Business Sentiment
Sentiment Legend:
Negative < 44
Mixed 46-54
Positive > 56
The DOJ has withheld evidence from state investigators examining Good's killing.
Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.
Top Trump administration officials derailed an investigation into an ICE agent's fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good last month, fearing that a probe by federal agents in Minnesota would undermine the White House's narrative about the killing, according to a New York Times report.
Per the report, which cites anonymous sources with knowledge of the inner workings of the inquiry, just hours after Good was killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross, federal agents within the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota began preparations to investigate her killing as a potential civil rights violation. However, just after the office obtained a warrant to search Good's car — a process that would include examining blood splatters and bullet holes — they were instructed to halt the inquiry immediately by senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, including FBI director Kash Patel.
Those senior officials were apparently concerned that the investigation, led by then-Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, could contradict President Donald Trump's official (and demonstrably false) statements on Good's death, in which he wrongly claimed Good “ran over” the ICE agent, despite concrete video evidence demonstrating that never happened.
DOJ heads then demanded that the Minnesota U.S. attorney's office shift its focus to different types of inquiries, including determining whether Good assaulted Ross prior to the shooting, or investigating her partner over her comments to ICE agents before the killing. No future order to investigate Good's killing as a civil rights violation was ever given, and the DOJ has indicated it will not pursue criminal charges against Ross.
Thompson and five other prosecutors within the U.S. Attorney's Office resigned in mid-January, due in large part to the orders to investigate other angles of Good's death. After their departure, Attorney General Pam Bondi falsely claimed on Fox News that she had fired the officials because “they didn't want to support the men and women at ICE” any longer.
The feds have also blocked Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from performing its duties, with the state agency alleging that the DOJ has withheld access to files and evidence from the case for its own inquiry.
Many state officials have expressed frustration with federal investigators over their refusal to cooperate.
“I expect the federal government to provide the requested information, documents and physical items to our office. The federal government has been clear that they are not conducting an investigation into Renee Good's death. But we are,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said earlier this month.
Several polls indicate that most Americans disagree with the administration's official stance on Good.
A Marquette University Law School poll published last week, for example, shows that only 37 percent of respondents felt Good's killing was “justified,” as the administration alleges, with 62 percent saying it was not justified. Separate polling from CNN/SSRS last month found that only 17 percent of Americans would trust the federal government to conduct its own investigation into Good's killing, with 62 percent saying they would trust an inquiry conducted solely by the feds to “some” degree or “not at all.”
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won't see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the following terms:
Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, based in Madison, Wisconsin. Focusing on both national and local topics since the early 2000s, he has produced thousands of articles analyzing the issues of the day and their impact on people. He can be found on most social media platforms under the handle @thatchriswalker.
Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.
Trump officials have repeatedly met with secessionist leaders from the province, which has large oil and gas deposits.
Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
A separation movement in the Canadian province of Alberta claims to be gaining steam, and its leaders say they now have a meeting booked with U.S. Treasury Department officials. They will be asking for a line of credit worth $500 billion in U.S. currency to help transition Alberta from a Canadian province into a U.S. state.
Led by businessman Mitch Sylvestre, the Alberta Prosperity Project has launched a petition through a campaign called Stay Free Alberta to build support for a referendum to separate from Canada. The group has no official support from any of the elected parties in Alberta.
Behind its rallying cry of faith, family, and freedom, the Alberta Prosperity Project wants a new constitution for Albertans — one “that recognizes the Supremacy of God as foundational to Civil Society and the Rule of Law.”
Unlike in the province of Quebec, where separatist leaders hold elected office, Alberta's separatist movement has no formal foothold in its province's politics. Quebec, an overwhelmingly French-speaking province, is the only jurisdiction in Canada with a sizable sovereignty movement. That province had referenda in 1980 and 1995 that asked whether or not Quebecers wanted to separate from Canada, the latter narrowly failing. The separatist political party, Parti Québécois, is expected to form the next provincial government, and has promised a referendum in its first mandate.
