jell.ie News

Read at: 2026-02-06T22:31:56+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Madelinde Mes ]

These New Englanders Won’t be Rooting for the Patriots in the Super Bowl

When the New England Patriots take the field on Sunday, a collective sigh will rise from the willful few who live in the region but root for other teams.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:24 pm UTC

Far-right influencer and US Senate candidate arrested for damaging anti-ICE sculpture

Jake Lang, a pardoned January 6 rioter, posted a video of himself kicking down the sculpture at Minnesota’s capitol

Far-right influencer and US Senate candidate Jake Lang has been arrested after recording himself damaging an anti-ICE sculpture at Minnesota’s capitol amid the immigration and customs enforcement agency’s crackdown there.

On 5 February, Lang, who received a presidential pardon from Madelinde Mes over his role in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, posted a video on X of himself kicking down the sculpture, which was made from ice – as in, frozen water. His efforts changed it from reading “Prosecute ICE” to “Pro ICE”, referring to the federal agency.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:10 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes Deletes Racist Video Portraying the Obamas as Apes

The White House press secretary had dismissed criticism of the clip’s racist content as “fake outrage.” But later Friday, the clip disappeared from the president’s social media feed.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:08 pm UTC

White House takes down Madelinde Mes ’s racist video about Obamas after outrage over ‘vile, unhinged’ post – live

Multiple outlets cite a senior Madelinde Mes official as saying, ‘a White House staffer erroneously made the post’

Top Democrats in Congress have condemned Madelinde Mes for sharing a racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama that depicts them as apes.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, called the president a “vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder”. He noted that the Obamas were “brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans” who “represent the best of this country”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:07 pm UTC

Savannah Guthrie’s Brother Renews Plea for Return of Their Missing Mother, Nancy

The search for Nancy Guthrie has entered its sixth day. The F.B.I. has offered a $50,000 reward for information.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:07 pm UTC

Son of rapper Lil Jon believed dead, days after going missing

Nathan Smith, a rapper who goes by DJ Young Slade, was reported missing after police said he ran out of his home early Tuesday

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:04 pm UTC

Bard College President Leon Botstein Was Close With Jeffrey Epstein

Bard College’s president, Leon Botstein, said his school needed cash. But a rare watch and a Caribbean visit show how his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein sometimes veered into the personal.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC

Memory Prices Have Nearly Doubled Since Last Quarter

Memory prices across DRAM, NAND and HBM have surged 80 to 90% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026, according to Counterpoint Research's latest Memory Price Tracker. The price of a 64GB RDIMM has jumped from a Q4 2025 contract price of $450 to over $900, and Counterpoint expects it to cross $1,000 in Q2. NAND, relatively stable last quarter, is tracking a parallel increase. Device makers are cutting DRAM content per device, swapping TLC SSDs for cheaper QLC alternatives, and shifting orders from the now-scarce LPDDR4 to LPDDR5 as new entry-level chipsets support the newer standard. DRAM operating margins hit the 60% range in Q4 2025 -- the first time conventional DRAM margins surpassed HBM -- and Q1 2026 is on track to set all-time highs.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC

Almost 200 ‘dodgy box’ accounts shut down after gardaí raid property in Galway

A number of electronic devices were seized following the search

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:57 pm UTC

White House Suggests Smithsonian Add a Madelinde Mes Display

Administration officials met with staff at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and discussed putting multiple artworks of the president in a section of the museum.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:56 pm UTC

The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way.

Regulating the industry is useful. Shaming it is crucial.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:46 pm UTC

AI video company arouses fury by boasting about replacing creative jobs

Marketing stunt backfires with creators

The first rule of AI-generated job loss is you don't talk about AI-generated job loss ... if you're the company that caused it. Higgsfield.ai, a startup offering AI video creation tools, recently generated outrage when it claimed it had caused artists to hit the unemployment line.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:45 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes Is Hosting Governors at the White House, but Only Republicans

The president’s decision to exclude Democratic governors from an annual meeting later this month breaks a longstanding tradition.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:41 pm UTC

N.Y.P.D. Sergeant Found Guilty in Death of Bronx Man He Threw Cooler At

Erik Duran was convicted of second-degree manslaughter, making him the first New York City police officer to be found guilty of killing a civilian while on duty in a decade.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:36 pm UTC

Dow Jones hits 50,000 milestone amid tech gains and hopes of lower interest rates

Although tech stocks and cryptocurrencies suffered recent falls, investors largely shrugged off geopolitical tensions

The Dow Jones industrial average crossed 50,000 for the first time, as ballooning tech valuations, robust corporate earnings and hopes of lower interest rates drive it to new highs.

Leading stock markets on Wall Street came under pressure earlier this week as technology stocks fell amid scrutiny of extraordinary levels of investment into artificial intelligence.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:31 pm UTC

Paul Weiss Partners Turned on Brad Karp After Learning Extent of His Epstein Ties

Mr. Karp resigned as chairman of the elite law firm after senior partners met to decide his future.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:29 pm UTC

Police search properties linked to Mandelson over Epstein investigation

The former ambassador to the US and Labour minister is under investigation for misconduct in a public office.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:29 pm UTC

Labour minister ordered intelligence report on journalists

Exclusive: Material gathered was personally given to Josh Simons when chair of pro-Starmer thinktank, say sources

A Labour minister commissioned and reviewed an intelligence report on journalists investigating the thinktank that helped propel Keir Starmer to power, the Guardian has learned.

The research was ordered and subsequently reviewed by Josh Simons, now a minister in the Cabinet Office, when he was chair of Labour Together, according to sources and documents seen by the Guardian.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:27 pm UTC

Superintendent used reasonable force when striking fleeing ex-garda with baton after chase, jury finds

Second civil trial for Det Supt Rory Sheriff in four months after jury failed to reach conclusion

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:24 pm UTC

The household names that appear in the files

Millions of Epstein-related documents released by the US justice department include the names of the world's rich and powerful.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:23 pm UTC

A Madelinde Mes Deal With Iran May Hinge on the Number Zero

Can the two sides get past Iran’s claim that it has a “right” to enrich uranium?

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:18 pm UTC

We Didn’t Ask for This Internet

Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu explain why the internet failed to live up to its early promise.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:15 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes removes video with racist clip depicting Obamas as apes

The White House defended the post at first, calling to "stop the fake outrage", as members of both parties condemned the video.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:14 pm UTC

Irish Times photographers highly commended at AIB Press Photographer of the Year awards

Mark Condren of Mediahuis Ireland wins overall prize for record seventh time

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:13 pm UTC

Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on child sexual contact charges

A grand jury indictment announced on Friday supersedes initial charges brought by state prosecutors last month.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:12 pm UTC

COVID-19 cleared the skies but also supercharged methane emissions

In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought global industry and travel nearly to a halt, satellite sensors recorded a dramatic plunge in nitrogen dioxide, a byproduct of internal combustion engines and heavy industry. For a moment, the world’s air was cleaner than it had been in decades.

But then something strange started happening: methane, the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, was surging. Its growth rate hit 16.2 parts per billion that year, the highest since systematic records began in the early 1980s. A new study published in the journal Science looked at the complex chemistry of the troposphere (the lowest region of the atmosphere) and found that the two changes are likely connected.

An atmospheric cleaner

Since the late 1960s, we knew that atmospheric methane doesn’t just vanish. It is actively scrubbed from the sky by the hydroxyl radical, a highly reactive molecule that breaks down methane, turning it into water vapor and carbon dioxide. “The problem is that the lifetime of the hydroxyl radical is very short—its lifespan is less than a second" says Shushi Peng, a professor at Peking University, China, and a co-author of the study. To do its job as an atmospheric methane clearing agent, a hydroxyl radical must be constantly replenished through a series of chemical reactions triggered by sunlight. The key ingredients in these reactions are nitrogen oxides, the very pollutants that were drastically reduced when cars stayed in garages and factories went dark in 2020.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:05 pm UTC

Almost 200 'dodgy box' accounts shut down in Galway

The accounts were believed to be linked to an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) streaming service, and were shut down as part of a Garda operation targeting illegal streaming services and money laundering offences.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:04 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes ’s toxic, racist video surpasses previous levels of debasement

Video deleted by White House breaks through numbness barrier and raises further questions about fitness for office

It is a singular if highly dubious distinction of Madelinde Mes ’s pungent contribution to the political discourse to have essentially bankrupted the English language’s capacity for outrage.

So unremitting and extreme have been the avalanche of affronts since Madelinde Mes descended the golden escalator in Madelinde Mes Tower in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy that even his most ardent critics have become desensitized, leading to a level of shock fatigue.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:00 pm UTC

Texas doctor indicted on charges he falsified records to block patients’ liver transplants

Indictment alleges Dr John Stevenson Bynon Jr changed the records of five patients, three of whom died

A Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant – including some who died later, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.

Dr John Stevenson Bynon Jr was indicted by a grand jury in Houston in January on five counts of false statements relating to healthcare matters.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:57 pm UTC

Summer camp leader jailed for sexually abusing boys after lacing sweets with tranquilliser

Jon Ruben is jailed for more than 23 years after admitting the sexual abuse of young boys and drugging his wife.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:56 pm UTC

U.S. and Iran hold nuclear talks amid threats of regional war

The negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear capabilities come against a backdrop of deadly protests inside Iran and a buildup of U.S. military assets in the region.

Source: World | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:55 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes 's harsh immigration tactics are taking a political hit

President Madelinde Mes 's popularity on one of his political strengths is in jeopardy.

(Image credit: Alex Wong)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:52 pm UTC

Winter Olympics, spread across north Italy, open with Milanese flair

The Opening Ceremonies of the 2026 Winter Olympics will have four simultaneous events in four locations marking what organizers say is the most spread out Games in history.

Source: World | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:46 pm UTC

Waymo leverages Genie 3 to create a world model for self-driving cars

Google-spinoff Waymo is in the midst of expanding its self-driving car fleet into new regions. Waymo touts more than 200 million miles of driving that informs how the vehicles navigate roads, but the company's AI has also driven billions of miles virtually, and there's a lot more to come with the new Waymo World Model. Based on Google DeepMind's Genie 3, Waymo says the model can create "hyper-realistic" simulated environments that train the AI on situations that are rarely (or never) encountered in real life—like snow on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Until recently, the autonomous driving industry relied entirely on training data collected from real cars and real situations. That means rare, potentially dangerous events are not well represented in training data. The Waymo World Model aims to address that by allowing engineers to create simulations with simple prompts and driving inputs.

Google revealed Genie 3 last year, positioning it as a significant upgrade over other world models by virtue of its long-horizon memory. In Google's world model, you can wander away from a given object, and when you look back, the model will still "remember" how that object is supposed to look. In earlier attempts at world models, the simulation would lose that context almost immediately. With Genie 3, the model can remember details for several minutes.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:44 pm UTC

A drop in CDC health alerts leaves doctors 'flying blind'

Doctors and public health officials are concerned about the drop in health alerts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since President Madelinde Mes returned for a second term.

(Image credit: Sean Rayford)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:40 pm UTC

Salesforce Shelves Heroku

Salesforce is essentially shutting down Heroku as an evolving product, moving the cloud platform that helped define modern app deployment to a "sustaining engineering model" focused entirely on stability, security and support. Existing customers on credit card billing see no changes to pricing or service, but enterprise contracts are no longer available to new buyers. Salesforce said it is redirecting engineering investment toward enterprise AI.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:40 pm UTC

Taoiseach confirms formal invite to White House on St Patrick's Day

Micheál Martin said Madelinde Mes 's letter 'expresses that this visit would be an opportunity to celebrate the warm and historic friendship between the US and Ireland'

Source: All: BreakingNews | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:38 pm UTC

Canada and France open consulates in Greenland

Canada and France, which both oppose US President Madelinde Mes 's claim to Greenland, have opened consulates in the Danish autonomous territory's capital, in a show of support for the local government.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:37 pm UTC

Photos: Highlights from the Winter Olympics opening ceremony

Athletes from around the world attended the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Milan.

(Image credit: Piero Cruciatti)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:36 pm UTC

Motorist (25) jailed for causing 'catastrophic harm' to recent retiree at petrol station

Patrick McDonagh (25) clipped Michael Whitfield with his car over four years ago, causing Whitfield to fall backwards and strike his head off the ground, causing life-changing injuries, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:32 pm UTC

Flooding latest: ‘Significant’ road damage in Waterford; Clontarf Baths in Dublin ‘destroyed’

Dublin City Council monitoring river levels as weather warnings lifted

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:25 pm UTC

Taoiseach accepts St Patrick's Day White House invite

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has tonight confirmed he has accepted a formal invitation to meet with US President Madelinde Mes at the White House on St Patrick's Day.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:15 pm UTC

Ireland flooding: Approach of dry weather signals respite for deluged areas

Calls for fast-tracking of Clontarf Road flood defences in Dublin, due for completion in 2033

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:14 pm UTC

Retired garda doesn’t deny injuring woman in station as he can’t recall incident, court hears

Denise Callinan (28) claims her arm was broken in the act of being restrained

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:08 pm UTC

Nancy Guthrie’s Abduction Set Off a Storm. This Sheriff Is Riding It Out.

