The Petersburg Post
Top News Stories for Wednesday, February 4th 2026
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Swipe for next article House Speaker Mike Johnson insists that Trump was just 'expressing his frustration' with some Democrat-leaning parts of the country with alleged election integrity issues President Donald Trump isn't backing off his calls for Republicans to "nationalize" U.S. voting , effectively ...
Source: independent.co.uk
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Priyanka Kuvalekar, a 31-year-old UX research lead at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. It's been edited for length and clarity. I joined Microsoft in April 2025 as a senior UX researcher. I lead research for Microsoft Teams Calling and related AI experiences. My path to this job wasn't typical. I spent five years studying architecture in college, not computer ...
Source: businessinsider.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Trump announced that a trade deal had been reached with India, claiming that New Delhi would stop buying Russian oil as part of the agreement. India has not commented on that, and Russia said it has received no word from New Delhi about halting oil purchases. Analysts are skeptical that India will stop buying Russian oil completely due to the economic ramifications. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian ...
Source: cnbc.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
– Despite rare negotiations between Democrats and President Donald Trump, a bipartisan agreement on new restrictions for in the next two weeks will be exceedingly difficult — or even "an impossibility," as Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. Congress is discussing potential new rules for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection after officers shot and ...
Source: news4jax.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a roughly $1.2 trillion government funding bill Tuesday that ends the partial federal shutdown that began over the weekend and sets the stage for an intense debate in Congress over Homeland Security funding. The president moved quickly to sign the bill after the House approved it with a 217-214 vote. "This bill is a great victory for the American people," Trump said. ...
Source: military.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
TUCSON, Ariz. — Investigators found signs of forced entry at the Arizona home of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie's mother, a person familiar with the investigation said Tuesday, as the host asked for prayers to help bring back the 84-year-old, who is believed to have been taken against her will . The host described her mother, Nancy Guthrie , as "a woman of deep conviction, a good and faithful servant" in ...
Source: cleveland.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
After two decades and two stints as Walt Disney Co. boss, Bob Iger finally is hanging up the reins. Disney this week tapped 54-year-old parks chief Josh D'Amaro to succeed Iger as chief executive. The handoff is set for March 18, at the company's annual investor meeting, with Iger staying on as a senior advisor and board member until his December retirement. The changing of the guard atop one of America's iconic ...
Source: latimes.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has recently jointly released the Safety Technical Requirements for Automobile Door Handles. The regulation mandates that all vehicles sold in China, except for tailgates, must be equipped with mechanical exterior door handles and interior door handles. Even if the vehicle is locked due to an accident or power failure, the doors must still be able to be ...
Source: technode.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Authorities in Britain confirmed Wednesday that a criminal investigation has been launched into Britain's former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson , over allegations that he leaked government information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . The 72-year-old was fired as Britain's envoy to Washington in September following revelations of his friendship with the late disgraced ...
Source: upi.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
NEW YORK — The dog was Penny. The win was priceless. A Doberman pinscher named Penny won best in show Tuesday night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show , netting U.S. show dogs' most coveted prize — and giving veteran handler Andy Linton another win after nearly four decades. Linton got best in show in 1989 with another Doberman, named Indy. Penny "is as great a Doberman as I have ever seen," Linton ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
A collision between a speedboat carrying migrants and a Greek coast guard patrol vessel off the eastern Aegean island of Chios has killed at least 15 people, the coast guard said late Tuesday, while a search and rescue operation involving patrol boats, a helicopter and divers was underway for potentially missing people. The bodies of 14 people — 11 men and three women — were recovered from the sea, the ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Up to four in ten cancer cases worldwide could be prevented, according to a new global analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO) and its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The study examines 30 preventable causes, including tobacco, alcohol, high body mass index, physical inactivity, air pollution, ultraviolet radiation – and for the first time – nine cancer-causing infections. ...
Source: news-medical.net
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
To ensure developer control, Xcode creates automatic milestones for every modification, allowing teams to revert the entire project to a pre-agent state. Apple announced Xcode 26.3 on Tuesday, introducing agentic coding tools such as Anthropic's Claude Agent and OpenAI's Codex directly within its app development suite. The Xcode 26.3 Release Candidate became available to all Apple Developers on the developer ...
Source: techbriefly.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
The deal embeds advanced OpenAI models directly into Snowflake's data platform, enabling secure, AI-powered analytics and agents across major clouds. Snowflake and OpenAI have struck a multi-year, $200 million partnership to bring OpenAI's advanced models, including GPT-5.2, directly into Snowflake's enterprise data platform. The collaboration is designed to let Snowflake's large customer base, more than 12,000 ...
