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Lead Across the United States, more employees are stepping away from steady work for weeks or months — calling it a mini‑sabbatical, adult gap year or micro‑retirement — to recover from burnout, pursue projects or travel. Research teams and career coaches say the resurgence spans people who self‑fund leaves, those who negotiate unpaid time with … Read more

Lead Researchers at the University of Rochester reported on Feb. 15, 2026, that they have engineered narrow aluminum tubes that can trap air and remain buoyant even when punctured or subjected to harsh conditions. The devices—about one-fifth of an inch in diameter—use a superhydrophobic surface to hold pockets of air, allowing stacks of tubes to … Read more

Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning, presented ahead of its world premiere in Berlin, is a compact, darkly comic assault on privilege and patriarchy set inside a single Spanish villa. The film centers on a disastrously wealthy American family — led by a blind, domineering father and three fractured siblings — whose brittle order unravels after the … Read more

Lead Buyers in 2026 can sometimes take over a seller’s low, pandemic-era mortgage rate through an “assumable mortgage,” letting them inherit sub-3% financing in some cases. Around 6 million U.S. homes are estimated to have an assumable mortgage with an interest rate below 5%, offering a potential shortcut to affordability. The transfer can benefit sellers … Read more

At the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14, 2026, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain has moved beyond the politics of the 2016 Brexit vote and pledged to deepen cooperation with the European Union on defence and trade. Speaking alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Starmer framed the shift as pragmatic and immediate, … Read more

Lead: President Donald J. Trump’s second year back in the White House has been marked by an intensified program of self-promotion that reaches from social posts to monumental statuary. In recent weeks a 15-foot bronze — later gold-covered — statue dubbed “Don Colossus” and a briefly shared racist video provoked national attention, while his administration … Read more

Lead: A Ukrainian long-range drone strike on Sunday set fires at the Taman port in Russia’s Krasnodar region, officials said, injuring two people and damaging an oil storage tank, a warehouse and terminals. The incident occurred just days before U.S.-brokered talks between Russian and Ukrainian envoys in Geneva, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Ukrainian and … Read more

Lead On March 25, 1969, 17-year-old Mary Kay Heese disappeared after leaving school in Wahoo, Nebraska; later that night her body was found with multiple stab wounds. The case went cold for decades as investigators in 1969 lacked modern forensics and a clear suspect. Renewed inquiries — including a 1999 cold-case review, a new probe … Read more

Lead: The death of actor James Van Der Beek at 48 has reignited concern about colorectal cancer in younger adults. Medical specialists say colorectal cancer incidence has risen among people in their 20s, 30s and 40s even as overall cancer mortality under 50 has fallen since 1990. Federal and major medical groups currently recommend routine … Read more

Lead Since last year, the Trump administration has pushed a series of faith-centered initiatives that have brought explicit Christian practices and language into federal settings. A December Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advisory meeting opened with a Christian benediction delivered by a White House official, an episode attendees described as unusual for modern administrations. The White … Read more

Lead: At the Berlin Film Festival (Competition), Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning — starring Callum Turner and Elle Fanning — arrives as a high-gloss black comedy about a wealthy American family isolated on the Catalan coast. The film, written by Efthimis Filippou and loosely inspired by Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 Fists in the Pocket, skewers privilege through … Read more

Coach Bruce Pearl told the Auburn Sports Network before Saturday’s matchup that forward Keyshawn Hall will not play against Arkansas and is “out indefinitely” for disciplinary reasons. Pearl said Hall, a UCF transfer and the Tigers’ leading scorer, failed to meet program standards during the week and was held out of the final 12:38 of … Read more

Lead: I cannot access the full Financial Times article at the link you supplied because it is behind a paywall. To produce a faithful, fully paraphrased rewrite with the depth and analysis you requested — preserving dates, numbers and named actors — I need the article text or your permission to rely on publicly available … Read more

Lead: Astronomers report a remarkably mature protocluster, JADES-ID1, assembling just 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Combining deep images from the James Webb Space Telescope with X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory, teams found at least 66 galaxies wrapped in million-degree gas — the hallmark of gravitational collapse. The system already contains roughly 20 … Read more

Dividend investors seeking both steady cash flow and long-term capital appreciation are watching a handful of companies that blend current yields with meaningful growth potential. On February 14, 2026, two names stood out: Hong Kong–based Silicon Motion Technology, which posted a sharp revenue uptick tied to AI-related demand, and Microsoft, whose pullback has temporarily lifted … Read more