The Petersburg Post
Top News Stories for Friday, February 20th 2026
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
LONDON — The former Prince Andrew was arrested and held for hours by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to Jeffrey Epstein, an extraordinary move in a country where authorities once sought to shield the royal family from embarrassment. It was the first time in nearly four centuries that a senior British royal was placed under arrest, and it underscored how ...
Source: bostonglobe.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
U.S. President Donald Trump has given Iran "10 to 15" days to make a meaningful deal over its nuclear program — or "really bad things" will happen. Oil prices held at six-month highs on Friday morning as energy market participants continue to closely monitor heightened geopolitical tensions. Strategists at Barclays said "if conflict is imminent it is likely to be short lived, in our view." In this article US ...
Source: cnbc.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
Six women killed in the deadliest avalanche in the United States in decades were part of a close group of eight friends on a guided backcountry ski trip when a powerful winter storm triggered a massive slide in California's Sierra Nevada, authorities and families said Thursday, as investigations began into why the tour continued despite avalanche warnings. The women were part of a close group of eight friends on a ...
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he's directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of "tremendous interest." Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing "classified information" when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview ...
Source: military.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
Good news for taxpayers ages 65 or older: The 2025 tax season means a new deduction for certain older adults, giving them even more tax breaks. Last year's passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, gives seniors a $6,000 deduction, or $12,000 for married couples where both spouses qualify. And the deduction is available to filers who take the standard deduction or itemize. The new senior deduction is ...
Source: chicago.suntimes.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
MILAN — It was only fitting that Hilary Knight was in the middle of it all. As the United States women's hockey team prepared to receive their gold medals Thursday after a 2-1 win over Canada in overtime, the players lined up in numerical order. There was No. 21 in the center, with 12 teammates on one side and 10 on the other. Knight was in the middle of it an hour earlier, too, when a shot from Laila Edwards ...
Source: bostonglobe.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
– Ousted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday remained defiant in his first reaction to a for rebellion handed down by a Seoul court the previous day. In a statement released by his lawyers, Yoon maintained that his abrupt and short-lived declaration of martial law in December 2024 was done "solely for the sake of the nation and our people," and dismissed the Seoul Central District Court as biased ...
Source: news4jax.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
The Boeing-built craft was on its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station when its thrusters failed, leaving it dangerously out of control. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two NASA astronauts "stranded" in space, came close to catastrophe because their spacecraft wasn't ready to fly, according to a scathing report by the space agency. The investigation classed the incident as a ...
Source: news.sky.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
You can now listen to Fox News articles! Ex-Victoria's Secret mogul Les Wexner's lawyer was caught on a hot mic jokingly threatening to "kill" him if he continued giving long answers to questions during his deposition on Jeffrey Epstein by the House Oversight Committee. The moment was caught after the committee released its full, nearly five-hour deposition of 88-year-old Wexner as part of its ongoing probe into ...
Source: foxnews.com
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
News , via Wikimedia Commons West Virginia attorney general sues Apple over encryption, child porn West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey filed suit against Apple on Thursday, arguing that the company turned a blind eye to iCloud encryption methods that facilitate mass transmission of child pornography. The suit focuses on Apple iCloud and its use of end-to-end encryption, which makes digital files ...
Source: jurist.org
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
The U.S. federal agency that enforces workplace civil rights is suing a regional Coca-Cola bottler for sex discrimination, alleging the company discriminated against male employees by only inviting women to a company-sponsored networking event. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit on behalf of a male employee of Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast who complained about a two-day networking ...
Source: wbur.org
Friday, Feb 20th, 2026 -
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA took another crack at fueling its giant moon rocket Thursday after leaks halted the initial dress rehearsal and delayed the first lunar trip by astronauts in more than half a century. For the second time this month, launch teams pumped more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of supercold fuel into the rocket atop its launch pad. They counted all the way down to the ...
Source: military.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
For years, social media companies have disputed allegations that they through deliberate design choices that addict kids to their platforms and fail to protect them from sexual predators and dangerous content. Now, these tech giants are getting a chance to make their case in courtrooms around the country, including before a jury for the first time. Some of the biggest players from Meta to TikTok are facing federal ...