Source: thenextweb.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Last Tuesday, CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss announced that the longevity guru Dr. Peter Attia would be a contributor to the network, one of several high-profile hires to mark her takeover. Last Friday, in the latest congressional release of material related to the convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein , Attia's name appeared over 1,700 times, including in emails discussing Epstein's sex life. In the most widely ...
Source: nymag.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday praised the steady expansion of economic cooperation between Russia and China during a video call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, describing the partnership as strategic and mutually beneficial. The talks took place amid China's parallel engagement with Western leaders, even as differences persist over Russia's war in Ukraine. According to news agency AP, Putin said ...
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2026 -
– Envoys from Moscow and Kyiv met in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday for of U.S.-brokered talks on ending the as Russian cluster munitions killed seven people at a market in Ukraine. The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined in the United Arab Emirates by U.S. officials, Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council chief, who was present at the meeting, said on social media. Umerov said the ...
Source: news4jax.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Key Takeaways: SpaceX bought xAI, combine Elon Musk's rocket company and artificial intelligence startup in one entity.. This deal creates an entity that is worth more than $1.25 trillion, combining SpaceX's hardware with xAI's "Grok" intelligence. This merger prepares for a massive IPO later this year and they also plan to launch solar-powered data centers into orbit. SpaceX has officially acquired xAI, this ...
Source: techiexpert.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Elon Musk's X offices in Paris were searched by French police on Tuesday, and prosecutors summoned the tech billionaire to appear for questioning in April as part of an investigation into alleged distribution of sexually explicit deepfakes and Holocaust denial content, NBC News reported . Employees of the French prosecutor's cybercrime unit, in partnership with the French police's own cybercrime unit and Europol, ...
Source: cnet.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
NASA said Tuesday it was delaying its mission to send four astronauts on a journey around the moon, after issues arose during a critical test of its enormous rocket. Mission managers were conducting an elaborate launch day walkthrough, known as a "wet dress rehearsal," at Kennedy Space Center in Florida when engineers detected leaking hydrogen at the base of the Space Launch System rocket. NASA was forced to end ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Swipe for next article The former president and secretary of state will sit for filmed depositions after bipartisan effort to hold them in contempt of Congress Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are scheduled to testify to members of Congress this month for a Republican-led probe into federal ...
Source: independent.co.uk
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
President Trump recently called Colombia's leader, Gustavo Petro, a "sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States." But on Tuesday, the two leaders made nice - mostly - at a closed-door meeting at the White House that both described as productive. Trump described the two-hour-long conversation, which touched on energy, Venezuela and bilateral efforts to combat drug trafficking, as ...
Source: bradenton.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
NEW YORK (AP) — A deal was reached between lawyers for victims of Jeffrey Epstein and the Justice Department to protect the identities of nearly 100 women whose lives were allegedly harmed after the government began releasing millions of documents last week, a lawyer told a federal judge on Tuesday. Judge Richard M. Berman in Manhattan cancelled a hearing scheduled for Wednesday after he was notified by ...
Source: apnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Mozilla Firefox is adding new AI features this month, but you'll have the option to turn them off, according to a Tuesday blog post from Firefox head Ajit Varma. "AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it," Varma wrote in the post. "Listening to our community, alongside our ongoing commitment to offer choice, led us to build AI controls." Varma said in a November blog post ...
Source: cnet.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro spent Tuesday morning in damage control mode after she invoked the fury of Second Amendment advocates with comments she made threatening to "jail" anyone who brings a gun into Washington D.C. During an interview Monday with her former Fox News colleague Martha MacCallum about a recent decrease in crime in D.C., Pirro bragged ...
Source: mediaite.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
President Trump said his administration is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, accusing the school of antisemitism and other misconduct and saying the matter should be treated as criminal rather than civil. In a social media post on Monday night, Trump said Harvard had attempted to avoid a large financial settlement through what he described as an inadequate job-training proposal. Trump said the ...
Source: bnonews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Two AI giants shake market confidence after investment fails to materialize. In September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent for Nvidia to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI's AI infrastructure. At the time, the companies said they expected to finalize details "in the coming weeks." Five months later, no deal has closed, Nvidia's CEO now says the $100 billion figure was "never a commitment," and ...
Source: arstechnica.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Zelenskyy says Putin 'taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorise people', as Kyiv hits lows of -20C More than 1,000 residential buildings in Kyiv were without heating on Tuesday after a massive Russian air attack during one of the coldest nights of the winter, with temperatures in the capital falling to -20C. Overnight, the Kremlin fired 450 attack drones and more than 70 missiles across the ...