Officially, the governing United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is not advocating for sovereignty. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada. However, the idea of sovereignty has been used by the UCP to try to push forward policies that the government of Alberta supports, especially related to oil and gas. On February 4, Smith issued a letter demanding that Alberta be given more say over judicial appointments. She also questioned why three judges of the nine on the nation's Supreme Court came from Quebec (Quebec is governed under the Civil Code and not Common Law. As such, it has more representation at the Supreme Court for when Civil Code matters arise).
Smith is using the sovereigntist movement to try to extract gains from Ottawa but is not formally supporting the movement. When pressed by journalists about members of her caucus having signed the pro-separation petition, Smith told the Canadian press that she doesn't “police” members of her caucus and they're free to sign whatever petitions they would like.
At the end of 2022, the UCP passed an act called the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act. It allows the Alberta government to challenge federal laws that it believes are an overreach into provincial jurisdiction (though the Canadian Constitution already allows for this). The UCP has also lowered the threshold of signatures required to trigger a referendum and extended the period of time to collect signatures. The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead. There are 5 million people who live in the province.
The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead.
Jeremy Appel, author of a forthcoming book about Smith, says there has been a sovereignty movement in Alberta going back to when the province first joined Canada in 1905. From the beginning, the movement was mostly concerned with fighting to maintain provincial control over Alberta's resources. Then, the federal government created the National Energy Program in the 1980s, which gave Ottawa more control over oil and gas in Alberta, to the chagrin of many Albertans.
Appel believes that the sovereignty movement has its roots in this history but projects its discontent on the ruling status quo. “Canada's state institutions have been completely hollowed out by neoliberalism and Smith is responding to this wave of anger and discontent stemming from that by … displacing the causes onto ‘woke' liberals in Ottawa and Montreal,” he explained.
Separatist sentiment rises when Liberal Party politicians are elected in Ottawa, and they tend to be calmed when Conservative Party politicians are in office, he added.
While polls show that popular support for sovereignty in Alberta is on the rise, there is also considerable opposition. Former Progressive Conservative provincial representative for Alberta, Thomas Lukaszuk, recently filed a petition to remain part of Canada. His petition collected 438,568 signatures and was submitted to the legislative assembly on December 1, 2025, one month before the deadline. If it meets the deadline with the required number of signatures, the question about separatism will be put to Albertans in a referendum.
Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.
The Financial Times reports that Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.
Prime Minister Mark Carney reacted to the news that Trump officials had met with the sovereignty activists, saying, “I expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty.”
Appel points to the fact that it isn't just separation activists who are meeting with U.S. officials. Premier Danielle Smith travelled to Mar-a-Lago in January 2025, 10 days before Donald Trump's inauguration. Smith's current Chief of Staff Rob Anderson is a former member of the province's legislative assembly and an Albertan separatist who has an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in Utah. On social media, Anderson said the current movement to secede was triggered by Albertans' hatred for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
British Columbia Premier David Eby reacted to this news by saying this to CBC: “If you are crossing a border to seek the support of a foreign government to break up our country because you don't have the support and the resources and the ability within our own country to advance that conversation, and you're asking the Americans or any other government, I mean that is the definition of treason.”
Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants. With the U.S. administration already meddling in Venezuela over access to oil reserves, Alberta could serve a similar purpose for Trump, giving the United States access to another large deposit of oil and gas. Appel believes that this movement could easily serve as a toehold for the Trump administration to get into Canada.
Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants.
Canada and the United States have a deeply intertwined energy market. In 2023, 21 percent of all Canadian hydrocarbon exports went to the United States, worth some $163 billion in Canadian currency. Of the crude oil that the United States imported, nearly 60 percent came from Canada and almost 100 percent of the natural gas came from Canada.
Alberta produces around 84 percent of Canada's crude oil. More than any other province, Alberta relies on the United States to purchase its oil.
