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Lead On Feb. 16, 2026, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass publicly urged Casey Wasserman to resign as chairman of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic organizing committee after his name appeared in newly released Justice Department documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein. Bass, speaking to CNN, said she lacked the authority to remove him directly and that … Read more

Tom Pritzker, 75, announced on Feb. 16, 2026 that he is stepping down immediately as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation after newly disclosed records showed repeated contact with financier Jeffrey Epstein following Epstein’s 2008 plea deal. In a letter to the Hyatt board, Pritzker said he had failed to distance himself from Epstein and … Read more

Lead On 17 February 2026 communities across East and Southeast Asia marked the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Fire Horse. Public events ranged from lion dances outside Sydney Town Hall to temple visits in Beijing and incense offerings at cemeteries in Vietnam. China expected a record 9.5 billion cross-regional … Read more

Lead: Federal and local investigators in Tucson continue an active search after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie went missing. Authorities say DNA recovered from a glove found about two miles from her home produced a profile of an unknown male and is being prepared for entry into the FBI’s CODIS database. Pima County and FBI teams have … Read more

Lead On Feb. 16–17, 2026, Asian markets prepared for a subdued open as US equity-index futures fell and investors returned from a Presidents’ Day holiday. Contracts for the S&P 500 slid about 0.4% while Nasdaq 100 futures dropped roughly 0.7%, reflecting a multiweek pullback in technology names. Treasuries inched higher and precious metals retreated, underscoring … Read more

Salesforce cofounder and CTO Parker Harris told product and engineering staff on Feb. 17, 2026, that he was personally “not OK” with CEO Marc Benioff’s jokes about US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made at the company kickoff in Las Vegas. Harris described the remarks as “a very bad joke” and said the comments have … Read more

Lead Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, that his office has opened investigations into three public school districts after student protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The probes target North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Dallas Independent School District and Manor Independent School District and follow an … Read more

Lead On Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, the first of several storms arrived across Southern California, bringing heavy rain, gusty winds and the potential for mountain snow from the Sierra to local foothills. The National Weather Service forecast 1 to 2.5 inches of rain for coastal and valley areas through Monday, with more than double that … Read more

Who: Actor Mehcad Brooks publicly rebuked online critics of the Van Der Beek family. When/Where: The response came on Threads on the weekend following James Van Der Beek’s death on Feb. 11, 2026. What happened: Brooks pushed back against readers who questioned a family GoFundMe after reports that Van Der Beek had bought a Texas … Read more

Lead: On Monday, February 16, 2026, billionaire Tom Pritzker announced he will step down as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels and will not seek re-election to the board after newly released U.S. Department of Justice documents revealed repeated contacts between him and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Pritzker, who had served as executive chairman since … Read more

Lead On Feb. 16, 2026, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Australia will not repatriate citizens who traveled to support the Islamic State, after a recent attempt by 34 Australians to leave the Al-Roj detention camp in northeastern Syria was blocked. The group, described in reporting as 11 families of women … Read more

Lead: Former President George W. Bush published a Presidents Day essay Monday through the More Perfect initiative that praised George Washington’s decision to relinquish extraordinary power and to step down after two terms. The essay, the first entry in a new history series called In Pursuit, does not name President Donald Trump but draws on … Read more

Lead: On Feb. 2 in Rome, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly defended her law-and-order agenda while brushing off a controversy over a restored church fresco that has sparked a political row. At a public event she laughed and said, “I’m definitely not like an angel,” framing the episode as a distraction from security priorities. The … Read more

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died after exposure to the dart-frog toxin epibatidine while imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony on 16 February 2026. Analysts and officials agree the compound is exotic and highly potent, and the UK government has publicly blamed the Russian state for deploying it. Experts say the choice of epibatidine — … Read more

Apple is undertaking an internal cleanup of iOS with the version internally codenamed “Rave,” according to reporting by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman published on February 16, 2026. Engineers are removing legacy code, rewriting select features and making modest app upgrades aimed at improving responsiveness and energy efficiency. The work is being compared to Apple’s Snow Leopard-era … Read more