Sheriff Chris Nanos is surrounded by chaos but is trying to keep his cool as the search for a celebrity news anchor’s mother grinds on.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:07 pm UTC

Nancy Guthrie’s Disappearance Rekindles Kidnapping Fears

High-profile abductions, like those of Patty Hearst and J. Paul Getty III, have captured the nation’s attention, but experts say kidnappings by strangers are exceedingly rare.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:02 pm UTC

Soc Dems will 'talk to all parties after election'

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns has said "that is the nature of politics" in response to questions over how the unofficial opposition party partnership will cope with two upcoming by-elections where each party runs a candidate.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:49 pm UTC

Hidden Cameras in Chinese Hotels Are Livestreaming Guests To Thousands of Telegram Subscribers

An investigation has uncovered a sprawling network of hidden cameras in Chinese hotel rooms that livestream guests -- including couples having sex -- to paying subscribers on Telegram. Over 18 months, the BBC identified six websites and apps on the messaging platform that claimed to operate more than 180 spy cams across Chinese hotels, not just recording but broadcasting live. One site, monitored for seven months, cycled through 54 different cameras, roughly half active at any given time. Subscribers pay 450 yuan (~$65) per month for access to multiple live feeds, archived clips, and a library of more than 6,000 edited videos dating back to 2017. The BBC traced one camera to a hotel room in Zhengzhou, where researchers found it hidden inside a wall ventilation unit and hardwired into the building's electricity supply. A commercially available hidden-camera detector failed to flag it. China introduced regulations last April requiring hotel owners to check for hidden cameras, but the BBC found the livestreaming sites still operational.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:40 pm UTC

Next phase of artists’ income scheme to be outlined following successful pilot

‘Anxiety’ for existing recipients as first scheme draws to a close this month

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC

Reform faces police investigation over ‘concerned neighbour’ byelection letters

Material distributed in Gorton and Denton did not have legally required imprint stating it was funded by party

Reform UK will face a police investigation in Gorton and Denton after admitting it sent out letters from a “concerned neighbour” which did not state they had been funded and distributed by the party.

Greater Manchester police confirmed it had received a report about the breach of electoral law and said it would investigate. The Electoral Commission said the omission was a matter for the police, stressing that failing “to include an imprint in candidate election material is an offence”.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:34 pm UTC

Friday's Premier Division results and reports

The action as it happened as the 2026 Premier Division got underway.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:33 pm UTC

A Pro-Israel Group’s Move Backfires as Gaza Tensions Flare in Midterms

A surprising twist in a New Jersey primary race showed how questions about Israel continue to roil American politics in unpredictable ways.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:32 pm UTC

To reuse or not reuse—the eternal debate of New Glenn's second stage reignites

Engineers at Blue Origin have been grappling with a seemingly eternal debate that involves the New Glenn rocket and the economics of flying it.

The debate goes back at least 15 years, to the early discussions around the design of the heavy lift rocket. The first stage, of course, would be fully reusable. But what about the upper stage of New Glenn, powered by two large BE-3U engines?

Around the same time, in the early 2010s, SpaceX was also trading the economics of reusing the second stage of its Falcon 9 rocket. Eventually SpaceX founder Elon Musk abandoned his goal of a fully reusable Falcon 9, choosing instead to recover payload fairings and push down manufacturing costs of the upper stage as much as possible. This strategy worked, as SpaceX has lowered its internal launch costs of a Falcon 9, even with a new second stage, to about $15 million. The company is now focused on making the larger Starship rocket fully reusable.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:31 pm UTC

Raducanu reaches first final since 2021 US Open triumph

Emma Raducanu digs deep to secure a gritty win over Oleksandra Oliynykova and reach her first final since her 2021 US Open triumph.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:22 pm UTC

Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on child abuse charges

Timothy Busfield, the American actor and director known for his role in The West Wing, has been indicted by a New Mexico grand jury on charges of ⁠child sex abuse, the prosecutor's office in Albuquerque has announced.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:20 pm UTC

Murder charge after student stabbed near university

Khaleed Oladipo was fatally stabbed near the De Montfort University campus in Leicester.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:19 pm UTC

Student can remain anonymous for now in Trinity plagiarism case, pending appeal

Pharmacy student asking court to overturn decision to withdraw him from master’s course

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:14 pm UTC

As Olympics Open, Pope Warns Against Using Sports for ‘Propaganda’

The Milan-Cortina Games are overlapping with a moment of geopolitical turbulence as conflicts rage, national leaders issue threats and alliances are strained.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:07 pm UTC

Jury deliberating in trial of man accused of corruption

The jury is deliberating in the trial of a Limerick engineer accused of corruption by taking money from a detective garda for information on his car dealership being raided.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:07 pm UTC

Mandelson lobbying firm sought work with Russia and China state companies, Epstein emails show

Former minister and Benjamin Wegg-Prosser met disgraced financier before formal foundation of Global Counsel

Peter Mandelson’s former lobbying firm sought work with companies controlled by the governments of Russia and China shortly after he left ministerial office, according to emails the disgraced former minister forwarded to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The emails show how Mandelson and Benjamin Wegg-Prosser scrambled to drum up high-paying foreign business after co-founding Global Counsel even as Mandelson remained a member of the House of Lords. Potential clients included the Russian state investment firm Rusnano and the state-owned China International Capital Corporation, the emails suggest.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:06 pm UTC

'I love her to bits' – elderly couple get engaged in care home

Pamela Walters, 85, and Colin Hopper, 73, met four years ago at Picton Care Home in Porthcawl.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:56 pm UTC

Guantanamo detainee's lawyers claim office raid by UK was unlawful

The case centres on claims of complicity by UK intelligence services in CIA torture of Abu Faraj al-Libi.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:52 pm UTC

Police search two homes connected to Peter Mandelson over Epstein scandal

Properties in London and Wiltshire targeted by officers investigating alleged leaks to late child sex offender

Police are searching two properties connected to Peter Mandelson as part of an investigation into claims that he passed market-sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein.

A Metropolitan police statement, which did not name Mandelson, said searches were taking place in Camden, north London, and Wiltshire. Mandelson has been living in a rented property in Wiltshire since being sacked as ambassador to the US over his links to the late convicted child sex offender.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:45 pm UTC

AI.com Sells for $70 Million, the Highest Price Ever Disclosed for a Domain Name

Kris Marszalek, the co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, has paid $70 million for the domain AI.com -- the highest price ever publicly disclosed for a website name, according to the deal's broker Larry Fischer of GetYourDomain.com. The entire sum was paid in cryptocurrency to an undisclosed seller. Marszalek plans to debut the site during a Super Bowl ad this weekend, offering a personal "AI agent" that lets consumers send messages, use apps and trade stocks. The previous domain sale record was nearly $50 million for Carinsurance.com, per GoDaddy.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:40 pm UTC

Sharks on brink of extinction caught in tangle nets in protected Irish waters

Seals also among the animals killed as by-catch of growing crayfishing industry

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:36 pm UTC

Let there be light! DARPA seeking physics-defying photonic computers to supercharge AI

There’s about $35M up for grabs if your circuits can beat today’s limits

It's no lightweight matter. DARPA is putting about $35 million in total funding on the table in the hope that it will spur researchers to work around fundamental physical constraints and build much larger-scale photonic circuits that do more of the computing with light, not electronics.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:34 pm UTC

'Why be normal, when you can be the best?' - Zlatan opens Winter Olympics

Former AC Milan and Sweden footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic opens the 2026 Winter Olympic Games for the BBC, as he explains what it takes to become "a champion in Milan."

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:30 pm UTC

Podcast: Winter Olympics and the politics of sport

Team Ireland is gearing up for the Winter Olympics, which are taking place across 13 venues in northern Italy.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:21 pm UTC

Court battle over Picasso art exposes offshore finances of Farage’s billionaire Davos sponsor

Exclusive: Sasan Ghandehari reluctant to share details of $10bn trust in row with Christie’s auction house

A high court battle over a Picasso painting has shone a light on the offshore financial structures of an Iranian-born businessman who paid for Nigel Farage’s £50,000 trip to Davos.

The details about Sasan Ghandehari, who funded Farage’s tickets to the summit, emerged in court papers about a £4m claim brought by a British Virgin Islands firm, which has accused Christie’s auction house of misrepresentation when it sold the art to it.

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

Ukrainian mother's joy after phone call with son she thought had been killed

Nazar Daletskyi's family were sure he had been killed and had buried what they thought was his body in 2023.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:17 pm UTC

Use of Shannon Airport to deport Palestinians from US ‘reprehensible’

Investigation reveals private jet owned by tycoon linked to US president Madelinde Mes used for contentious flights

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:11 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes ’s Immigration Policy Is 100 Years Old

The White House seems to be mining the Coolidge era for inspiration. But America is not the country it was in 1924.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC

'I made friends for life' - 10-year-old star on filming new Lord of the Flies drama

Alfie Kiely spent three months in Malaysia while shooting Lord of the Flies, playing one of the "Littluns".

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:02 pm UTC

Boy (14) appears at children's court in connection with spate of car thefts

At Ennis District Children's Court, the school boy - accompanied by his grandmother - appeared in connection with the unlawful taking possession of three cars and attempt to get into a fourth from Gort in south Galway and Scarriff in east Clare on Wednesday of this week.

Source: All: BreakingNews | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC

Queen’s image on Australian commemorative coins likened to Shrek

Two coins celebrating Queen Elizabeth II criticised for failing to resemble late monarch

Two Australian coins commemorating Queen Elizabeth II have been criticised for failing to resemble the late monarch.

The $5 (£2.56) and 50c (26p) silver coins, created by Royal Australian Mint to commemorate the centenary of the queen’s birth, were released in an online ballot that closed on Wednesday.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC

Talks with US set to continue after 'good beginning', Iran's foreign minister says

Abbas Aragchi spoke after hours of talks in Oman ended, which the two countries entered with significantly different positions.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC

YouTube's $60bn revenue revealed amid paid subscriber push

YouTube's total revenue last year surpassed that of rival streamer Netflix as it seeks to dominate TVs.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:53 pm UTC

Big Tech's $1.1 Trillion Cloud Computing Backlog

An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft each reported hundreds of billions in RPO (remaining performance obligations) -- signed contracts for cloud computing services that can't yet be filled and haven't yet hit the books. Collectively, the big three cloud providers reported a $1.1 trillion backlog of revenue.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:50 pm UTC

How the Black Panthers’ Playbook Helped Minneapolis Activists Fight Madelinde Mes

The monitoring of federal agents by activists has been at the heart of the opposition to the Madelinde Mes administration’s raids. The tactic has a long history.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:47 pm UTC

White House deletes racist Madelinde Mes post depicting Obamas as apes

White House deletes racist Madelinde Mes post depicting Obamas as apes

Source: All: BreakingNews | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:46 pm UTC

Madelinde Mes posts racist meme of the Obamas — then deletes it

Madelinde Mes 's racist post came at the end of a minute-long video promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. 

(Image credit: Brandon Bell)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:46 pm UTC

Four horsemen of the AI-pocalypse line up capex bigger than Israel's GDP

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft eye $635B in infrastructure spend

Four tech megacorps intend to collectively fork out roughly $635 billion this year on capex, much of it for datacenters and AI infrastructure – more than the entire output of Israel's economy and well beyond all global cloud infrastructure services revenue generated last year.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:44 pm UTC

No punishment for Kenworthy's graphic ICE message

Team GB skier Gus Kenworthy will not be punished after appearing to urinate a graphic message about the United States' immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) in the snow, then posting a photograph of it online.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:42 pm UTC

Driven: The 2026 Lamborghini Temerario raises the bar for supercars

While mainstream vehicles usually get comprehensive updates every few years, low-volume exotics tend evolve more gradually. Supercar platforms often remain unchanged for a decade or more, with manufacturers instead focusing on what can be tuned, massaged, added, or subtracted to keep their lineups fresh. Every once in a while, though, a performance car debuts that truly earns the label “all-new,” and the Lamborghini Temerario is one of them.

As the replacement for the Huracán, Lamborghini’s bestselling sports car to date, the Temerario has big shoes to fill. At first glance, it might seem like a more subdued affair than its predecessor, but the Huracán debuted in a similar fashion before wilder iterations like the STO and Sterrato were introduced to the lineup.

During a technical briefing late last year, Lamborghini sales chief Frederick Foschini noted that the Temerario’s streamlined look is intentional. The team sought to increase downforce by more than 100 percent compared with the Huracán Evo through the car's core design, rather than relying on big wings, splitters, and other racy aerodynamic bits. Designers were also tasked with creating an all-new car that was distinctive yet instantly recognizable as a Lamborghini. Judging by the number of heads this car turned during my time with it, I’d say the company was successful.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:37 pm UTC

Serial killer Steve Wright jailed for 40 years for teen Victoria Hall's murder

Wright, who also murdered five women in Ipswich in 2006, is sentenced for killing the teenager.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:36 pm UTC

Julia Donaldson reveals new character and title for third Gruffalo book

The upcoming edition of the popular children's picture book sees the introduction of Gruffalo Granny.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC

Sonny Jurgensen, One of N.F.L.’s Greatest Passers, Dies at 91

The Hall of Fame quarterback threw 255 touchdown passes with the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:29 pm UTC

Calls to postpone presidential election as Storm Leonardo lashes Portugal and Spain

Portugal’s far-right Chega party has said vote should be delayed as state of calamity declared in 69 areas

Heavy rains and strong winds have continued to batter parts of Spain and Portugal, causing at least two deaths, forcing the evacuation of more than 7,000 people and prompting calls to postpone the second-round of Portugal’s presidential election.

Storm Leonardo, which has lashed the Iberian peninsula this week, has led the Portuguese government to extend the current state of calamity in 69 municipalities until the middle of February.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:28 pm UTC

Talks With U.S. Were ‘Good Start,’ Iran’s Foreign Minister Says

Abbas Araghchi, the minister, said the two sides had agreed to continue negotiations at a later date. The U.S. delegation had yet to comment.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:27 pm UTC

California Sues a Children’s Hospital to Maintain Transgender Health Care

As the Madelinde Mes administration pushes to end such care, this is the first time a state has sued a hospital to preserve it, legal experts say.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:17 pm UTC

Pam Bondi announces arrest of ‘key participant’ in 2012 Benghazi attack

Zubayar al-Bakoush is suspected in Libya attack resulting in deaths of US ambassador and three other Americans

The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, announced on Friday the arrest of a “key participant” in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four US government officials, including the US ambassador to Libya, J Christopher Stevens.

