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Lead: Verified footage shows a uniformed security official firing at a crowd of mourners in Abdanan, western Iran, on Tuesday during 40th-day commemorations for victims of last month’s deadly crackdown. Witnesses and video show people running and smoke after two shots; state media denied reports of casualties. The incident coincided with commemorations across several cities … Read more

Lead: In early February, a planned wet dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center for Artemis II was halted after teams detected repeated leaks of super-chilled liquid hydrogen, forcing engineers to stop fueling several times and leaving NASA unable to complete the test. The delay pushed back a mission that would carry four astronauts on a … Read more

Lead On Feb. 18, 2026, a cluster of new studies reported renewed evidence that rare microbes — including the recently imaged Lokiarchaeum ossiferum — occupy intermediate positions between the planet’s earliest single‑celled life and modern complex cells. Researchers say these transitional organisms, found in marine and terrestrial settings, illuminate steps that likely led to eukaryotes … Read more

Feb. 18, 2026 Lead Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, will take on the additional role of acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said on Feb. 18, 2026. He will keep his N.I.H. post while leading the C.D.C. until President Trump names and has the … Read more

Lead Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos on Tuesday publicly appealed to the person believed responsible for the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, urging the suspect to “just let her go.” Guthrie vanished from her Tucson home in the Catalina Foothills on Feb. 1; the search entered its third week as investigators followed thousands of tips. … Read more

Lead The Federal Reserve released the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee meeting held January 27–28, 2026 on February 18, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. EST. The public record, posted on the Board’s website in HTML and PDF formats, summarizes participants’ discussions of economic and financial conditions based on information available during the meeting. The … Read more

Paramount Pictures has tapped Kristen Bell to voice Amy Rose in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the studio confirmed in a report on Feb. 18, 2026. The casting joins Bell with an established voice ensemble led by Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Idris Elba (Knuckles) and Keanu Reeves (Shadow). Jeff Fowler returns to direct, while Neal H. Moritz, … Read more

Lead: U2 have issued Days of Ash, their first collection of new songs since 2017, a six‑track EP released in February 2026 that addresses several high‑profile deaths and global conflicts. The record opens with a track about the killing of Renee Good on 7 January during an anti‑ICE protest in Minneapolis and moves through subjects … Read more

Lead In Milan on Feb. 18, 2026, Canada’s captain Sidney Crosby left the quarterfinal against the Czech Republic after sustaining a right-leg injury and did not return for the third period. The team rallied without him, forcing overtime and ultimately winning on Mitch Marner’s goal, but Crosby’s availability for the semifinal on Friday and a … Read more

Lead: On Day 12 of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan–Cortina (18 February), Mikaela Shiffrin reclaimed Olympic slalom gold, ending a 12‑year gap since her first Olympic slalom win. Switzerland’s Camille Rast took silver and Sweden’s Anna Swenn‑Larsson earned bronze. The day also featured dramatic curling results that kept Great Britain’s hopes alive, a 4–3 … Read more

Lead In Tesero, Italy on Wednesday, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won the men’s team sprint to take his fifth gold of the Milan Cortina Games and a record 10th Winter Olympic medal overall. Racing with teammate Einar Hegstad Krag, Klæbo finished in 18:28.9, edging the United States by 1.4 seconds. Americans Ben Ogden and Gus … Read more

Google is rolling out Lyria 3, its latest AI music model, inside the Gemini app and web interface, enabling users to create roughly 30-second music clips from simple prompts today. The launch extends earlier, developer-facing access in Vertex AI to a consumer-friendly UI; mobile availability is expected within a few days. Generated tracks include an … Read more

Benfica has accused critics of running a “defamation campaign” against 19-year-old forward Gianluca Prestianni after UEFA opened an investigation into claims he racially abused Real Madrid winger Vinicius Jr during Tuesday’s Champions League match. The tie was halted for around 10 minutes after Vinicius reported the alleged incident to referee François Letexier and left the … Read more

Lead: Google will release the Pixel 10a on March 5, priced at $499, with pre-orders opening today. The new A-series model will sit alongside the still-available Pixel 9a in Google’s store, but carries only modest changes from its predecessor. Externally the phone is nearly identical to the 9a, with the most visible tweak being a … Read more

U2 have released Days of Ash, a standalone six‑track EP issued on Ash Wednesday as an immediate artistic response to current events. The collection contains five new songs and a spoken poem — including a collaboration with Ed Sheeran and Taras Topolia — and is presented with six lyric videos. The band says the material … Read more