First Nations leaders have been outspoken against the Alberta sovereignty movement. At a press conference, Trevor Mercredi, grand chief of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, said: “Our treaties are with the imperial crown, not with the province of Alberta. Alberta has never been party to the treaties and has no jurisdiction over our lands.”
“I'm calling on all international nations and communities to support the First Nations movement in Alberta, to tell the Alberta government that what they are doing is unconstitutional, and that the foreign interference has to stop,” said Chief Allan Adam from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won't see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the following terms:
Nora Loreto is a writer and activist based in Quebec City. She is also the president of the Canadian Freelance Union.
Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.
Another round of talks between the US and Iran is expected to be held in the upcoming days. With regional allies on edge and militant groups warning of escalation, the outcome of the negotiations could determine whether diplomacy holds or whether the Middle East slides toward a broader war.
Iran and representatives of the Trump administration are expected to hold another round of talks in the coming days, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday.
The announcement follows a six-hour marathon of talks in Muscat, the capital of Oman, where Araghchi and his team met with Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Steve Witkoff, the US special representative for the Middle East, and Gen. Brad Cooper, chief of staff of US Central Command (CENTCOM).
The venue for the next round has yet to be finalized. Oman may be replaced by another Gulf country or possibly Türkiye, but the focus of the discussions is expected to remain unchanged: Iran's military capabilities.
At the center of the agenda is Tehran's nuclear program, which Iran insists is designed solely for civilian energy and research purposes.
Washington, however, remains deeply skeptical, arguing that Iran's enrichment levels, stockpiles, and technological advances point toward potential military use. The US wants the program either sharply curtailed or dismantled entirely.
But the nuclear issue is only one of several major fault lines separating the two adversaries.
Speaking at a press conference last Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined what he described as the minimum conditions for the talks to succeed. In addition to nuclear restrictions, Rubio said Iran's ballistic missile program must be addressed, and Tehran must halt its support for armed Islamist groups across the Middle East.
Those demands reflect long-standing US concerns. Iran's missile program is viewed in Washington as a delivery system for a future nuclear weapon, while Iranian backing of groups such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Iraqi militias is seen as a destabilizing force across the region.
Iran, however, has consistently rejected such conditions. Officials in Tehran argue that their missile program is defensive and non-negotiable, especially given the country's experience with war, sanctions, and isolation. Likewise, Iranian leaders have repeatedly framed support for allied groups as a legitimate response to Israeli and Western influence in the Middle East.
For that reason, expectations for a breakthrough remain low.
Iran is unlikely to make meaningful concessions on its ballistic missile program, nor is it expected to abandon its long-standing allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. If those positions remain unchanged, analysts warn that the path toward military confrontation becomes increasingly narrow.
Experts have repeatedly cautioned that a direct conflict between Iran and the United States would almost certainly spiral beyond bilateral fighting. Instead, it could ignite a region-wide war, particularly if Iranian-backed groups enter the fray.
A Hezbollah official, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, echoed those fears, warning that the entire Middle East could be dragged into a full-scale confrontation.
“All countries in the region are prepared for this confrontation,” the official said. “That is why Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and others issued statements saying they will not allow their airspace to be used to strike Iran. The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has also stated that any war on Iran will be a regional one. For Tehran, it would be a war of survival. The repercussions will affect all countries in the region.”
Despite the dire warnings, the official stopped short of confirming whether Hezbollah would actively intervene if Iran were attacked.
“We may or may not intervene,” he said. “Sheikh Naim Qassem [Hezbollah's chief – ed.] emphasized the right of resistance and the defense of Lebanon. Our position is that we will not accept the Israelis, or anyone else, striking us while we stand idly by.”
Such statements underline Hezbollah's attempt to maintain strategic ambiguity. Yet analysts note that even if the group wished to intervene decisively, its capacity has been significantly degraded following its most recent confrontation with Israel.