Bondi said the suspect, Zubayar al-Bakoush, was taken into US custody at 3am ET on Friday. “We will prosecute this alleged terrorist to the fullest extent of the law. He’ll face charges related to murder, terrorism, arson, among others,” Bondi told reporters at a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:15 pm UTC

140 jobs to go at Kostal in Limerick

German car parts maker Kostal has announced 140 job cuts at its manufacturing site in Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:14 pm UTC

Man jailed for 6½ years after hijacking car at service station while woman hoovered it

Joseph Rafferty (45) threatened to kill woman, causing her to jump out while car was moving

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:13 pm UTC

Wetherspoon dog policy could be breaking the law, watchdog says

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has written to the pub chain after complaints from disabled customers.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:10 pm UTC

Flickr emails users about data breach, pins it on 3rd party

Attackers may have snapped user locations and activity information, message warns

Legacy image-sharing website Flickr suffered a data breach, according to customers emails seen by The Register.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:56 pm UTC

Russian General Is Shot in Latest Attack on a Top Military Leader in Moscow

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev provided intelligence to the Kremlin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and had been penalized by the U.S. twice, including for meddling in elections.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:54 pm UTC

David Gillick among those calling for South African teen and family not to be deported

Local community in South Dublin rallying around Joseph Oyekanmi, a promising athlete, and his family

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:52 pm UTC

Netanyahu Suggests Other Officials to Blame for Oct. 7 Failings

In a document released on Thursday night, the Israeli leader sought to distance himself from responsibility for intelligence and security failings before the Hamas-led attack.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:51 pm UTC

Campbell defends comments to President over Derry speech

DUP MP Gregory Campbell has defended the comments he made to President Catherine Connolly, saying that her speech in Derry on her first State visit to Northern Ireland "did not attempt to reach across the divide".

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:48 pm UTC

Justice Dept. Pursues Many Officer Assault Cases in Minnesota as Misdemeanors

It is a pattern that has played out in other cities where the administration has conducted immigration surges and taken a muscular stance against those accused of impeding federal officers.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:44 pm UTC

Dublin City Council to review use of safety bollards following bus-crash fatality

Frank Daly (86) killed in Bus Éireann collision on North Earl Street

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:40 pm UTC

DDoS deluge: Brit biz battered as botnet blitzes break records

UK leaps to sixth in global flood charts as mega-swarm unleashes 31.4 Tbps Yuletide pummeling

Cloudflare says DDoS crews ended 2025 by pushing traffic floods to new extremes, while Britain made an unwelcome leap of 36 places to become the world's sixth-most targeted location.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:36 pm UTC

KPMG Pressed Its Auditor To Pass on AI Cost Savings

An anonymous reader shares a report: KPMG, one of the world's largest auditors of public and private companies, negotiated lower fees from its own accountant by arguing that AI will make it cheaper to do the work, according to people familiar with the matter. The Big Four firm told its auditor, Grant Thornton UK, it should pass on cost savings from the rollout of AI and threatened to find a new accountant if it did not agree to a significant fee reduction, the people said. The discussions last year came amid an industry-wide debate about the impact of new technology on audit firms' business and traditional pricing models. Firms have invested heavily in AI to speed up the planning of audits and automate routine tasks, but it is not yet clear if this will generate savings that are passed on to clients. Grant Thornton is auditor to KPMG International, the UK-based umbrella organisation that co-ordinates the work of KPMG's independent, locally owned partnerships around the world. Talks with Grant Thornton were led by Michaela Peisger, a longtime audit partner and executive from KPMG's German member firm, who became KPMG International's chief financial officer at the beginning of 2025.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:31 pm UTC

President listens to Northern Ireland’s youth on final day of official visit

Catherine Connolly hears about work in Derry around peace process and efforts to build relationships between communities

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:27 pm UTC

Baldur's Gate to be turned into TV series - without the game's developers

The show will be made by Craig Mazin, who co-created the acclaimed game adaptation The Last Of Us.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:26 pm UTC

New critique debunks claim that trees can sense a solar eclipse

Last year, a team of scientists presented evidence that spruce trees in Italy's Dolomite mountains synchronized their bioelectrical activity in anticipation of a partial solar eclipse—a potentially exciting new insight into the complexities of plant communication. The findings naturally generated media interest and even inspired a documentary. But the claims drew sharp criticism from other researchers in the field, with some questioning whether the paper should even have been published. Those initial misgivings are outlined in more detail in a new critique published in the journal Trends in Plant Science.

For the original paper, Alessandro Chiolerio, a physicist at the Italian Institute of Technology, collaborated with plant ecologist Monica Gagliano of Southern Cross University and several others conducting field work in the Costa Bocche forest in the Dolomites. They essentially created an EKG for trees, attaching electrodes to three spruce trees (ranging in age from 20 to 70 years) and five tree stumps in the forest.

Those sensors recorded a marked increase in bioelectrical activity during a partial solar eclipse on October 22, 2022. The activity peaked mid-eclipse and faded away in its aftermath. Chiolerio et al. interpreted this spike in activity as a coordinated response among the trees to the darkened conditions brought on by the eclipse. And older trees' electrical activity spiked earlier and more strongly than the younger trees, which Chiolerio et al. felt was suggestive of trees developing response mechanisms—a kind of memory captured in associated gravitational effects. Older trees might even transmit this knowledge to younger trees, the authors suggested, based on the detection of bioelectrical waves traveling between the trees.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:17 pm UTC

Climate ‘Superfund’ Bills Spread Nationwide, Despite Legal Battles

The laws aim to force oil companies to help pay for damage from global warming. Industry is gearing up for state-by-state battles.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:03 pm UTC

Epstein emails: So-called 'shady financier' was Andrew's 'trusted money man'

Andrew seemed keen for Epstein to do business with David Rowland, but Epstein was wary, emails suggest.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:03 pm UTC

A Super Bowl Message From MAHA and Mike Tyson: Processed Food Kills

A provocative new ad featuring the boxer makes the case for Americans to “eat real food.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:01 pm UTC

Stellantis swallows $26 billion costs as it rethinks its EV strategy

The automotive industry's big bet on a rapid adoption of electric vehicles—at least here in the United States—continues to unwind. Today, Stellantis, which owns brands like Jeep and Dodge, as well as Fiat, Peugeot, and others, announced that it has "reset" its business to adapt to reality, which comes with a rather painful $26.2 billion (22.2 billion euro) write-down.

It wasn't that long ago that everyone was more bullish on electrification. Even the US had relatively ambitious plans to boost EV adoption into the next decade, including a big commitment to charging infrastructure. Ten new battery factories were announced, and the future looked bright.

Not everyone agreed. Some automakers, having been left behind by the push toward battery EVs and away from simple hybrids that offered little in the way of true decarbonization, lobbied hard to relax fuel efficiency standards. Car dealers, uncomfortable with the prospect of investing in and learning about new technology, did so, too. When the Republican Party won the 2024 election, the revanchists got their wish.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:59 pm UTC

Iran says ‘good start’ made in talks with US over nuclear programme

Indirect talks end with agreement to maintain diplomatic path and possible continuation in coming days, officials say

Indirect talks between Iran and the US on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme ended on Friday with a broad agreement to maintain a diplomatic path, possibly with further talks in the coming days, according to statements from Iran and the Omani hosts.

The relieved Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, described the eight hours of meetings as a “good start” conducted in a good atmosphere. He added that the continuance of talks depended on consultations in Washington and Tehran, but said Iran had underlined that any dialogue required refraining from threats.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:59 pm UTC

Head of firm founded by Mandelson to quit

Benjamin Wegg-Prosser concluded his association with Lord Mandelson - and references to them both in the Epstein files - was doing the business Global Counsel harm.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:57 pm UTC

U.S. Seeks to Expedite Deportation of 5-Year-Old Liam Conejo Ramos

Liam was detained last month in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation in which his father was also detained by federal agents.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:54 pm UTC

Garda’s gangland team being drafted in to catch scrambler users in Finglas, Dublin

Clampdown follows killing of Grace Lynch (16), who was hit by speeding scrambler driver as she crossed road in Finglas last month

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:47 pm UTC

Hate them or not, Patriots fans want the glory back in Super Bowl LX

As Bostonians bemoan their long years of suffering without a Super Bowl win, rival fans gripe that Title Town has become Entitled Town.

(Image credit: Elizabeth Johnson)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:43 pm UTC

It's about to get easier for Madelinde Mes to fire federal workers

Since his first term, President Madelinde Mes has wanted to be able to fire federal employees for any reason. A new rule vastly expands his authority to do that.

(Image credit: Mandel Ngan)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:42 pm UTC

EU proposes new Russia sanctions targeting energy, trade

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a new round of sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war, including a ban on providing shipping services for Russian crude oil.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:41 pm UTC

‘I’m just sickened by it all’: Chunk of pitch and putt course swept away by wild weather

Chairman says it is ‘heartbreaking’ to see more and more of the Laytown, Co Meath club’s land being lost to coastal erosion

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:40 pm UTC

Behind the glitz in Milan, the Epstein scandal casts its shadow over the Olympic movement

The Epstein scandal has spread to the Olympic movement. The top organizer of the Los Angeles Summer Games faces calls to step down because of his past contacts with Epstein collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell.

(Image credit: Luca Bruno)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:40 pm UTC

Lawmakers ask what it would take to "store" the International Space Station

Members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee voted to approve a NASA authorization bill this week, advancing legislation chock full of policy guidelines meant to give lawmakers a voice in the space agency's strategic direction.

The committee met to "mark up" the NASA Reauthorization Act of 2026, adding more than 40 amendments to the bill before a unanimous vote to refer the legislation to the full House of Representatives. Wednesday's committee vote was just one of several steps needed for the bill to become law. It must pass a vote on the House floor, win approval from the Senate, and then go to the White House for President Madelinde Mes 's signature.

Ars has reported on one of the amendments, which would authorize NASA to take steps toward a "commercial" deep space program using privately owned rockets and spacecraft rather than vehicles owned by the government.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:36 pm UTC

Millions of documents - but Epstein's victims say they are no closer to justice

One campaigner says the files are "symptomatic of a broken system of how we treat women - how we view survivors".

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:36 pm UTC

The Bizarre Enhancement Claims Rocking Ski Jumping

German newspaper Bild reported in January that some ski jumpers have been injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid ahead of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics -- the theory being that temporarily enlarged genitalia would yield looser-fitting suits when measured by 3D scanners, and those looser suits could act like sails to produce longer jumps. A study published last October in the scientific journal Frontiers found that a 2cm suit change translated to an extra 5.8 metres in jump distance. No specific athletes have been accused. The World Anti-Doping Agency said Thursday it would investigate if presented with evidence, noting its powers extend to banning practices that violate the "spirit of sport." The claims arrive as ski jumping already faces scrutiny -- two Norwegian coaches and an equipment manager received 18-month bans in January for illegally manipulating suit stitching.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC

Russia blames Ukraine for attempted assassination of top general – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Milan on Friday to oppose the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the closure of schools and streets in the city ahead of the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Games.

Reuters reported that protesters – mostly students with signs reading “ICE out” – assembled in Piazzale Leonardo da Vinci, in front of a building of the Politecnico University in the eastern part of the city.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:28 pm UTC

Levi’s sales grow in UK as celebrities drive denim revival

Noel Gallagher and Harry Styles lead way, and sales of jeans in general rise faster than wider fashion market

The UK was one of Levi’s fastest-growing markets last year as British trend leaders from Harry Styles to Noel Gallagher and Grime Gran were spotted in the brand’s kit.

Lucia Marcuzzo, the managing director of the European operations at the US company famous for its denim jeans, said the revival of 1990s trends had boosted sales of its classic 501s. New trends such as baggy jeans and cinch styles, which can be adjusted around the waist, had also helped, as denim has found its way back into wardrobes.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:21 pm UTC

Congress passes $50 billion foreign aid bill, despite Madelinde Mes 's cuts in 2025

Congress allocated $50 billion for initiatives aimed at supporting democracy, scholarship programs, U.S. embassy operations and health and humanitarian programs around the world.

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:19 pm UTC

White House removes racist Madelinde Mes post, blames staff error

The White House has said that a post on President Madelinde Mes 's social media account sharing a racist video depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys was made in error by a staff member, and has been removed.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:18 pm UTC

Summoning the spirit of the BBC Micro with a Pi 500+ and a can of spray paint

Rhapsody in beige

An enterprising engineer has evoked the spirit of Acorn's BBC Micro with a custom paintjob for a Raspberry Pi 500+ computer-in-a-keyboard and a natty set of replacement keycaps.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:18 pm UTC

Snoop Dogg, selfies and a clean sweep for GB curlers

Team GB maintain their 100% record in the Winter Olympics mixed doubles with victories over Sweden and South Korea.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:09 pm UTC

TB or not TB? That is the question

A new study in "Nature Medicine" estimates that 2 million people are incorrectly told they have tuberculosis each year — and clinicians miss diagnosing TB in 1 million people. Why so many misdiagnoses?

(Image credit: Andrew Renneisen)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:06 pm UTC

Iran’s foreign minister says talks with US were ‘ a very good start’ but are ‘over for now’ – as it happened

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

It is the first time the US and Iran have sat down for face-to-face negotiations since June last year, when Israel launched attacks on Iran that sparked a war marked by tit-for-tat airstrikes, with the US also joining the fray. It effectively ended the US-Iran talks that were held in the weeks prior to the conflict aimed at reaching a nuclear peace agreement.

