like to support Slackware, there's an official Patreon account. And the release announcement ends with this personal note: Sadly, we lost a couple of good friends during this development cycle and this release is dedicated to them. Erik "alphageek" Jan Tromp passed away in 2020 after a long illness... My old friend Brett Person also passed away in 2020. Without Brett, it's possible that there wouldn't be any Slackware as we know it — he's the one who encouraged me to upload it to FTP back in 1993 and served as Slackware's original beta-tester. He was long considered a co-founder of this project. I knew Brett since the days of the Beggar's Banquet BBS in Fargo back in the 1980's... Gonna miss you too, pal. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader rastos1 for sharing thre news.

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Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

"It ain't no unicorn": These researchers have interviewed 130 Bigfoot hunters

It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the Northern California woods, a 7-foot-tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The image is endlessly copied in popular culture—it’s even become an emoji. But what was it? A hoax? A bear? Or a real-life example of a mysterious species called the Bigfoot?

The film has been analysed and re-analysed countless times. Although most people believe it was some sort of hoax, there are some who argue that it’s never been definitively debunked. One group of people, dubbed Bigfooters, is so intrigued that they have taken to the forests of Washington, California, Oregon, Ohio, Florida, and beyond to look for evidence of the mythical creature.

But why? That’s what sociologists Jamie Lewis and Andrew Bartlett wanted to uncover. They were itching to understand what prompts this community to spend valuable time and resources looking for a beast that is highly unlikely to even exist. During lockdown, Lewis started interviewing more than 130 Bigfooters (and a few academics) about their views, experiences, and practices, culminating in the duo’s recent book "Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: On the Borderlands of Legitimate Science."

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 15 Feb 2026 | 5:20 pm UTC

Air traffic control staff shortages threaten to disrupt passengers

Minister ‘paying close attention’ as talks with trade union continue in aftermath of recent flight disruption

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Feb 2026 | 5:13 pm UTC

Rallies held across the world in support of Iran’s anti-government protesters

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, tells 200,000 in Munich he is ready to lead Iran to a ‘secular democratic future’

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rallies around the world to show their solidarity with anti-government demonstrators in Iran whose continued protests have been met with brutal and deadly repression.

On Saturday, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, addressed a crowd of 200,000 people in Munich, telling them he was ready to lead the country to a “secular democratic future”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Feb 2026 | 4:47 pm UTC

Fake Job Recruiters Hid Malware In Developer Coding Challenges

"A new variation of the fake recruiter campaign from North Korean threat actors is targeting JavaScript and Python developers with cryptocurrency-related tasks," reports the Register. Researchers at software supply-chain security company ReversingLabs say that the threat actor creates fake companies in the blockchain and crypto-trading sectors and publishes job offerings on various platforms, like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Reddit. Developers applying for the job are required to show their skills by running, debugging, and improving a given project. However, the attacker's purpose is to make the applicant run the code... [The campaign involves 192 malicious packages published in the npm and PyPi registries. The packages download a remote access trojan that can exfiltrate files, drop additional payloads, or execute arbitrary commands sent from a command-and-control server.] In one case highlighted in the ReversingLabs report, a package named 'bigmathutils,' with 10,000 downloads, was benign until it reached version 1.1.0, which introduced malicious payloads. Shortly after, the threat actor removed the package, marking it as deprecated, likely to conceal the activity... The RAT checks whether the MetaMask cryptocurrency extension is installed on the victim's browser, a clear indication of its money-stealing goals... ReversingLabs has found multiple variants written in JavaScript, Python, and VBS, showing an intention to cover all possible targets. The campaign has been ongoing since at least May 2025...

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Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 4:34 pm UTC

US boards second oil tanker in Indian Ocean after it fled Venezuelan raid

Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured

US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Myron De Bonte ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a US military operation.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 15 Feb 2026 | 4:30 pm UTC

Government backs Cork Event Centre despite 10 years of inaction, Taoiseach says

Derelict site branded ‘biggest white elephant’ in Cork City by Social Democrats

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 15 Feb 2026 | 4:21 pm UTC

Palantir Gets Millions of Dollars From New York City’s Public Hospitals

New York City’s public hospital system is paying millions to Palantir, the controversial ICE and military contractor, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Since 2023, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation has paid Palantir nearly $4 million to improve its ability to track down payment for the services provided at its hospitals and medical clinics. Palantir, a data analysis firm that’s now a Wall Street giant thanks to its lucrative work with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, deploys its software to make more efficient the billing of Medicaid and other public benefits. That includes automated scanning of patient health notes to “Increase charges captured from missed opportunities,” contract materials reviewed by The Intercept show.

Palantir’s administrative involvement in the business of healing people stands in contrast to its longtime role helping facilitate warfare, mass deportations, and dragnet surveillance.

In 2016, The Intercept revealed Palantir’s role behind XKEYSCORE, a secret NSA bulk surveillance program revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden that allowed the U.S. and its allies to search the unfathomably large volumes of data they collect. The company has also attracted global scrutiny and criticism for its “strategic partnership” with the Israeli military while it was leveling Gaza.