Source: theguardian.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Kelly Clarkson has announced that her daytime talk show is coming to an end. The former American Idol winner turned TV host and homewares mogul shared a statement confirming that The Kelly Clarkson Show will end its run after seven seasons. In a statement posted on her Instagram on February 2, Clarkson explained that she is stepping away as the host of her Daytime Emmy Award-winning talk show at the end of its ...
Source: southernliving.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Reading time 3 minutes Researchers investigated historic and current lead exposure by studying an unexpected part of the body: hair. In a study published yesterday in the journal PNAS, researchers analyzed hair clippings from people in Utah (referred to as Utahns, if you can believe it) dating back to 1916. Lead levels before the creation of the United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were ...
Source: gizmodo.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
A 13-year-old boy is credited with saving the lives of his mother and two younger siblings with an hourslong swim after the family was swept out to sea off the Australian coast. Austin Appelbee swam 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to shore to raise the alarm after he got into difficulties on Friday with his mother Joanne Appelbee, 47, brother Beau, 12, and sister Grace, 8, police said. Naturaliste Marine Rescue commander ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Washington — U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone that flew towards a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, U.S. Central Command confirmed. The military said the Shahed-139 drone "aggressively" approached the USS Abraham Lincoln as it was crossing through the Arabian Sea roughly 500 miles from the southern coast of Iran and "unnecessarily maneuvered" toward the ship. U.S . Central ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked the end of protections that have allowed roughly 350,000 Haitians to live in the U.S., dealing President Donald Trump's immigration agenda another legal, though perhaps temporary, setback. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington granted a request to pause the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging it ...
Source: pbs.org
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
You can now listen to Fox News articles! Sen. Mitch McConnell , R-Ky., was hospitalized Monday evening with flu-like symptoms, his office announced. "In an abundance of caution, after experiencing flu-like symptoms over the weekend, Senator McConnell checked himself into a local hospital for evaluation last night," a spokesperson for McConnell said in a statement. "His prognosis is positive and he is grateful for ...
Source: foxnews.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
– The charity founded by , is shutting down following the release of emails showing the depth of her friendship with the late sex offender Sarah's Trust, which focused on improving the lives of women and children, said it will close for the "foreseeable future,'' following the revelations in latest documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Ferguson is the ex-wife of the former Prince due to his ...
Source: news4jax.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo posted a 51% rise in profit for the first three quarters of the fiscal year as the Japanese video-game maker continued to score success with its revamped Switch machine. For the April-December period, Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. said Tuesday that it recorded a 358.9 billion yen ($2.3 billion) profit, up from 237 billion yen the same period a year earlier. Sales nearly doubled, surging 99%, ...
Source: bostonglobe.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
PepsiCo is moving to lower prices on some of its best-known snack brands, citing mounting consumer affordability concerns as households head into the NFL's Super Bowl week. The food and beverage giant announced Tuesday (Feb. 3) that it is rolling out new suggested retail prices in the U.S. that reduce prices by "up to nearly 15%" on products including Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos. The updated pricing is ...
Source: pymnts.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
Ending of New Start treaty will remove mutual limits on the world's two biggest nuclear arsenals The New Start treaty between the US and Russia will expire on Thursday, removing the last remaining mutual limits on the world's two biggest nuclear arsenals. The milestone will be a death knell for more than five decades of arms control at a time of surging global instability, contributing to a general collapse of the ...
Source: theguardian.com
Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2026 -
An intelligence community watchdog has handed over a highly classified whistleblower complaint that includes an allegation of wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to top congressional leaders, following months of delay tied to classification disputes, a government shutdown, and leadership turnover at Gabbard's office, CBS News has learned. In a Feb. 2 letter to the leaders of the House and ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Monday, Feb 2nd, 2026 -
Cameras will also be deployed to the rest of the department's agents nationwide. Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The Department of Homeland Security plans to issue body cameras to all of its agents nationwide, starting with those who currently work in the field in Minneapolis. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made the announcement Monday as protests and backlash over the deaths of two U.S. citizens in the Minnesota city at the hands of ...
Source: upi.com
Monday, Feb 2nd, 2026 -
His family au pair pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2024 and testified against her former lover at trial. An American man who was having an affair with his family's Brazilian au pair has been found guilty of murdering his wife and another man. Brendan Banfield, 40, from Virginia , told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of 24 February 2023. He shot ...
Source: news.sky.com