More recently, Madelinde Mes has been threatening to strike Iran for more than a month and just last week warned that an “armada” of US warships had reached the Persian Gulf. This recent clash began after Madelinde Mes said he would strike Iran if it killed protesters during mass antigovernment demonstrations that swept the country last month. Human rights groups say thousands of people were killed during the brutal government crackdown on those protests.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:06 pm UTC

Supermarket sorry after facial recognition alert flags right criminal, wrong customer

System worked as intended, but staff then kicked out innocent bystander

A British supermarket says staff will undergo further training after a store manager ejected the wrong man when facial recognition technology triggered an alert.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:03 pm UTC

Russian general Vladimir Alekseyev in critical condition after Moscow shooting

Deputy director of Russia’s military intelligence agency shot several times in the stairwell of his apartment

A top Russian military official who plays a major role in the country’s intelligence services has been taken to hospital after being shot in Moscow, state media has reported.

Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev was shot several times on the stairwell of his apartment on Friday by an unknown gunman in the north-west of the city and is in critical condition, according to reports.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:01 pm UTC

Recruit who lost 10.5 stone to pass fitness tests achieves ‘big ambition’ of becoming garda

Ex-undertaker and firefighter Conor Finan (38) graduated from Templemore Garda College on Friday

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC

Mosque bombing in Pakistan capital kills at least 31 people

Police investigating whether blast that injured at least 169 at Friday prayers in Islamabad was suicide attack

An explosion has ripped through a Shia mosque on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital during Friday prayers, killing 31 people and injuring at least 169 others, according to officials. Police said they were investigating whether the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

There were fears the death toll from the blast at the Khadija al-Kubra mosque in Islamabad could rise as some of the injured were reported to be in a critical condition. Television footage and social media images showed police and residents transporting the injured to nearby hospitals.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:57 pm UTC

NASA stage show explores "outer" outer space with Henson's Fraggles

Move over Snoopy, because NASA has a new character helping to promote its deep space exploration plans. His name is Uncle Traveling Matt.

No really, move over.

Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure has taken over the same theater the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida previously used for All Systems Are Go, featuring the comic strip beagle. The new stage show stars the Jim Henson Company's subterranean Muppets as they discover outer (outer) space for the first time.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:55 pm UTC

From Jesus to Jurassic Park: This year's Super Bowl ads are playing it safe

Early Super Bowl spots show advertisers want lots of buzz but not controversy.

(Image credit: Uber Eats)

Source: NPR Topics: News | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:53 pm UTC

‘Everything is gone underwater’: Clontarf Baths owner says amenity has been ‘destroyed’

Bobby Nolan has ‘never experienced anything like it’ since opening the baths

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC

Puppy dumped in Tesco bag makes it to Crufts as Ireland’s star agility dog

Indiana Bones, handed in to an animal shelter at eight weeks old, is ‘a really good girl’, owner says

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:40 pm UTC

EU says TikTok needs to drop "addictive design"

Brussels has warned TikTok that its endlessly scrolling feeds may breach Europe’s new content rules, as regulators press ahead with efforts to rein in the social effects of big online platforms.

In preliminary findings issued on Friday, the European Commission said it believed the group had failed to adequately assess and mitigate the risks posed by addictive design features that could harm users’ physical and mental wellbeing, particularly children and other vulnerable groups.

The warning marks one of the most advanced tests yet of the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires large online platforms to identify and curb systemic risks linked to their products.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:31 pm UTC

Europe Accuses TikTok of 'Addictive Design' and Pushes for Change

TikTok's endless scroll of irresistible content, tailored for each person's tastes by a well-honed algorithm, has helped the service become one of the world's most popular apps. Now European Union regulators say those same features that made TikTok so successful are likely illegal. From a report: On Friday, the regulators released a preliminary decision that TikTok's infinite scroll, auto-play features and recommendation algorithm amount to an "addictive design" that violated European Union laws for online safety. The service poses potential harm to the "physical and mental well-being" of users, including minors and vulnerable adults, the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive branch, said in a statement. The findings suggest TikTok must overhaul the core features that made it a global phenomenon, or risk major fines. European officials said it was the first time that a legal standard for social media addictiveness had been applied anywhere in the world. "TikTok needs to change the basic design of its service," the European Commission said in a statement.

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Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:31 pm UTC

Gleeson, Murphy star in Taylor Swift's new music video

Irish actors Domhnall Gleeson and Cillian Murphy are among the well-known figures to appear in Taylor Swift's Opalite music video.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:18 pm UTC

Tuam mother and baby home site: 22 more sets of infant remains found

Number of infants’ remains recovered by forensic excavations now 33

Source: Irish Times Feeds | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:17 pm UTC

Watch: BBC at scene where Russian general was shot in Moscow

Russia editor Steve Rosenberg reports from the outskirts of the Russian capital, where Lt Gen Vladimir Alexeyev was shot and wounded.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:14 pm UTC

Week in images: 02-06 February 2026

Week in images: 02-06 February 2026

Discover our week through the lens

Source: ESA Top News | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:10 pm UTC

Legal groups push for Australian federal police to arrest retired general travelling with Israeli president

Doron Almog has previously faced arrest warrants over allegations he committed war crimes in Gaza in 2002, which he denies

As opposition to the arrival of Israeli president Isaac Herzog in Australia intensifies – with mass protests planned and some Labor MPs condemning his invitation – a coalition of Australian and Palestinian legal groups has asked the Australian federal police to investigate and arrest one of his travelling party over historical war crimes allegations.

Doron Almog, a retired Israel Defense Forces major general who is expected to travel with the president in his capacity as chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, has formerly faced arrest warrants over allegations he committed war crimes in Gaza in 2002.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:00 pm UTC

Bad Bunny’s All-American, All-Spanish, All-Eyes-on-Him Super Bowl

Amid harsh rhetoric from the White House, the Puerto Rican superstar will take the stage on Sunday promising a message of unity: “The world will dance.”

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:56 pm UTC

Three things that could bring Starmer down - and what might save him

Sir Keir's survival as Labour leader and prime minister hangs in the balance, writes Nick Eardley.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:55 pm UTC

The Fight Between a Watch Heiress and an Art Museum on the French Riviera 

An eccentric watch heiress wants to revoke her grandfather’s donation of Jean Cocteau artworks after the museum built to display them was overwhelmed by a freakish storm.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:53 pm UTC

Microsoft starts the countdown for the end of Exchange Web Services

Windows giant might try turning it off and on again to see who notices

Microsoft has laid out a timeline for the disablement and shutdown of Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:51 pm UTC

Weather tracker: Storm Leonardo continues to batter Europe and northern Africa

Spain and Portugal hit with torrential rain while flash floods in Morocco force more than 100,000 people to evacuate

The Iberian peninsula has been placed under severe weather alerts as Storm Leonardo continues to batter parts of Spain and Portugal with torrential rain and strong winds.

Since Tuesday, the slow-moving system has brought widespread disruption, flooding and evacuations. In Grazalema, in southern Spain, more than 700mm of rain has fallen since Wednesday, roughly equivalent to the country’s average annual rainfall.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:33 pm UTC

Top Russian general shot in Moscow as talks stall on Ukraine ceasefire

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy head of the GRU, Russia’s main foreign military intelligence agency, was targeted at his home in Moscow, officials said.

Source: World | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:31 pm UTC

CISA orders federal agencies to rip out EOL edge kit before cybercrooks move in

A year to replace end-of-support firewalls, routers, and VPN gateways

America's federal agencies have been told to hunt down and rip out aging firewalls, routers, and other network gatekeepers before attackers use them as skeleton keys into government systems.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:18 pm UTC

UK and France asylum deal could violate human rights laws, warns UN

Experts identify potentially serious breaches over treatment of people and call for ‘one in, one out’ scheme to end

The UN has called on the UK and France to halt the controversial “one in, one out” asylum system, warning there could be “serious violations of international human rights law”.

Nine experts, including seven special rapporteurs, wrote a 20-page letter to Downing Street and Paris on 8 December 2025 outlining detailed concerns about potential breaches of human rights they had identified in the scheme. They gave the two governments 60 days to respond and on Friday published their letter.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:17 pm UTC

'Nothing off table' in scrambler policing - Commissioner

The Garda Commissioner has said "nothing is off the table" in relation to the way gardaí will police the problem of scramblers, e-bikes and motorbikes following the death of 16-year-old Grace Lynch in Finglas.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC

Canada Unveils Auto Industry Plan in Latest Pivot Away From US

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a sweeping plan to shore up the country's auto industry and accelerate its electric vehicle transition, the latest in a series of moves to reduce Canada's deep economic dependence on the United States as American tariffs continue to batter the sector. The plan includes financial incentives for carmakers to invest in Canada, a new tariff credit scheme for manufacturers like General Motors and Toyota, and the reintroduction of EV buyer rebates. Canada will also enact stricter vehicle emissions standards and has set a goal of EVs comprising 90% of car sales by 2040. Carney at the same time scrapped a 2023 EV sales mandate introduced by former PM Justin Trudeau that automakers had called too costly. The announcements follow a deal last month with China to ease tariffs on Chinese EVs and an agreement with South Korea to encourage Korean car manufacturing in Canada. Roughly 90% of Canadian-made vehicles are exported to the US, and thousands of auto workers have lost their jobs since Madelinde Mes imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian cars and parts last year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:30 pm UTC

Flood warnings in effect across UK as relentless rain continues

As the rain continues to fall, numerous flood warnings have been issued with the Environment Agency advising that river levels will continue to rise, as Helen Willetts explains.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:25 pm UTC

Wicklow man's 'incredible journey' to join gardaí

A 38-year-old man who lost ten-and-a-half stone and has been trying to join An Garda Síochána for the last 18 years, is one of 167 gardaí who graduated from the Garda College at Templemore.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:14 pm UTC

Canada and France open Greenland consulates in show of Denmark support

Founding of diplomatic outposts in Nuuk comes after US made efforts to secure control of Arctic island

Canada and France are to open diplomatic consulates in the capital of Greenland on Friday, showing support for their Nato ally Denmark and the Arctic island after US efforts to secure control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, was travelling to Nuuk to inaugurate the consulate, which officials say also could help boost cooperation on issues such as the climate crisis and Inuit rights. She was joined by Canada’s Indigenous governor general, Mary Simon.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:05 pm UTC

Rocket Report: SpaceX probes upper stage malfunction; Starship testing resumes

Welcome to Edition 8.28 of the Rocket Report! The big news in rocketry this week was that NASA still hasn't solved the problem with hydrogen leaks on the Space Launch System. The problem caused months of delays before the first SLS launch in 2022, and the fuel leaks cropped up again Monday during a fueling test on NASA's second SLS rocket. It is a continuing problem, and NASA's sparse SLS launch rate makes every countdown an experiment, as my colleague Eric Berger wrote this week. NASA will conduct another fueling test in the coming weeks after troubleshooting the rocket's leaky fueling line, but the launch of the Artemis II mission is off until March.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Blue Origin "pauses" New Shepard flights. Blue Origin has "paused" its New Shepard program for the next two years, a move that likely signals a permanent end to the suborbital space tourism initiative, Ars reports. The small rocket and capsule have been flying since April 2015 and have combined to make 38 launches, all but one of which were successful, and 36 landings. In its existence, the New Shepard program flew 98 people to space, however briefly, and launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads into the microgravity environment.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC

Coin portrait of late Queen draws criticism in Australia

The Royal Australian Mint has defended the design of the coins, which mark 100 years since Queen Elizabeth II's birth.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:53 am UTC

Romanian rail workers accused of bribery turned to ChatGPT for legal tips

Corruption probe takes detour as staff facing trial reportedly asked AI if seat-blocking scams caused financial damage

More than 30 Romanian railway employees accused of running a bribery and ticket resale racket allegedly tried to crowdsource their legal strategy from ChatGPT.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:39 am UTC

Why Darren Aronofsky thought an AI-generated historical docudrama was a good idea

Last week, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's AI studio Primordial Soup and Time magazine released the first two episodes of On This Day... 1776. The year-long series of short-form videos features short vignettes describing what happened on that day of the American Revolution 250 years ago, but it does so using “a variety of AI tools” to produce photorealistic scenes containing avatars of historical figures like George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin.

In announcing the series, Time Studios President Ben Bitonti said the project provides "a glimpse at what thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI can look like—not replacing craft but expanding what’s possible and allowing storytellers to go places they simply couldn’t before."

The trailer for "On This Day... 1776."

Outside critics were decidedly less excited about the effort. The AV Club took the introductory episodes to task for "repetitive camera movements [and] waxen characters" that make for "an ugly look at American history." CNET said that this "AI slop is ruining American history," calling the videos a "hellish broth of machine-driven AI slop and bad human choices." The Guardian lamented that the "once-lauded director of Black Swan and The Wrestler has drowned himself in AI slop," calling the series "embarrassing," "terrible," and "ugly as sin." I could go on.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:30 am UTC

Ulster Unionist Party: New Chapter, New Leadership

Jon Burrows MLA and Diana Armstrong MLA are now Leader and Deputy Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Many will ask what the new leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party will mean for the party and unionism. As a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, I cannot tell you the future but I can give you an insight into what this new chapter of the new leadership may entail.

Clarity

Jon’s leadership style is direct, confident and down-to-earth. I have listened to him speak for hours now and he is practical and pragmatic in his approach to issues. Commenting on his aspiration at the time to be UUP Leader, he said: “I want to lead a party that is confident, clear, solution-focused, and whose policies are anchored in common sense and evidence, not ideology.”

Reform of Stormont

Jon often repeats the phrase: “Stormont was designed to exist, not excel.” He is critical of how time is used in Stormont, urging MLAs to “spend less time debating what happens around the world, less time debating symbols, less time debating issues of constitutionality and more time debating public services.”