Before the war that erupted in October 2023, Hezbollah was widely believed to possess one of the largest rocket and missile arsenals in the world, estimated at more than 150,000 projectiles. After months of sustained Israeli airstrikes and targeted operations, that stockpile is believed to have shrunk dramatically, by as much as 70 to 80%, according to several assessments. Rocket launchers have also been severely degraded, with some estimates suggesting they have been reduced to a small fraction of their pre-war levels.
The damage has not been limited to weapons. Hezbollah has also suffered heavy personnel losses. Senior figures such as Hassan Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine, Fuad Shukr, Ali Karaki, and others have been killed. Tunnel systems, storage depots, and command centers have been destroyed, while financial networks that once funneled money to fighters and supporters have been disrupted or crippled.
Still, the Hezbollah official insists the group remains capable of resisting Israel.
“The Israelis know that even after the war ended, resistance rockets were falling in many parts of the entity [Israel], especially in Tel Aviv,” he said.
“They know the war did not end with the resistance losing its capabilities. Quite the opposite is true. This is why the Israelis and Americans are trying to pressure Hezbollah to disarm.”
According to the official, such pressure will not succeed.
“We are a group that refuses to live in humiliation. In our conviction and belief, we are the people of dignity, and we will not accept our country being occupied, aggressions being perpetrated, innocent people being killed, while we stand idly by.”
Similar defiant rhetoric has also emerged from Yemen. Speaking from Sanaa, Houthi spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told RT that the group has “no concerns at all” when it comes to confronting Israel or the US.
“In fact, we prefer direct confrontation with the American and Israeli enemy over indirect confrontation with their tools in the region or their mercenaries at home,” he said.
We view martyrdom in the cause of God as a victory, not a loss.
Al-Bukhaiti said Iran has “sacrificed a lot” for the Yemeni people and that the Houthis intend to respond “to loyalty with loyalty.”
Yet, as with Hezbollah, the Houthis face serious constraints. Even before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the current regional escalation, Yemen's economy was in dire condition after years of civil war. Israeli strikes on ports and key infrastructure carried out in response to Houthi missile and drone attacks have only worsened the situation, with estimated direct and indirect damages exceeding $1 billion.
Despite these setbacks, al-Bukhaiti claims the group's “military capabilities have increased and developed significantly” and says the Houthis are “more prepared to engage in the coming rounds.” He declined to specify what those capabilities are or what actions the group would take if Iran were attacked.
In the past, Houthi responses have included missile and drone launches toward Israel, attacks on international shipping, disruptions to oil flows, and even interference with undersea internet cables. Should tensions escalate again, analysts believe similar tactics could be employed.
As negotiators prepare to meet again, the gulf between US demands and Iranian red lines remains wide. Whether diplomacy can still rein in the crisis, or whether the region edges closer to a multi-front war, may depend not only on what is said at the negotiating table, but on how far Iran's allies are willing, and able, to go once words give way to action.
By Elizabeth Blade, RT Middle East correspondent
RT News App
© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2026. All rights reserved.
This website uses cookies. Read RT Privacy policy to find out more.
Live Updates
• Epstein files: Ghislaine Maxwell, jailed for 20 years for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to abuse minors, sent a clear message to Donald Trump today that if the president were to grant her clemency, she would clear his name of any wrongdoing as it pertains to Epstein. Separately, members of Congress can review unredacted versions of the Epstein files at the Department of Justice today.
• DHS funding: Lawmakers are returning to Washington with just days to find a funding solution on the Department of Homeland Security or see an agency shutdown. Democrats are demanding reforms to federal immigration enforcement.
• Super Bowl reaction: Trump — who skipped the Super Bowl and attended a watch party in Florida — called last night's Bad Bunny's halftime performance “a slap in the face” and claimed “nobody understands a word” said by the Puerto Rican music star.
The deadline for funding the Department of Homeland Security is Friday at midnight, but Republican and Democratic negotiators have yet to make significant progress, sources tell CNN.
