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Researchers report that a remarkably short RNA — just 45 bases long and dubbed QT-45 — can assemble a copy of itself under laboratory conditions. The molecule was isolated after iterative selection from pools of random sequences and works by joining short, three-base RNA fragments guided by a template. Activity is slow but persistent: copying … Read more

2026-02-13 — After a brief two-day delay, Google has begun rolling out Android 17 Beta 1 to Pixel phones and tablets, delivered as build CP21.260116.011. The update, available via OTA for enrolled devices and as system images, marks the first public Beta following the company’s Canary-channel experimentation. Early testers will see changes aimed at adaptive … Read more

Juliana Peres Magalhães, 25, was sentenced on Feb. 13, 2026, in Fairfax County, Virginia, to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a case tied to the killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan. The sentence is the state maximum for manslaughter and far exceed the prosecutors’ recommendation that she receive credit … Read more

Lead Opening the Munich Security Conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that the post‑war rules‑based international order “no longer exists,” urging Europeans to prepare for sacrifice and to repair transatlantic trust. He spoke as around 50 world leaders gather to discuss European defence, the Russia‑Ukraine war and rising tensions with China and Iran. Merz also … Read more

Lead: On 13 February 2026 OpenAI permanently retired GPT-4o, a version of ChatGPT released in 2024 that many users described as unusually warm, witty and flirtatious. The shutdown—announced in January and scheduled for the eve of Valentine’s Day—left devoted users scrambling to migrate memories, pay for alternatives or mourn relationships they said had become emotionally … Read more

On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court cleared the way for a proposed constitutional amendment to appear on the April 21 special-election ballot, a move that could enable a newly drawn congressional map favoring Democrats to take effect. The decision allows the referendum to proceed despite an earlier lower-court finding that lawmakers had proceeded improperly. Democrats, … Read more

Lead A large, registry-based study spanning 1996 to 2018 in Finland examined more than 1.27 million singleton births to assess the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant use during pregnancy. Researchers compared pregnancies with two or more SSRI purchases during gestation to women with diagnosed depression who did not use antidepressants and to women … Read more

Lead In March 2025, physicist Wojciech Zurek of Los Alamos National Laboratory published Decoherence and Quantum Darwinism, a synthesis that argues the long-standing measurement problem in quantum mechanics can be largely addressed within standard quantum theory. Zurek synthesizes decades of work on entanglement and decoherence to show how definite, classical facts emerge from quantum probabilities. … Read more

Lead: The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against Harvard University on February 13, seeking court orders to force production of race-related admissions records. The DOJ says Harvard declined or delayed providing individualized applicant data, admissions policies and correspondence tied to race, ethnicity and DEI matters. The complaint frames the action … Read more

This week, early One UI 9 files surfaced and for the first time offered official visual cues pointing to Samsung’s rumored wider Galaxy Z Fold. The animations, found inside the new builds, reference model SM-F971U and the internal codename H8, and present both light and dark UI treatments. While the animations are brief and not … Read more

Lead: Wendy’s announced on Feb. 13, 2026, that it will close roughly 5%–6% of its U.S. restaurants during the first half of 2026 as part of an ongoing turnaround. The company said 28 locations were closed in the fourth quarter of 2025 and that decisions were made in coordination with franchise partners. Wendy’s reported 5,969 … Read more

Lead: The International Skating Union (ISU) issued a public defence on Friday of Olympic ice-dance judging after a single judge’s scoring gap shaped the outcome of the Milano Cortina Games free dance. France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron captured gold by a narrow margin over Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, a result that … Read more

Lead: The Virginia Supreme Court on February 13 cleared the way for a planned April 21 referendum that would ask voters to approve a Democratic-sponsored congressional redistricting amendment. The order allows the special election to proceed despite an ongoing lawsuit that challenges the legislature’s procedural handling of the measure. While the court did not resolve … Read more

Lead Day 7 of the 2026 Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics on Feb. 13 saw Team USA chasing more medals across marquee events in Italy. Ilia Malinin entered the men’s free skate in strong position after a 108.16 short-program that included a legally landed backflip, holding a 5.09-point lead over Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. The U.S. women’s hockey … Read more

Lead: Federal prosecutors moved on Friday to dismiss felony assault charges, with prejudice, against Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis after newly disclosed evidence undercut the government’s account of a Jan. 14 incident in Minneapolis that left Sosa-Celis wounded. U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said the evidence was “materially inconsistent” with allegations in the … Read more