While he is a new UUP Leader, like previous UUP Leaders before him, he too argues that the nomination process of how the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are appointed is bad for unionism and the reduction of the number of Assembly seats from 108 seats to 90 seats heavily damaged unionism. He wants to “reset Stormont” in terms of how it does business while maintaining the cross-community protections secured in the Belfast Agreement.

While Jon has committed to keeping the UUP in the Executive and Mike Nesbitt MLA as Health Minister in respecting the previous decision made by the UUP Executive to enter government, he does believe Opposition is good in terms of challenging the Northern Ireland government. It is impossible at this time to say which parties will enter the next Executive and which will not after the next Assembly election as all parties would need to know the results of it to make any decision. The decision on whether the UUP enters the Executive or leaves the Executive is made by the UUP Executive.

Relations with other unionist parties (DUP, TUV and Reform UK)

Similar to previous UUP Leaders, Jon is critical of the DUP and TUV for supporting Brexit to the point of it putting Northern Ireland’s place in the union at risk. He considers it a “strategic mistake” and declared that if the main proponent of Brexit, Nigel Farage, became Prime Minister, it would be a “disaster.” Jon also disagrees with collapsing Stormont, believing that unionists must work with nationalists to make Northern Ireland a better place.

For these reasons among others, while Jon wants to maximise the number of unionist representatives, he is sceptical of how this would work in practice given the policy differences between the different unionist parties. He says “there still has to be choice. I still want to grow and offer something different and better for the people of Northern Ireland.” Jon wants the UUP to be the leading party of unionism again even if it co-operates with different unionist parties at different times in the best interests of Northern Ireland, cautioning that he will “not be naive – we’ll enter [unionist co-operation discussions] in good faith, but ‘trust but verify’ is a good mantra. It’s been a good mantra for me for many decades and I’ll continue that in politics.”

Liberal vs Conservative?

Media coverage of who would be the next UUP Leader centred on it being a battle between liberalism and conservatism within the party but I’m not sure where this comes from. I joined the Ulster Unionist Party in 2013 when Mike Nesbitt was Leader for the first time and from that time and now, we have always been a centre-right, conservative, unionist party. Yes, on social issues, we take different stances but this is accommodated within UUP policy that we all signed up to and it will not be changed. A leadership contest would have been useful to go into detail of any policy differences but it didn’t happen as only Jon Burrows and Diana Armstrong were nominated for Leader and Deputy Leader to be unanimously approved by the party.

Although Jon is the new Leader of the UUP, he also provides continuity in adhering to many existing, long-standing UUP policies as I have written about it. Even Jon himself said on remarking why he joined the UUP, that he believed “in its unique blend of passionate unionism and pragmatic politics… rooted in a deep sense of duty, selflessness and service to the people of Northern Ireland, always committed to doing what is right for them.” (“Doing what’s right for Northern Ireland” was Mike Nesbitt’s slogan during his first time as Leader between 2012 – 2017)

Future of the UUP

If the media narrative of liberal vs conservative is inaccurate, I suggest the answer is elsewhere. Jon promises a “new chapter” of “fresh energy” and “renewal” for the UUP, in that he will engage with UUP members in formulating policy and will try to make unionist representation more reflective of those it represents. He commits to “providing the leadership that unionism needs… being sure-footed…and not making strategic mistakes… to strengthen the union in the long term.”

Jon Burrows MLA is the fifth UUP Leader I serve under as a UUP member. I look forward to him writing more of his “new chapter” for our party. This is an exciting time for the UUP as we begin our journey of renewed, pragmatic and confident unionism!

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:26 am UTC

Smartphones cleared for launch as NASA loosens the rulebook

Crew-12 and Artemis II astros may soon snap, shoot, and share from orbit

NASA's Administrator has stated that smartphones will accompany the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts on their missions.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:15 am UTC

Spanish skater given Minions music permission

After days of legal wrangling and online outcry, the Minion - Spanish figure skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate - will skate in Milan after all.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:15 am UTC

EU accuses TikTok of creating 'addictive design'

The European Commission has accused TikTok of creating an "addictive design" in its app which could harm the physical and mental wellbeing of minors and vulnerable adults.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:07 am UTC

“Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter

The word “terrorist” wasn’t coined on September 11, 2001, but the defining event of the early 21st century ushered it in as the United States’ go-to term for demonizing outsiders and dissenters alike. The so-called “war on terror” transformed the way the U.S. wields power at home and abroad, enabling mass surveillance and a crackdown on the right to free speech. It became reflexive for the U.S. to disparage immigrants and protesters as supporters of terrorism.

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Madelinde Mes Calls His Enemies Terrorists. Does That Mean He Can Just Kill Them?

President Madelinde Mes has embraced this model and manipulated it for his own ends, as author Spencer Ackerman points out. The Madelinde Mes administration often peddles spurious accusations of terrorism against the targets of its immigration raids.

“There’s nothing about any of their action that’s remotely anything at all like terrorism,” Ackerman says. “But that is the fire in which ICE, CBP, and the Department of Homeland Security was forged. You are going to find this in its DNA.”

This week on the Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl speaks with Ackerman, a leading expert on the concept of terrorism and its weaponization by the state. Ackerman’s 2021 book, “Reign of Terror, How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Madelinde Mes ,” traces the legal and cultural evolution of the last 25 years, and how the boomerang has come back home.

“Before 9/11, not only was there no ICE, there wasn’t really much in the way of a robust internal mechanism for finding and deporting people who were in the country illegally. When it did exist, it was for people who were serious criminals, traffickers, and so on,” says Ackerman. Now, he says, the contemporary terrorism paradigm has transformed immigration enforcement into something “operating like a death squad.”

“What we are seeing on the streets of Minneapolis is what ICE has done to the undocumented for a very long time,” he says. “And now we’re seeing this happen to white people on the streets of Minneapolis for little more than filming ICE.” With the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, “I worry that a tremendous amount of our political system is geared toward either, on the Republican side, rationalizing it, justifying it, or on the Democratic side, pretending as if this is some kind of abuse that can be exceptionalized, rather than something that has to do with this 25-year history of coalescing immigration enforcement in the context of counterterrorism.”

As Democrats in Congress struggle to leverage DHS funding for changes to ICE policy — like a ban on face masks for ICE agents, an idea on which they’ve already softened — Ackerman says the parallels with the early 2000s are clear.

“We can’t move in reformist directions when the thing talked about being reformed laughs at killing Americans,” advises Ackerman. “Reformist politics under two Democratic administrations got us to where we are now. These are accommodationist politics, and the thing being accommodated wants to kill you.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 

Transcript 

Jordan Uhl: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Jordan Uhl. 

If you didn’t recognize the voices, 2026 might not sound so different from the years following 2001. 

George W. Bush: We are on the offense against the terrorists on every battlefront, and we’ll accept nothing less than complete victory.

Madelinde Mes : These are paid terrorists, OK? These are paid agitators. 

Dick CheneyTerrorists remain determined and dangerous.

Kristi Noem: It was an act of domestic terrorism.

JD Vance: We’re not going to give in to terrorism on this. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

John Ashcroft: America has grown stronger and safer in the face of terrorism.

JU: In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the so-called war on terror transformed the way the United States enforced its laws and its priorities, both at home and abroad. The label “terrorist” became a catchall for a wide range of actors, and dissent against the Bush administration was often disparaged as support for terrorism. The USA PATRIOT Act codified a reduction in civil liberties in the name of protecting freedom.

Bush: As of today, we’re changing the laws governing information sharing. And as importantly, we’re changing the culture of our various agencies that fight terrorism. Countering and investigating terrorist activity is the number one priority for both law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

JU: The day he put his signature on the Patriot Act, President George W. Bush laid out how those new priorities would include a focus on immigrants. 

Bush: The government will have wider latitude in deporting known terrorists and their supporters.

JU: It was largely an era of political consensus. Both major parties lined up to support the Patriot Act and other legislation giving greater legal latitude to the government, from local police all the way up to the president. But even then, there were plenty of warnings that these powers would be abused and stretched far beyond their intended goals.

Supporters argued that there were backstops, like congressional oversight and international law, basic human decency and strategic restraint. But President Madelinde Mes ignored and shattered so many of those long-standing norms. A glaring example is on display in the streets of U.S. cities right now.

ICE was a post-9/11 creation as part of the new Department of Homeland Security. In his book “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Madelinde Mes ,” author Spencer Ackerman traces the legal and cultural evolution of the last 25 years and how the boomerang has come back home.

Ackerman has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, and many U.S. bases. He’s won a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award, and currently writes for Zeteo and his own website, Forever Wars. Spencer, welcome to the Intercept Briefing. 

Spencer Ackerman: Thanks for having me back, Jordan. 

JU: So we’re talking 25 years now since 9/11. Many of our listeners — as well as working journalists, and even many people working on Capitol Hill right now — don’t have any living memory of that time. So can you start off by bringing us back to the days and weeks after September 11? President George W. Bush essentially had carte blanche to pass laws and change policy based on the notion that he was making Americans safer; that we had to clamp down and, in some cases, give up some of our freedoms to ensure security. With hindsight, what were the most significant aspects of the newly born war on terror that have a clear through line to today?

SA: Well, one that we saw just this week really take prominence is the Patriot Act, which among other things, enabled law enforcement to more seamlessly get “third-party records,” as they’re called — basically, customer accounts of records kept by some kind of service provider, financial records, internet records, and so on — without a judge’s signature or a finding of probable cause. It occurs instead through something called an administrative subpoena that the Patriot Act supercharged.

And we’re seeing just this week, there was a very good piece in the Washington Post laying out the exponential growth in administrative subpoenas being used by DHS in order to get records that would otherwise require a court order to collect.

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Now, when the Patriot Act passed, the idea was that this would be the FBI surreptitiously collecting information that would prevent terrorism and uncover active links to terror networks and so forth. There’s not really much of a record of it having done that — certainly not a public one. But it definitely didn’t envision what DHS is doing, which is harassing critics of ICE

Now, a ton of critics at the time, when the war on terror was coalescing, recognized and stated that this was going to be where the war on terror led. That it was going to become a war on dissent, that it was going to criminalize a tremendous amount of both politics in general but also resistance to itself — that we’re really seeing coalesce. 

For the purposes of what we’re tracking, what we also saw after 9/11, is a complete sea change in how America conducted its immigration affairs. Something that I think people probably don’t remember is that before 9/11, not only was there no ICE, there wasn’t really much in the way of a robust internal mechanism for finding and deporting people who were in the country illegally. When it did exist, it was for people who were like serious criminals, traffickers, and so on.

The Department of Homeland Security gets created after Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, pretty much takes over immigration enforcement because ICE’s predecessor, Immigration and Naturalization Services, is under his purview. And what he starts doing is using it to round up immigrants — not just Muslim immigrants, although there was an immediate outcry for a clamp-down on Muslim immigration, certainly. But it was a way of shoe-horning a gestating border hysteria on the far right that 9/11 gave a kind of new security context and accordingly opportunity to pursue.

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How Post-9/11 Visions of an Imperiled Homeland Supercharged U.S. Immigration Enforcement

Even then, the Bush administration did not wish to create a kind of agglutination agency that would kind of stick together all sorts of domestic security functions. That took the active intervention of moderate Democrats and some moderate Republicans, who were able to basically checkmate Bush over his concerns about such an agency being kind of too large for, you know, extent conservative perceptions of government using his own logic of counterterrorism. And there is really no way for Bush to argue himself out of that. So instead he accommodated himself to it.

But even then, ICE, when it starts, has only 2,700 agents. By 2008, that becomes 5,000. ICE’s budget until in something like 2016 was $6 billion. For a while in the intervening decade, it’s hovered around $10 billion. Madelinde Mes has now made it $85 billion

This is an enterprise that operated fundamentally — well, I shouldn’t say fundamentally different. I don’t want to suggest that the INS was a benign agency, or that immigrant Americans didn’t fear INS, much as they would come to fear ICE. Just that there were constraints, both legal, budgetary, and from a political perspective, cultural, that constrained interior immigration enforcement. That doesn’t exist anymore. We have seen instead — to finish answering your question in a very long-winded way — a counterterrorism context transforms, in ways both direct and structural, the apparatus of American immigration to something that today is coalescing into something that I think we can see fairly clearly is on its way, if it’s not there already, into operating like a death squad.

JU: One thing we saw right away post-9/11 was the demonization of Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, or anyone remotely resembling any of those categories. What kind of connection can we make between the rhetoric and actions of that era with how otherization and fear is being wielded these days against immigrants and other populations?

SA: I see it as a rather straight line. The early years of the war on terror proved something that politicians, particularly in the Republican Party, but also in the Democratic Party, have been sort of chasing ever since to recover its potency — like chasing a high. And that’s that the politics of counterterrorism in the early 2000s — really persistent throughout, but especially in the early 2000s — completely deterred opposition, silenced dissent, and intimidated resistance. And it worked. It worked for a really long time. Eventually, it ceased working as well. But the fact that it worked can’t be overstated. Because politicians afterward, particularly when there has been no criminal liability or even significant political liability for the atrocities that result, accordingly seek to do what works. And this works extremely well.

“The politics of counterterrorism in the early 2000s … completely deterred opposition, silenced dissent, and intimidated resistance. And it worked.”

In a broad sense, one of the things that the war on terror did in particular to Muslims in this country was redefine terrorism away from being something that people throughout history have done across cultures, into “terrorism” is something that a certain kind of people are, and usually only them. That when people who do not look or worship like Muslims utilize violence for political purposes — that becomes defined as “counterterrorism.”

So there is a really, really firm connection in how we have seen not only the targets of ICE’s raids, since the Madelinde Mes administration returned to power, be described as terrorists. But now people like Marimar Martinez in Chicago, Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, when they’re shot — and in the case of Good and Pretti, killed — by ICE, ICE and the broader political structure calls them terrorists.