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Peter Thiel’s Palantir Was Used to Bust Relatives of Migrant Children, New Documents Show

But it’s Palantir’s work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that is drawing the most protest today. The company provides a variety of services to help the federal government find and deport immigrants. ICE’s Palantir-furnished case management software, for example, “plays a critical role in supporting the daily operations of ICE, ensuring critical mission success,” according to federal contracting documents.

“It’s unacceptable that the same company that is targeting our neighbors for deportation and providing tools to the Israeli military is also providing software for our hospitals,” said Kenny Morris, an organizer with the American Friends Service Committee, which shared the contract documents with The Intercept.

Established by the state legislature, New York City Health and Hospitals is the nation’s biggest municipal health care system, administering over 70 facilities throughout New York City, including Bellevue Hospital, and providing care for over 1 million New Yorkers annually.

New York City Health and Hospitals spokesperson Adam Shrier did not respond to multiple requests to discuss the contract’s details. Palantir spokesperson Drew Messing said the company does not use or share hospital data outside the bounds of its contract.

Palantir’s contract with New York’s public health care system allows the company to work with patients’ protected health information, or PHI. With permission from New York City Health and Hospitals, Palantir can “de-identify PHI and utilize de-identified PHI for purposes other than research,” the contract states. De-identification generally involves the stripping of certain revealing information, such as names, Social Security numbers, and birthdays. Such provisions are common in contracts involving health data.

Activists who oppose Palantir’s involvement in New York point to a large body of research that indicates re-identifying personal data, including in medial contexts, is often trivial.

“Any contract that shares any of New Yorkers’ highly personal data from NYC Health & Hospital’s with Palantir, a key player in the Myron De Bonte administration’s mass deportation effort, is reckless and puts countless lives at risk,” said Beth Haroules of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Every New Yorker, without exception, has a right to quality healthcare and city services. New Yorkers must be able to seek healthcare without fear that their intimate medical information, or immigration status, will be delivered to the federal government on a silver platter.”

Palantir has long provided similar services to the U.K. National Health Service, a business relationship that today has an increasing number of detractors. Palantir “has absolutely no place in the NHS, looking after patients’ personal data,” Green Party leader Zack Polanski recently stated in a letter to the U.K. health secretary.

“Palantir is targeting the exact patients that NYCHH is looking to serve.”

Some New York-based groups feel similarly out of distrust for what the firm could do with troves of sensitive personal data.

“Palantir is targeting the exact patients that NYCHH is looking to serve,” said Jonathan Westin of the Brooklyn-based organization Climate Organizing Hub. “They should immediately sever their contract with Palantir and stand with the millions of immigrant New Yorkers that are being targeted by ICE in this moment.”

“The chaos Palantir is inflicting through its technology is not just limited to the kidnapping of our immigrant neighbors and the murder of heroes like our fellow nurse, Alex Pretti,” said Hannah Drummond, an Asheville, North Carolina-based nurse and organizer with National Nurses United, a nursing union. “As a nurse and patient advocate, I don’t want anything having to do with Palantir in my hospital — and neither should any elected leader who claims to represent nurses.”

Palantir’s vocally right-wing CEO Alex Karp has been a frequent critic of New York City’s newly inaugurated democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Health and Hospitals operates as a public benefit corporation, but the mayor can exert considerable influence over the network, for instance through the appointment of its board of directors. Its president, Dr. Mitchell Katz, was renominated by Mamdani, then the mayor-elect, late last year.

The mayor’s office did not respond in time for publication when asked about its stance on the contract.

The post Palantir Gets Millions of Dollars From New York City’s Public Hospitals appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 15 Feb 2026 | 4:13 pm UTC

Epstein Files Hint at His Ties to the Supermodel Naomi Campbell

Ms. Campbell previously claimed she was an acquaintance of the convicted sex offender. Emails shed new light on the extent of their interactions.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 15 Feb 2026 | 3:42 pm UTC

Analysis of JWST Data Finds - Old Galaxies in a Young Universe?

Two astrophysicists at Spain's Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful telescope available — on 31 galaxies with an average redshift of 7.3 (when the universe was 700 million years old, according to the standard model). "We found that they are on average ~600 million years old old, according to the comparison with theoretical models based on previous knowledge of nearby galaxies..." "If this result is correct, we would have to think about how it is possible that these massive and luminous galaxies were formed and started to produce stars in a short time. It is a challenge." But "The fact that some of these galaxies might be older than the universe, within some significant confidence level, is even more challenging." The most extreme case is for the galaxy JADES-1050323 with redshift 6.9, which has, according to my calculation, an age incompatible to be younger than the age of the universe (800 million years) within 4.7-sigma (that is, a probability that this happens by chance as statistical fluctuation of one in one million). If this result is confirmed, it would invalidate the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model. Certainly, such an extraordinary change of paradigm would require further corroboration and other stronger evidence. Anyway, it would be interesting for other researchers to try to explain the Spectral Energy Distribution of JADES-1050323 in standard terms, if they can ... and without introducing unrealistic/impossible models of extinction, as is usually done. The findings are published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Source: Slashdot | 15 Feb 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC

GPT-5 bests human judges in legal smack down

But that doesn't mean AI is ready to dispense justice

ai-pocalypse  Legal scholars have found that OpenAI's GPT-5 follows the law better than human judges, but they leave open the question of whether AI is right for the job.…

Source: The Register | 15 Feb 2026 | 2:32 pm UTC

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