Source: news4jax.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
In a fiery speech in Los Angeles, the Vermont senator criticizes 'grotesque' levels of economic inequality Billionaires are "treading on very, very thin ice," Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday during a fiery speech in Los Angeles, imploring California voters to fight "grotesque" levels of economic inequality by approving a proposed tax on the state's richest residents. The Vermont senator railed against the ...
Source: theguardian.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Trump told the U.K. not to "give away" the Chagos Islands, which is where a joint U.S.-U.K. military base is located. The president suggested the Chagos deal was prompted by "Wokeism" after the U.K. has come under pressure to hand the islands back to Mauritius. The U.S. is due to hold talks with Mauritius on the issue next week. U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hold a press ...
Source: cnbc.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Swipe for next article 'Only after years of background checks, biometric screenings, and in-person interviews were they invited to rebuild their lives here. To now subject them to arrest and open-ended detention is a stunning betrayal of both our legal commitments and our moral compass,' says one ...
Source: independent.co.uk
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
It's a question as to how far U.S. tech giants will go to support India's belated AI push. India faces numerous challenges to its goal of advancing native AI research. New Delhi, however, is pushing ahead to become a "significant player in the semiconductor space," India's IT secretary said. In this article This report is from this week's CNBC's "Inside India" newsletter which brings you timely, insightful news and ...
Source: cnbc.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
At the end of October last year, the RSF took over al‑Fashir, which had been the last remaining stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces in the Darfur region in the west of the country. paramilitary group captured the Sudanese city of al‑Fashir bear hallmarks that point to genocide, an independent UN probe said in a new report on Thursday. At the end of October last year, the RSF took over the city, ...
Source: jpost.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats are demanding that the Federal Reserve turn over information on recent changes to its bank supervision division following a media report that Fed staff are unhappy with those changes, the Wall Street Journal reported The newspaper reported in January that former and current staff have expressed concerns about the leadership of Fed Vice Chair for Supervision ...
Source: bankingjournal.aba.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By MARIA SHERMAN Eric Dane, the celebrated actor best known for his roles on "Grey's Anatomy" and "Euphoria" and who later in life became an advocate for ALS awareness, died Thursday. He was 53. His representatives said Dane died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known also as Lou Gehrig's disease, less than a year after he announced his diagnosis. "He spent ...
Source: orlandosentinel.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
The commission's members also opted to forego a later vote on the final stage of the design despite public comments on the project being "overwhelmingly in opposition—over 99%" US president Donald Trump's vision of building a grand ballroom on the site of the White House's demolished East Wing easily cleared its first major administrative hurdle on Thursday (19 February), as the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) ...
Source: theartnewspaper.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
boom has reshaped the US's digital infrastructure map and the landscape as a whole. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta plan to spend more than $600 billion on in 2026 — a number so dizzyingly high that Wall Street is on high alert for signs of an AI bubble. That 35 gigawatts is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of the UK or Italy, and adding it would nearly double the existing data ...
Source: insider.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
An Obama-era determination known as the Endangerment Finding underpinned U.S. climate change regulation efforts for 17 years. Our Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources Group explores the ripple effects of the Trump Administration's repeal of the key legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The scientific basis of the finding dates to the Bush Administration, which found that GHGs contribute to ...
Source: jdsupra.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
The Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC's "The View" over possible violations of the requirement that broadcast stations give equal time to political candidates when they appear on-air, according to the head of the agency that oversees U.S. broadcast airwaves. "The FCC has an enforcement action underway on that," Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters after an agency meeting Wednesday, in response ...
Source: apnews.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a method to predict when someone is likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease using a single blood test. In a new study published Feb. 19 in Nature Medicine, the researchers demonstrated that their models predicted the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms within a margin of three to four years. This could have implications both for ...
Source: news-medical.net
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
All AI-generated music includes Google's SynthID watermark for identification, providing ethical safeguards while making music creation more accessible to everyday users. Google is launching music generation in its Gemini app via the new Lyria 3 model developed by Google Deepmind. The feature is in beta and allows you to create 30-second pieces of music based on text prompts and/or uploaded images and videos, says ...
Source: pcworld.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Deal agreed to acquire British secondhand fashion resale app from Etsy as eBay attempts to fend off Amazon The online retailer eBay has agreed to buy the British secondhand fashion resale app Depop from Etsy for about $1.2bn (£890m) in cash, as eBay targets younger fashion-loving consumers. The deal comes at a time when secondhand marketplaces continue to soar in popularity , especially among gen Z shoppers ...