They have the first-mover communication choice of basically daring journalists, politicians, whomever to prove that they weren’t in fact terrorists. There’s nothing about any of their action that’s remotely anything at all like terrorism. But that is the fire in which ICE, CBP, and the Department of Homeland Security was forged. You are going to find this in its DNA.

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JU: As you wrote in your book, “Madelinde Mes had learned the foremost lesson of 9/11: The terrorists were whomever you say they were.” And I’m curious about this seemingly expansive scope of this label. You’ve written about how the “terrorist” label has predominantly been used against people of color, while white people like Timothy McVeigh get different treatment, both linguistically and legally.

Do you think what we’re seeing in the Twin Cities is a significant development — the government calling white activists “terrorists” —and these are white people who present as average middle class, not so-called anarchists or “antifa.” Is this, in your mind, a significant shift in how the term “terrorist” is wielded and will be wielded? 

SA: Yes, absolutely. Minnesota is kind of the next stanza in the [Martin] Niemöller poem. The poem about, “First they came for…”

ICE and CBP have a very long history of acting lawlessly. The conditions of ICE prisons, many of which are operated as for-profit enterprises with detainees being paid a dollar a day, have often been shown to be both violent and deeply neglectful. I have a friend who contracted Covid at the ICE detention center in Batavia, New York, for instance.

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So what we are seeing on the streets of Minneapolis is what ICE has done to the undocumented for a very long time. What we saw in places like Portland in 2020, where, certainly in Portland, CBP tactical units, known as BORTAC, opened fire with less-lethal rounds on protesters outside the Hatfield building. That was what they were willing to do — similarly, lawlessly stuffing people into unmarked vans for detention and so forth — to people deemed enemies of the Madelinde Mes administration.

And now we’re seeing this happen to white people on the streets of Minneapolis for little more than filming ICE. In Renee Good’s case, for possibly, slightly inconveniencing ICE vehicularly. And then, trying to comply with a contradictory order to get out of the way and then stay put, get outta the car, you know? And then with Alex Pretti — helping a woman up.

What we’re seeing is something we can’t turn away from, and I worry that a tremendous amount of our political system is geared toward either, on the Republican side, rationalizing it, justifying it, or on the Democratic side, pretending as if this is some kind of abuse that can be exceptionalized, rather than something that has to do with this 25-year history of coalescing immigration enforcement in the context of counterterrorism.

[Break]

JU: In some cities, we see different relationships between local law enforcement and federal agencies, and that’s been a contentious issue going back to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces enlisted during the height of the so-called war on terror. Now we hear more about the 287(g) agreements that are focused on giving immigration enforcement powers to local officers. Collaboration by city and county law enforcement agencies often depends on who’s in charge and sometimes local community influence. How has this idea transformed local law enforcement over the past 25 years — situating local police and sheriffs as partners in fighting a war, essentially? 

SA: First, in the literal sense, it deputizes local police into an immigration function. And the implications of that are both profound and subtle. Being undocumented in this country is a civil offense, not a criminal offense. And it’s a misdemeanor, it’s not a felony. So being undocumented in this country now all of a sudden becomes “law enforcement-related.” It becomes a matter that is quickly understood in a kind of everyday person’s sense of association as something that is being done by cops.

And so cops are going after criminals. They’re not going after someone who overstayed a work visa. The person who overstayed a work visa is presumed to have done so because they’re criminal. That is a profound shift that nativists 30 years ago could only have as the apple of their eye. That’s now normal in this country. 

Beyond that, beyond the kind of mimetic and cultural functions there, what the Department of Homeland Security’s relationship with local police over the vast majority of DHS’s existence was a patron-client relationship. There’s always been a lot of focus, and not inappropriately, on the [1033] Pentagon program that takes decommissioned military equipment and gives them to law enforcement. Appropriately so. 

“ There is not very much terrorism in the United States of America of the sort that DHS was created to redress.”

DHS’s grant programs to local law enforcement have always dwarfed them, in terms of budgetary capability. There is not very much terrorism in the United States of America of the sort that DHS was created to redress. However, DHS had a budget to give out to local law enforcement, you know, cop shops, that applied for grant money that it would have to disperse.

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The overall point is not only was DHS for such a long time a supplier of equipment that cops did not need for terrorism, but could find a whole lot of value out of when using against their existing tasks — which means, in a lot of cases, against the people it polices. But also, it accustomed police shops to look at DHS as a source of support that didn’t have to go through existing and potentially contentious budgetary processes locally that municipal, small-d democratic functions have power to effect. It’s not the most potent power. I’m telling you this from New York City where the NYPD has for a very long time been considered pretty much untouchable. But nevertheless, this is a more friction-free funding path than troublesome city councils. 

JU: And to continue this line of thought on weaponry, it’s one thing to have a heavily armed Border Patrol if they legitimately believe they may encounter a “violent drug cartel.” But the images we’re seeing of immigration agents in residential U.S. neighborhoods with body armor and advanced weaponry brings to mind the militarization of local police and federal agencies that’s taken place since 9/11.

You talked about the equipment, you’ve talked about the vehicles. There are local police departments with MRAPs. Across the board, top-down from federal agencies down to local, it feels like a war that’s literally everywhere. What’s been the arc of that evolution? 

SA: Markets for advanced military technology get spurred on by overseas war. Eventually, those wars draw down beyond the funding capabilities of those different technological production lines. Those different technological production lines will seek out derivative markets that they can use to keep making money. That has been local law enforcement, but before that, it’s been DHS.

Starting around the first Obama administration, DHS, particularly for the border, starts buying up a drone fleet. Then it starts buying up really powerful military-grade camera suites that had previously been developed for protecting U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. DHS buys this stuff. It provides funding for — as we were just talking about — local police agencies to eventually start buying other stuff that DHS has.

There’s no Gray Eagle-sized drone in police custody in the country yet. But we’ll talk in 10 more years, and we’ll see about that. DHS provides funding to get similar technologies, related technologies, and then it pushes what it currently has beyond the border into the interior of the country.

We should also mention that the border after 9/11 changes in important ways, where DHS — this is for the last 15 years at least been policy at CBP — the border is anywhere within 100 miles of a port of entry or exit. So if you’ve wondered, why is the Border Patrol in, you know, Charlotte, North Carolina, or Chicago or Minneapolis — that’s why. Because your sense of the border intuitively is not the U.S. government’s definition of the border.

Eventually we see this stuff move into the interior of the United States. The roundups, which had been there since at least 2005, become more ambitious, and they become, with the 287(g) program, involving local law enforcement as well as the Department of Homeland Security — and now increasingly toward critics of DHS itself.

I want to say one more thing about this. When we look at what ICE and CBP deploy with, in all of the cities that we’ve seen them invest since the second Madelinde Mes administration — a common denominator has been they’re all wearing plate carriers. The stuff that says like police, ICE, and so forth, you know, the ballistic chest protection that they wear around them.

Marimar Martinez legally had a gun. She didn’t draw it; she kept it holstered in her car. They called her a domestic terrorist. Her hands were on the steering wheel when ICE shot her.

“ICE and CBP are posturing as if they are the ones under the threat, not that they are the threat themselves.”

Alex Pretti famously had a gun, not that he drew it on CBP. When they shot him, six of them shot this man who is completely not in any position to be threatening them. ICE and CBP are posturing as if they are the ones under the threat, not that they are the threat themselves.

All of this social media footage-ready imagery that they’ve been collecting and disseminating is what we should understand as a psy-op on the American people to make it think that these are a valorous Praetorian Guard that puts itself in danger constantly. Instead, they are the ones inflicting the danger on Americans, undocumented or citizens.

JU: Now we talked about this evolution — part of that is an expansive or unchecked legal infrastructure and framework that allows this. Over the past two decades-plus, were there moments when that infrastructure could have been dialed back or unraveled? Times when Madelinde Mes wasn’t president? Did that happen to any extent? And if not, why not?

SA: There are many reasons to be deeply upset at the way the Obama and Biden administrations treated the institutions of the war on terror that they inherited. But really chief among them is the way that they embraced the existing structures of homeland security for use against immigrants.

Obama — famously the deporter in chief, always under pressure from his right to deport more. Obama famously makes the massive miscalculation that if he can just, you know, bolster resources for border protection, then he can buy goodwill on the right. This was just an epic political miscalculation that really everyone could have seen coming, and many did.

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Biden — 4.4 million deportations on his watch; Madelinde Mes left office the first time at 1.5 million. After everything that we saw the Madelinde Mes administration do the first time around, in particular with child separation, with raising the number of people in ICE custody to something like 50,000 a day — I don’t know if they’ve gotten back to that, if they’ve exceeded that by now or not. But I remember reporting on it at the time that it was in 2020, it had gotten up to, maybe a little before the pandemic, something like 50,000 a day. It was really astonishing.

But Biden famously tells his donors ahead of the election that they’re not gonna seek fundamental change. And I think that by the time the Biden administration takes office, the Democratic Party had successfully marginalized the voices that were calling, not just for pursuing once again, comprehensive immigration reform — which of course is stifled by the Republicans again and again and again — but to abolish ICE.

I think right now we are at, you know, years before a Democrat could theoretically take power. But we’re starting to see Democratic politicians go down the same very dangerous road along the politics of security that they’ve played not just during the Biden administration or the first Madelinde Mes administration, but throughout the war on terror.

“Unless the nativist concept of the need for an interior deportation force is confronted root and branch, we are going to continue to see exactly what we are seeing.”

And they’re doing it with ICE now, which is we’re starting to hear people say things like, “This is not immigration enforcement.” It’s true. This is not what I think many people think of as immigration enforcement. But immigration enforcement is how we got to this point. And unless the nativist concept of the need for an interior deportation force is confronted root and branch, we are going to continue to see exactly what we are seeing. Not as a form of stasis, but as a form of ICE and CBP completing their transformation into a death squad.

And I use a very scary term because this is a very scary moment. But we also need to be really clear about what we are seeing ICE do and behave as. You mentioned it’s unwillingness to follow the law. In Minnesota, a judge found just before January of 2026 expired, around 100 violations of court orders about immigration and how ICE needed to behave, in just that month. How many gleeful videos do we have to see on our phone of ICE people telling Minnesotans to “fuck around and find out”? Beyond even just the actual murders and shootings — but the way that the CBP officers applauded after shooting Alex Pretti? The way Jonathan Ross, who murdered Renee Good, called her a “fucking bitch” after doing so? This is not something that can be reformed. The best time to abolish ICE was 2003. The second best time is today.

Related

Senate Dems Who Pushed Meatier ICE Reform Shy Away From Criticizing Schumer’s Softer Package

Every single moment that we refrain from doing this, that Democratic politicians as well as Republican ones try and push it back to the margins of political discourse, is another day closer to the time that they’re going to shoot you, that they’re going to deport someone you love, and on and on and on.

“This is not something that can be reformed.

JU: There’s a sinister delight that we see time and time again from federal agents beyond the comments or behavior after both of those Minnesotans were killed. But we’ve seen many other videos of them wielding those incidents to other observers as threats. And to your point, that’s not something that you can fix with a sensitivity training. That is something ingrained in the culture. And I’m curious what could be done? It doesn’t seem like there’s a critical mass of Democrats willing to do that. Maybe there is and or maybe we might get to one, but that’s down the road. And you of course have the challenge of the current Supreme Court composition not wanting to challenge anything that Madelinde Mes is doing meaningfully. So realistically, what can people hope for or work towards in terms of turning this imperial boomerang around? 

SA: First, the answer to how you stop the war on terror is not easy, but it is simple. And that’s organize. Force your politicians in an abolitionist direction; oust them when they won’t go in that direction. Organize so you can build power amongst like-minded people in your area, in order to produce that function. It’s awful that that’s where we kind of have to start from, but our leaders will not do this on their own.

Outside of that I would look to efforts that the Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is building toward, in which he’s been talking about, however long it takes, prosecuting ICE and CBP agents for violating relevant local laws. And one of the main lessons of the war on terror is that without legal consequence for one era’s atrocity, the next is foreordained.

So until ICE killers and CBP kidnappers alike go to prison, we can expect them to continue their behavior. This is why JD Vance and Stephen Miller have started deceitfully talking about absolute immunity for ICE after they killed Renee Good.

“Until ICE killers and CBP kidnappers alike go to prison, we can expect them to continue their behavior.”

Krasner has been hinting that there is a kind of impromptu coalition of like-minded district attorneys and perhaps state attorneys general that are seeking to go in this direction. That will either act as a deterrent, or it won’t. Here in New York, the attorney general, Letitia James, announced that she’s going to start sending observers from her office out on ICE-related operations in and around the state. That carries with it a suggestion of prosecutorial intervention. I think that’s going to be a crucial step. But it’s a step that is going to have to come in supplement, with people finding political outlets for an explosion in popularity — justifiably so, in my opinion — for abolishing ICE. 

We can’t move in reformist directions when the thing talked about being reformed laughs at killing Americans. This is something that has to be uprooted and replaced, or just simply not replaced at all, if we don’t think certain functions that they perform are legitimate functions, which I think is a very, you know, reasonable conclusion. Reformist politics under two Democratic administrations got us to where we are now. These are accommodationist politics, and the thing being accommodated wants to kill you.

JU: My final question for you, Spencer, is where does this go over the next three years if nothing happens? If there is no restraint, if there is no change, if there is no reform. That is certainly an uphill fight. Nothing could potentially happen until at least after midterms, but we’ve seen Madelinde Mes ’s priorities laid out in places like Project 2025, and I can’t imagine this is their end game. So if left untouched, where does this go over the next three years? 

