Lead: India opened a five-day artificial intelligence summit in New Delhi this week, convening 20 heads of state and government alongside senior technology executives to discuss the expanding global role of AI. The India AI Impact Summit—the first edition staged in the Global South—aims to balance questions of safety, economic opportunity and governance as AI … Read more
The Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami emerged as a decisive force in Bangladesh’s first national election since the 2024 student-led upheaval, winning 68 of the 297 parliamentary seats and reshaping a political landscape long dominated by two dynastic parties. The vote, held in mid-February 2026 and reported on Feb. 15, 2026, delivered a clear parliamentary majority to … Read more
Amazon is offering the Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm) for $299 — down from its $399 list price — as part of its Presidents’ Day promotions. The discount, equal to roughly 25% off, is available through Amazon’s sales event and may be time-limited. Creative Bloq reviewers who tested this exact model for a month … Read more
Lead: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Budapest on Monday to meet Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as officials prepared to sign a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. The signing follows Rubio’s stop in Slovakia and a recent White House meeting between Orbán and President Donald Trump in November. Hungary has signaled willingness to support construction … Read more
Lead: As the United States approaches the 2026 midterm elections, scholars and civic observers are increasingly warning that democratic norms are under strain. In February 2026, analysts from research institutes and universities described steps by the federal government and related political actors that, they say, fit patterns of “electoral autocracy” or competitive authoritarianism. Specific incidents … Read more
Last week (mid-February 2026) several prominent AI safety researchers resigned from leading labs, warning that companies prioritising revenue were sidelining safeguards and accelerating risky product rollouts. The departures — reported at OpenAI and Anthropic among others — have renewed concern that commercial incentives are reshaping system design and deployment choices. Industry moves such as hiring … Read more
Lead In “Dear Henry,” the sixth episode of Industry season 4, characters act on impulses that reshape their paths: Eric Tao (Ken Leung) walks away, Harper Stern (Myha’la) escalates a public campaign against Tender, and Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) races to staunch a corporate hemorrhage. The episode stages a series of confrontations—from a high-stakes conference … Read more
Lead: On Monday, a rare Pikachu Illustrator trading card owned by Logan Paul sold at Goldin Auctions for $16.492 million, with a diamond-encrusted necklace included and a promise of hand delivery to the buyer. The 42-day auction closed after 97 bids and hours of extended bidding; a Guinness World Records official subsequently confirmed it as … Read more
At least eight people were killed and two others suffered minor burns after a large explosion tore through a fireworks shop in a village in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, on Sunday afternoon. Local authorities said the blast followed a resident igniting pyrotechnics too close to the store, and emergency, fire and health teams were dispatched … Read more
Five European countries and the UK say traces of epibatidine, a rare neurotoxin associated with South American poison dart frogs, were detected in samples from Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and were highly likely to have caused his death in a Siberian penal colony two years ago. The UK Foreign Office and allied governments said … Read more
UN investigators say more than 6,000 people were killed during a late-October offensive by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on el-Fasher in North Darfur. The U.N. Human Rights Office reported that the RSF and allied Arab militias overran the city after an 18‑month siege and carried out mass killings, sexual violence and abductions over a … Read more
Lead: XRP has fallen roughly 25% so far in 2026, raising fresh questions about whether the token can recover to previous levels or will slide further. The decline has coincided with a broader rotation of capital into AI-related assets and away from high-volatility crypto plays. Ripple’s payments integrations give XRP real-world use cases, but macro … Read more
Lead At the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas urged Europe to take a lead role in its own defense while continuing to rely on NATO’s trans‑Atlantic framework. She warned that Russia presents a strategic threat beyond the Donbas, citing cyberattacks, satellite disruption, undersea‑cable sabotage, energy coercion and a nuclear … Read more
North Korea announced the completion of a new housing district in Pyongyang on 16 February 2026 intended for the families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. State media published images of leader Kim Jong-un walking the new Saeppyol Street in the Hawasong district and visiting several of the homes … Read more
In 2002 James Van Der Beek took a sharp, deliberate detour from his Dawson’s Creek persona by playing Sean Bateman in The Rules of Attraction, a chaotic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel. The film opened to mixed reviews and underperformed commercially, yet it offered Van Der Beek a rare chance to subvert his image … Read more