Source: theguardian.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
At the January 2026 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the voting body chose to leave interest rates unchanged . The Federal Reserve's dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment have been at crossroads the past few months; inflation has trickled up, but the labor market shows signs of softness. At the January meeting, concerns about inflation won, as documented in the now-published ...
Source: rismedia.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
The US trade deficit in goods expanded to a new record in 2025, government data showed Thursday, despite sweeping tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed during his first year back in the White House. The US goods deficit stood at $1.24 trillion for all of last year, widening slightly from 2024's level to its biggest in Commerce Department figures dating back to 1960. But the trade gap in goods with China ...
Source: digitaljournal.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Alysa Liu won a gold medal in women's individual figure skating on Thursday, making her the first U.S. woman to take the Olympic podium in the event since 2006. Japan's Kaori Sakamoto took silver and Ami Nakai, also of Japan, took the bronze. The last American woman to earn a medal in individual figure skating was Sasha Cohen, who took home silver in 2006. Sarah Hughes was the last American woman to take home a ...
Source: cbsnews.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Feb. 19 (UPI) -- The Chicago Bears stepped forward with plans for an Indiana-based new stadium, with the amended Indiana Senate Bill 27 passing 24-0 out of committee. Lawmakers from the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee unanimously approved an amendment to Indiana Senate Bill 27, which will create the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. That body would have the power to issue bonds, acquire land and finance ...
Source: upi.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
President Donald Trump offered a forceful defense of his tariff agenda Thursday at a steel manufacturing factory in northwest Georgia as the Supreme Court weighs whether to strike down the policy at the center of his economic platform. The justices could rule as early as Friday on Trump's authority to impose the kind of broad global tariffs he implemented last year. Losing the case would deal a major economic and ...
Source: nbcnews.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Google LLC today introduced Gemini 3.1 Pro, a new reasoning model that outperforms Claude 4.6 Opus and GPT-5.2 across several benchmarks. The algorithm is available via more than a half-dozen of the search giant's products. Gemini 3.1 Pro is a Transformer model with a mixture of experts architecture, which means that it activates only some of its parameters when generating a prompt response. Users can enter prompts ...
Source: siliconangle.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is apparently too bougie for budget economy. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking approval from the White House's Office of Management and Budget to purchase a luxury jet for $70 million, two Department of Homeland Security officials told NBC News in a report published Thursday. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem testifies before the House Appropriations ...
Source: huffpost.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Bad Bunny to make lead acting debut in film inspired by Puerto Rican revolutionary Singer Bad Bunny is to take on his first lead acting role, starring in a film alongside Javier Bardem and Edward Norton. Porto Rico, described as a love letter to the 31-year-old's home of Puerto Rico, will be directed by rapper René Pérez, known as Residente. The film, which has been in development since 2023, is ...
Source: bbc.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Two Britons detained in Iran while on a round-the-world motorcycle trip have been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a revolutionary court for "spying," their family said Thursday. Husband and wife Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who were convicted and sentenced in a trial at which they were not permitted to present a defense, have been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since they were arrested in ...
Source: upi.com
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2026 -
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An exhibit detailing the lives of nine people enslaved by President George Washington in Philadelphia is being reinstalled on Thursday, despite an ongoing legal fight between the city and the Trump administration. last month following an executive order by President Donald Trump. The city subsequently sued for the exhibit to be rehung and a federal judge set a for its full restoration. ...
Source: news.yahoo.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
The whiplash over a new potential flu vaccine from Moderna, which went from rejected to approved for review in a matter of days, has illustrated a new reality plaguing the Cambridge biotech company and other vaccine makers: Political headwinds are now an unavoidable and unpredictable factor in their business model. On Wednesday the Food and Drug Administration announced it would review Moderna's application for a ...
Source: bostonglobe.com
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2026 -
NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) — Newark Liberty International Airport temporarily closed and grounded departing flights Wednesday night, according to the FAA. A JetBlue flight took off from Newark at 5:43 p.m. for West Palm Beach, Fla., and had to immediately return to the airport due to an engine failure, a source familiar with the incident told PIX11 News. ore landing, according to FlightAware . The plane ...
Source: wfla.com