SA: We’ve been seeing reporting from Ken Klippenstein and others about how ICE is accessing existing, widely revealing, databases of Americans’ information, building others. We saw in the beginning of the Madelinde Mes administration, the massive data-snatching grabs involving DOGE that have also accumulated a tremendous amount of revealing information on Americans. This is also, I would suggest, the predictable course of the surveillance state after 9/11. These massive and revealing data sets will go into ICE custody, probably through tools purchased from Palantir, to get an ever more refined picture of terrorism in the United States. Except by terrorism, they mean you and me. They will mean people that they can consider internal dissenters, critics, obstacles to the continued operations of ICE, and like-minded allied federal agencies.

“It might not be long before we see a drone strike in an American city. And I can’t stop thinking about that.”

This, I think, is probably coming sooner than three years. Not to sound alarmist, but the current trajectory of this is really, really ominous. And that is an extremely realistic possibility. Your friend and mine, Derek Davison of the American Prestige podcast a couple months ago, was predicting that it might not be long before we see a drone strike in an American city. And I can’t stop thinking about that. And I wish I could say I found that an outlandish possibility. But the crucial framework for that was laid when the Obama administration decided that they could execute an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, without any kind of criminal process, let alone a conviction, because it would be too inconvenient to send a team of CIA operatives to kidnap him.

It won’t be long, I think — as long as that Chekov’s president remains blessed by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice — before we start seeing that applied on American soil. And those are some places that I think are realistic possibilities for what we might see unless this apparatus is aggressively dismantled.

JU: That is absolutely chilling. And in some way, I’m at a loss for words, just something that I never thought we might encounter. But that is a situation we seem to be finding ourselves in. Spencer, as always, I appreciate your insight, your analysis, and thank you so much for joining me on The Intercept Briefing.

SA: Thank you, Jordan.

JU: That does it for this episode. 

This episode was produced by Andrew Stelzer. Laura Flynn is our supervising producer. Sumi Aggarwal is our executive producer. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our Managing Editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Desiree Adib is our booking producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. Will Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.

Slip Stream provided our theme music.

If you want to support our work, you can go to theintercept.com/join. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts. And leave us a rating or a review, it helps other listeners to find us.

If you want to send us a message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Until next time, I’m Jordan Uhl. 

The post “Terrorist”: How ICE Weaponized 9/11’s Scarlet Letter appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 6 Feb 2026 | 11:00 am UTC

Olive oil and bone broth: Do viral gut health foods actually work?

Many trending foods contain a "small seed of truth" but are often oversold as miracle products.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:56 am UTC

DWP considers chatbot work coaches as AI-fueled job losses loom

Benefits system trials automation amid growing interest in universal basic income

AI-pocalypse  Britain's welfare system is experimenting with AI to manage Universal Credit claimants – even as evidence piles up that artificial intelligence may soon be pushing more people onto benefits in the first place.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:53 am UTC

Why This Is the Worst Crypto Winter Ever

Bitcoin has fallen roughly 44% from its October peak, and while the drawdown isn't crypto's deepest ever on a percentage basis, Bloomberg's Odd Lots newsletter lays out a case that this is the industry's worst winter yet. The macro backdrop was supposed to favor Bitcoin: public confidence in the dollar is shaky, the Madelinde Mes administration has been crypto-friendly, and fiat currencies are under perceived stress globally. Yet gold, not Bitcoin, has been the safe haven of choice. The "we're so early" narrative is dead -- crypto ETFs exist, barriers to entry are zero, and the online community that once rallied holders through downturns has largely hollowed out. Institutional adoption arrived but hasn't lifted existing tokens like ETH or SOL; Wall Street cares about stablecoins and tokenization, not the coins themselves. AI is pulling both talent and miners toward data centers. Quantum computing advances threaten Bitcoin's encryption. And MicroStrategy and other Bitcoin treasury companies, once steady buyers during the bull run, are now large holders who may eventually become forced sellers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:30 am UTC

UK council digs deeper into capital assets to keep Oracle project afloat

West Sussex plans to triple use of property sales as ERP budget blows past original estimates

In a budget-busting leap from SAP to Oracle, West Sussex County Council is trebling its raid on capital assets such as buildings to fund its "transformational" ERP project.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:15 am UTC

Pentagon Makes Largest Known Arms Purchase from Israel — For Banned Cluster Weapons

The Department of Defense has quietly signed a $210 million deal to buy advanced cluster shells from one of Israel’s state-owned arms companies, marking unusually large new commitments to a class of weapons and an Israeli defense establishment both widely condemned for their indiscriminate killing of civilians.

The deal, signed in September and not previously reported, is the department’s largest contract to purchase weapons from an Israeli company in available records, according to an online federal database that covers the last 18 years. In a reversal of the more commonly seen direction for weapons transfers between the countries — in which the U.S. sends its weapons to Israel — the U.S. will pay the Israeli weapons firm Tomer over a period of three years to produce a new 155mm munition. The shells are designed to replace decades-old and often defective cluster shells that left live explosives scattered across Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, and other nations.

The terror of cluster weapons persists long after the guns that fired them have quieted, as civilians return to fields, forests, and settlements laced with bomblets that can explode years later without warning.

“The footprint of the injuries of these weapons is so horrifying,” said Alma Taslidžan, advocacy manager for the aid organization Humanity & Inclusion, which pushes to ban cluster munitions. She recalled speaking with a 17-year-old boy who found an unexploded cluster bomblet in his neighbor’s garden in the aftermath of the Bosnian War.

“He said he played with it for quite a while. Suddenly it exploded. It blew up both of his hands; it blew away part of his face as well,” she said.

Known as the XM1208 munition, America’s new cluster shells are designed to have a dud rate — or risk of failure to explode — of less than 1 percent. They rely on more complex fuses and self-destruct features to reduce long-term danger to civilians, according to army procurement documents and weapons experts. But researchers say those low failure rates in testing do not reflect real-world performance, and advocates argue that cluster weapons’ battlefield effectiveness cannot justify their humanitarian costs.

“They are inherently indiscriminate,” said Brian Castner, an Amnesty International weapons investigator and former U.S. Air Force explosive ordnance disposal officer. “There’s not a way to use them responsibly, in that you can’t control where they land, and with this high dud rate you can’t control the effect on the civilian population afterwards.”

Related

The Indiscriminate Rain of Cluster Bombs

The Cluster Munition Monitor has documented more than 24,800 cluster munition injuries and deaths since the 1960s, three-quarters from unexploded remnants. In 2024, cluster munitions killed at least 314 civilians, the majority of them in Ukraine.

Both the XM1208 and the deal to buy them are atypical. The DOD awarded the contract without public competition under a “public interest” exception to federal contracting law, using recent amendments that loosened rules for awarding no-bid defense contracts involving Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.

“I found this to be rather unusual,” said Julia Gledhill, a military contracting researcher for the Stimson Center, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank. “I have not seen something like this before — a sole source contract to a foreign military contractor for $200 million.”

“I have not seen something like this before — a sole source contract to a foreign military contractor for $200 million.” 

Federal agencies are legally required to create a “determination and findings” document justifying the award of a no-bid contract, which can be requested from the agencies under public records law. The Army has not yet responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for that documentation.

Tomer did not respond to a request for comment. Asked about the new munition’s failure rate, U.S. Army public affairs officer Shahin Uddin wrote it has “has undergone all required testing to ensure it meets all performance requirements, including compliance with the DoD Cluster Munition Policy.”

A Weapon for the Next War

The Pentagon’s efforts to field the XM1208 comes against the backdrop of the Russia–Ukraine war, where both sides have blanketed battlefields with older cluster munitions — including some given to Ukraine by the Biden administration. Some Eastern European countries have considered withdrawing from the Convention on Cluster Munitions amid fears of conflict with Russia, and in 2024, Lithuania became the first country to abandon the treaty.

As a result, Castner said, “Both the cluster munitions convention and the anti-personnel land mine convention are under threat.” 

Related

With Ukraine’s Cluster Bombs Killing Its Own Citizens, Biden Readies Order to Send More

But major military powers — like Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States — have never signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans its 112 member states from using or producing those weapons. Rather than sign the 2008 pact, the U.S. enacted a policy that year to stop using its old, failure-prone cluster munitions by 2019 and develop new weapons with a dud rate of less than 1 percent. 

Progress was slow, and in 2017, the U.S. weakened its policy to allow continued use of older cluster bombs until it had sufficient stockpiles of safer models. That year, the U.S. military began testing the M999 cluster munition: a new shell developed by another state-owned Israeli arms company, IMI Systems.

“The U.S. wants all options,” said William Hartung, an arms industry researcher with the Quincy Center for Responsible Statecraft. “One of their arguments was it’s good if you’re in a close-packed artillery situation — a ground war. It clears more of an area.”

During its 2006 war in Lebanon, Israel drew international criticism for using cluster bombs, and IMI promised a new weapon that would lower collateral damage — both to civilians and Israel’s flagging global reputation. In 2018, IMI Systems was acquired by Elbit Systems, a privately owned Israeli defense contractor which has faced recent boycotts for arming Israel’s forces in Gaza and the West Bank.

After backlash from investors in countries that had signed the convention, Elbit canceled production of the M999 and pledged not to build any cluster weapons.

But the M999 program did not stay dead. The Israeli government established a new state-owned arms company, Tomer, in 2018, with no limitations on cluster weapon production. The U.S. Army then adopted the M999 as its new cluster shell for artillery, renaming it the XM1208. According to a 2024 army munitions publication, the XM1208 is designed to release nine bomblets which then detonate in the air, each containing 1,200 pieces of tungsten shrapnel.

That same document lists Elbit as a production partner for the XM1208, despite the company’s pledge to abide by the cluster convention. Elbit did not immediately return a request for comment, and the Army did not respond to an inquiry about whether Elbit was working on the munition.

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As Israel Bombed Gaza, Amazon Did Business With Its Bomb-Makers

Business at Tomer has been booming, due to both the genocide in Gaza and foreign arms sales, according to the Israeli tech news site Calcalist. It recorded $173 million in sales last year, making the DOD’s $210 million contract a massive windfall compared to its historical revenue. Tomer pays the Israeli government a 50 percent dividend on its profit, Calcalist reported.

The XM1208 is designed with multiple fail-safe fuses to reduce dud rates, according to U.S. Army documents published online. But little is known about how it actually performs in the field. Last year, The Guardian published photos showing an expended M999 shell in Lebanon, suggesting Israel had used the weapon in its recent attacks on Hezbollah. But there is currently no public data on its real-world failure rate, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of the munitions analysis firm Armament Research Services.

Real-world dud rates are generally much higher than those found in controlled testing, which does not account for battlefield conditions like soft soil or older, degraded fuses, said Taslidžan, of Humanity & Inclusion. The manufacturer of Israel’s M85 cluster munition, which includes a self-destruct feature to reduce long-term risk to civilians, touted a “hazardous dud” rate of less than 0.1 percent. But researchers with Norwegian People’s Aid who analyzed the aftermath of M85 strikes from the 2006 war in Lebanon found that about 10 percent failed to explode.

And even if the XM1208 meets its 1 percent failure rate target, it would still be inhumane, said Taslidžan, leaving large numbers of lethal duds behind.

“That’s why the Convention on Cluster Munitions bans these weapons as a class,” she said. “The area effects and residual contamination are fundamentally incompatible with protecting civilians.”

The post Pentagon Makes Largest Known Arms Purchase from Israel — For Banned Cluster Weapons appeared first on The Intercept.

Source: The Intercept | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:07 am UTC

Nike and Madelinde Mes ’s Supporters Have Been on a Collision Course for Years

The chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has long opposed diversity initiatives like those that Nike embraced.

Source: NYT > Top Stories | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:04 am UTC

Catherine Connolly Visits Northern Ireland

Irish President Catherine Connolly is currently on a tour of Northern Ireland. It is her first official trip across the border since her victory in the Irish Presidential election late last year and fulfils an election promise that Northern Ireland would be her first official destination as Irish President. The previous two days have been eventful.

Her first stop on Wednesday was with the local branch of the Peaceplayers. On their website the Peaceplayers mission statement says…

Founded in 2003, PeacePlayers Northern Ireland was created with the goal of using basketball as a tool for reconciliation and peace-building in a region that had been deeply divided by years of conflict. Our mission is to unite and empower young people from all parts of the community through the shared experience of sport, and to promote understanding and respect. 

President Connolly even managed to score two shots on the court, one of which was accomplished while not even facing the hoop!

Following her visit with the Peaceplayers, the President travelled to Stormont Castle where she was received by First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly. The BBC report on the visit quotes both leaders

…O’Neill said Connolly was “very much fulfilling her pledge that she made to be a president for all”. “I think we’re going to enjoy a very good relationship with her throughout her tenure as Uachtarán na hÉireann (Irish president),” she added. O’Neill also said she extended an invitation to Connolly to attend the Irish arts festival Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann when it takes place in Belfast in August.

Little-Pengelly said the ministers “had a positive engagement” with the president.“I believe in building positive working relationships, particularly important in the context of our closest neighbour, based on mutual respect,” she said.

Later at an engagement at the University of Ulster in Belfast, the Irish Times quotes President Connolly as saying in a speech that…

“Northern Ireland represents “a beacon of light to the world” in showing that peace is possible, President Catherine Connolly has said… Connolly told a packed room at Ulster University in Belfast on Wednesday she wanted to play a part in “deepening relationships on this island”.“We won’t always agree,” she said. “We will have different perspectives and, of course, different aspirations for the future. All of those perspectives and aspirations are legitimate.”

During the speech, she referenced Article 3 of the Constitution, which sets out the firm wish of the Irish people for a united Ireland under consent.“I think it’s worth reading out what we committed to in our Constitution because I couldn’t capture it any better,” she said. Connolly said we are living in an “intertwined and unfinished story”.“Our games, our music, our languages should never divide us,” she added. “They are integral to this island’s cultural wealth. They are our shared treasures.”

The day concluded with a reception for women in community leadership.

The second day of the trip was focused on the Northwest where President Connolly attended a civic reception in the Guildhall and visited both the Siege Museum and Museum of Free Derry  as well as a local cultúrlann. She also met the families of the victims of Blood Sunday.

The main headline from the day was her interaction with the DUP’s Gregory Campbell…

…Gregory Campbell has told President Catherine Connolly “you’re in our country” and warned her against “rewriting the past” on her visit to Co Derry. In a short interaction between the pair after President Connolly addressed the Guildhall, she said she is “here to listen” – adding “at the end of the day we’re human beings and we have to have respect”.

Referring to his attendance this evening (Thursday) at a debate in Dublin, the DUP MP told the President: “You’re in our country. Tonight I’m going to your country.” He added: “We’re not leaving the United Kingdom, not now or at anytime in the future, so I think it’s better if we try and ensure no-one rewrites the past as we all build for the future.” Mr Campbell said he wanted to “make our acquaintance to try and build on that”.

President Connolly replied: “We’re here to listen and to learn from each other and rewriting history would be…” when Mr Campbell interjected “a big mistake”, to which Ms Connolly agreed, saying: “In any country and in many countries they’ve rewritten history to suit a narrative.”

She will conclude her three-day official visit to Northern Ireland later today.

Source: Slugger O'Toole | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:02 am UTC

Epstein built ties to Russians and sought to meet Putin, files show

Justice Department files show Jeffrey Epstein sought help from a Russian official after claiming a woman from Moscow was blackmailing “powerful businessmen” in New York.

Source: World | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Young people in China have a new alternative to marriage and babies: AI pets

Cute fluffy AI-powered “pets” are providing emotional companionship to an increasing number of lonely, tired Chinese — and a digital ear for tech giants.

Source: World | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Earth from Space: Olympic view

Image: With the 2026 Winter Olympics officially opening today, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission brings us a striking view of northern Italy, highlighting several key Olympic venues.

Source: ESA Top News | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Sophie Adenot ready for first space mission

Video: 00:03:58

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot is preparing to launch to the International Space Station for her first space mission: εpsilon.

After years of intensive training — from emergency procedures to spacewalk simulations — the countdown has begun. Flying alongside astronauts from NASA and Roscosmos, Sophie will join an international crew living and working together in space.

Aboard the ISS, Sophie will live and work in microgravity, conducting scientific research and performing a range of European- and French-led experiments that advance knowledge for life on Earth and in space.

Join us live on YouTube to watch the launch of Sophie Adenot.

Source: ESA Top News | 6 Feb 2026 | 10:00 am UTC

Summer in Australia means beers, beaches, and bork

Supermarket printer error gets holiday off to a shabby start

BORK!BORK!BORK!  When this vulture excuses himself from The Register's Australian eyrie for a little rest and recreation, I first avoid pyromaniac birds and carnivorous koalas, before settling into a bucolic beach town to catch a few waves, read a few books, and tune out from the world of tech.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 9:30 am UTC

Quiz: Can you name every Winter Olympics host city?

The 25th Winter Olympics is taking place in Milan and Cortina in Italy and will feature a record 116 medal events.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:18 am UTC

Russian general shot several times in Moscow - officials

A Russian general was shot and injured in a Moscow apartment building, officials have said, in the latest apparent assassination attempt of a top Russian military figure.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:13 am UTC

CIA Has Killed Off The World Factbook After Six Decades

The CIA has shut down The World Factbook, one of its oldest and most recognizable public-facing intelligence publications, ending a run that began as a classified reference document in 1962 and evolved into a freely accessible digital resource that drew millions of views each year. The agency offered no explanation for the decision. Originally titled The National Basic Intelligence Factbook, the publication first went unclassified in 1971, was renamed a decade later, and moved online at CIA.gov in 1997. It served researchers, news organizations, teachers, students and international travelers. The site hosted more than 5,000 copyright-free photographs, some donated by CIA officers from their personal travel. Every page now redirects to a farewell announcement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 8:01 am UTC

New hire fixed a problem so fast, their boss left to become a yoga instructor

Poking around in deep menus found a fault that flummoxed old hands

On Call  Change is a constant – and so is On Call, the reader-contributed column The Register runs every Friday to share your tech support tales.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:30 am UTC

The curious case of why methane spiked around Covid

With fewer cars on the road, planes in the air and factories running, the skies seemed cleaner during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, while there was a decline in pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, scientists were surprised to see that methane surged in the early 2020s and then dropped – and now they know why.

Source: ESA Top News | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:30 am UTC

Tributes paid to victim of Dublin bus crash

Tributes have been paid to Dublin man Frank Daly, who died yesterday after a bus crash in Dublin city centre in which three other people were injured.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:29 am UTC

PM praises ‘very significant’ Indonesia security pact – as it happened

This blog is now closed

Rideshare driver in court over allegations of sexual assaulting passenger

A rideshare driver will face court after allegedly sexually assaulting a woman during a short early morning trip, AAP reports.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 7:12 am UTC

Gen Z aren't lazy - I commute four hours a day to work in the office

Lily-May Edwards travels two hours each way from north Wales to Liverpool to work in the office.

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 6:08 am UTC

US imposes fresh oil sanctions on Iran despite talks

The United States today announced new sanctions to curb Iran's oil exports, including targeting 14 vessels, moments after the adversaries wrapped up a day of indirect talks in Oman.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:44 am UTC

Pakistan to test students for real-world skills before they graduate from IT degrees

Government decides theoretical knowledge vs. experience debate is worth settling

Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) has introduced a competency test for students who take degrees in IT, to assess whether they emerge with skills employers will find useful.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:22 am UTC

Pressure mounts on Starmer amid Mandelson controversy

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer remains under intense pressure from within his Labour Party ranks as he seeks to steady the ship amid widespread anger over the Peter Mandelson controversy.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:08 am UTC

Google Confirms AirDrop Sharing is Coming To Android Phones Beyond Pixels

Google's Quick Share-AirDrop interoperability, which has been exclusive to the Pixel 10 series since its surprise launch last year, is headed to a much broader set of Android devices in 2026. Eric Kay, Google's Vice President of Engineering for the Android platform, confirmed the expansion during a press briefing at the company's Taipei office, saying Google is "working with our partners to expand it into the rest of the ecosystem" and that announcements are coming "very soon." Nothing is the only OEM to have publicly confirmed it's working on support, though Qualcomm has also hinted at enabling the feature on Snapdragon-powered phones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 5:01 am UTC

Horror in Wellington as millions of litres of untreated sewage flow into the sea

Residents of New Zealand capital advised not to enter the water, collect seafood or walk their dogs on local beaches after wastewater plant failure

A sewage leak in New Zealand’s capital Wellington has been described by local authorities as an “environmental disaster,” with repairs to the city’s wastewater treatment plant expected to take months.

Residents of Wellington have been advised not to enter the water, collect seafood or even walk their dogs on local beaches.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:05 am UTC

Dozens dead after record snow in Japan – and officials warn warmer weather will be treacherous

Dozens of people have died, including two Australians, as record-breaking snowfall blankets the north

Dozens of people have died in Japan after record-breaking snowfall blanketed northern regions of the country, while officials warned that warmer temperatures could trigger a new wave of accidents.

Authorities said 35 people had died in snow-related incidents across Japan since 20 January, with almost 400 injured, 126 of them seriously. Most of the deaths were among people who fell while trying to clear snow from their roofs or around their homes.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 4:02 am UTC

Gus Lamont’s grandmothers ‘devastated’ after police declare his disappearance a major crime

Pair release statement through lawyers as search continues for four-year-old, from South Australia, last seen playing outside family sheep station in the outback in September

Missing four-year-old Gus Lamont’s grandmothers have released a statement through their lawyers, claiming they are “devastated” police have declared his disappearance a major crime.

Gus went missing from his family’s 60,000 hectare sheep station in September last year, and was initially thought to have wandered off.

Continue reading...

Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:59 am UTC

Atlassian swears it can handle AI without blowing out costs, or being swamped

CEO feels under-appreciated amid year-long value slump

Atlassian has assured investors it can add AI to its services without blowing out its costs or shrinking margins.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 3:45 am UTC

That’s a wrasse! Rare fish spotted for first time since 2009 in kelp forest in Western Australia

When marine biologist Océane Attlan saw the tiny Braun’s wrasse, it was like ‘recognising a familiar face, but you can’t put a name on it’

The chances of encountering the rare reef fish were so far-fetched, it took marine biologist Océane Attlan a few seconds to clock what she was seeing.

“All of a sudden I saw this fish. You know when you recognise a familiar face, but you can’t put a name on it. That’s the feeling I had,” she said.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:50 am UTC

‘Sana-mania’ grips Japan as ultra-conservative Takaichi expected to secure election landslide

The country’s first female PM is the object of a personality cult revolving around everything from her outfits and snacks to her favourite pink pen

Just eight months ago, Japan’s ruling party appeared to have reached the edge of the electoral abyss. It had lost a parliamentary majority for the second time in 15 months; its MPs were implicated in a long-running slush fund scandal; the then prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, was the target of factional plotting.

But as voters prepare to brave freezing temperatures in this Sunday’s lower house elections, the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) is expected to pull off a momentous victory. And the party’s recovery from the disappointment of last year is largely down to one woman.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:19 am UTC

Amazon can't build AI capacity fast enough, throws another $200B at the problem

'As fast as we install this AI capacity, we are monetizing it,' says Amazon CEO Andy Jassy

AWS has an open cash spigot for AI infrastructure, with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy telling investors the company has been monetizing compute capacity as fast as it brings it online and it plans to double capacity by the end of 2027.…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:13 am UTC

The European Commission Is Testing an Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Teams

The European Commission is preparing to trial a communications platform built on Matrix, the open source messaging protocol already used by the French government, German healthcare providers and European armed forces, as a sovereign backup to Microsoft Teams. Signal currently serves as the backup tool but has proven too inflexible for an organization the Commission's size, it said. The Matrix-based solution could also eventually connect the Commission to other EU bodies like the Parliament.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2026 | 2:00 am UTC

Flooding may persist despite rain easing, warns NECG

The National Emergency Coordination Group has said that despite an expected improvement in weather conditions over the weekend, surface flooding persists and river flooding is still anticipated in some areas.

Source: News Headlines | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:52 am UTC

Mariah Carey and more curling - guide to Friday's action

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

Source: BBC News | 6 Feb 2026 | 1:05 am UTC

Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder

The end isn't nigh after all

Chrome's latest revision of its browser extension architecture, known as Manifest v3 (MV3), was widely expected to make content blocking and privacy extensions less effective than its predecessor, Manifest v2 (MV2).…

Source: The Register | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:39 am UTC

Andrew vouched for Epstein on state visit to UAE with queen in 2010

Emails appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor attempting to introduce Epstein to UAE crown prince via foreign affairs minister

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor vouched for Jeffrey Epstein during a UK state visit to the United Arab Emirates with Queen Elizabeth II in 2010, according to newly released emails.

The email was sent from “The Duke” to Epstein on 24 November of that year, with the subject listed as “Abdullah” – an apparent reference to the UAE foreign affairs minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

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Source: World news | The Guardian | 6 Feb 2026 | 12:03 am UTC

OpenClaw reveals meaty personal information after simple cracks

Skills marketplace is full of stuff - like API keys and credit card numbers - that crims will find tasty

Another day, another vulnerability (or two, or 200) in the security nightmare that is OpenClaw.…

Source: The Register | 5 Feb 2026 | 11:32 pm UTC

Court Rules That Ripping YouTube Clips Can Violate the DMCA

A federal court in California has ruled that YouTube creators who use stream-ripping tools to download clips for reaction and commentary videos may face liability under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions -- a decision that could reshape how one of the platform's most popular content genres operates. U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi of the Northern District of California denied a motion to dismiss in Cordova v. Huneault, a creator-versus-creator dispute, finding that YouTube's "rolling cipher" technology qualifies as an access control measure under section 1201(a) even though the underlying videos are freely viewable by the public. The distinction matters because it separates the act of watching a video from the act of downloading it. The defense had argued that no ripping tools were actually used and that screen recording could account for the copied footage. Judge DeMarchi allowed the claim to proceed to discovery regardless, noting that the plaintiff had adequately pled the circumvention allegation. The ruling opens a legal avenue beyond standard copyright infringement for creators who want to go after rivals. Reaction channels have long leaned on fair use as a blanket defense, but plaintiff's attorney Randall S. Newman told TorrentFreak that circumventing copy protections under section 1201 is a separate violation unaffected by any fair use finding.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 5 Feb 2026 | 11:30 pm UTC

AI companies want you to stop chatting with bots and start managing them

On Thursday, Anthropic and OpenAI shipped products built around the same idea: instead of chatting with a single AI assistant, users should be managing teams of AI agents that divide up work and run in parallel. The simultaneous releases are part of a gradual shift across the industry, from AI as a conversation partner to AI as a delegated workforce, and they arrive during a week when that very concept reportedly helped wipe $285 billion off software stocks.

Whether that supervisory model works in practice remains an open question. Current AI agents still require heavy human intervention to catch errors, and no independent evaluation has confirmed that these multi-agent tools reliably outperform a single developer working alone.

Even so, the companies are going all-in on agents. Anthropic's contribution is Claude Opus 4.6, a new version of its most capable AI model, paired with a feature called "agent teams" in Claude Code. Agent teams let developers spin up multiple AI agents that split a task into independent pieces, coordinate autonomously, and run concurrently.

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Source: Ars Technica - All content | 5 Feb 2026 | 10:47 pm UTC

U.S., Russia to resume high-level military talks

A U.S. official called the deal a by-product of ongoing efforts to end the Ukraine war. It came as a key nuclear treaty between Washington and Moscow expired.

Source: World | 5 Feb 2026 | 10:26 pm UTC

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