The lack of serious progress over the weekend raises the stakes that funding for the department could lapse in just a matter of days as Democrats have sought to make major reforms to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection practices as part of these talks.
Democrats sent some legislative text to Republicans over the weekend that crystalized their list of demands, a source briefed on the matter told CNN. Yet, there hasn't been a sustained back-and-forth. One source characterized it as a car stuck in neutral but sort of rolling down a hill – so not totally stalled out.
Last week, Democrats and Republicans were engaged in a public fight over who was stalling the talks, a sign that the negotiations aren't yet at a serious point.
It's possible that Senate Majority Leader John Thune may need to begin the process of filing cloture on another short-term funding stopgap, known as a continuing resolution, but again, it's not clear that Democrats would back that plan barring significant progress on Republicans meeting their demands on ICE reforms.
The fallout from the release by the Department of Justice of millions of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continued unabated today, here and abroad.
His jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell invoked the Fifth Amendment during a virtual deposition as her attorney made an extraordinary overture. She is currently serving time at a minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.
If you're just joining us, here's the latest:
Maxwell deposition:
International fallout:
Learn more about the British royals' statement below:
CNN's MJ Lee, Annie Grayer, James Frater, Caitin Danaher and Billy Stockwell contributed to this report.
Vice President JD Vance on Monday became the first sitting US vice president (or president) to visit Armenia, where he touted partnerships between the two nations — including US drone technology sales and a civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
“Tonight marks a new beginning for Armenia and the United States and the partnership that our country can have together,” Vance said, standing beside Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom he endorsed ahead of upcoming elections.
Vance credited President Donald Trump and Pashinyan for advancing a forward-looking vision for peace in the region. Trump hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House in August, where they finalized a peace agreement that would grant the US exclusive development access to a critical transit corridor in the South Caucasus.
Vance praised that Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, saying it'll ensure “private capital is going to flow into building railroads, into building pipelines, again, to building the interconnectedness that would create real prosperity for the region, but also allow the peace agreement to stick.”
Pashinyan, for his part, said he hopes Trump will win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026 and discussed his role on the Board of Peace, confirming he plans to attend an upcoming meeting.
Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to prison for 20 years for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to abuse minors, sent a clear message to Donald Trump on Monday that if the president were to grant her clemency, she would clear his name of any wrongdoing as it pertains to Epstein.
The extraordinary overture, stated by Maxwell's lawyer Monday morning during her virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee, ensures the Epstein saga will continue to remain a political hotspot.
“Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump,” attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement during the deposition, which he later posted on X. “Only she can provide the complete account. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing.”
Markus also said that: “Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”
Trump has not ruled out the possibility of offering Maxwell a pardon or commutation.
Trump and Clinton, who appear throughout the files released by DOJ, have denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
House Oversight Chair James Comer called Maxwell's decision to plead the Fifth “very disappointing” and said lawmakers “had many questions to ask about the crime she and Epstein committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspiracy.”
Democrats on the committee accused Maxwell of trying to buy her clemency by refusing to testify. “We will not allow this silence to stand,” Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury said.
When asked if he would subpoena Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as part of the probe, Comer said he was going to focus on five depositions he has coming up.
The Clintons are expected to appear behind closed doors later this month for depositions.
Jeffrey Epstein survivors urged members of the House Oversight Committee to treat Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's testimony “with the utmost skepticism” before she appeared for a virtual deposition with the panel, according to a letter shared with CNN.
Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during her brief appearance today, according to a person familiar with the matter. The survivors' letter was entered into evidence during the virtual deposition.
“We urge the Committee to approach Ms. Maxwell's testimony with the utmost skepticism, to rigorously scrutinize any claims she makes, and to ensure that this process does not become another vehicle through which survivors are harmed or silenced,” according to the letter, signed by a group of survivors, including multiple Jane Does and family members of Virginia Giuffre. “Truth, accountability, and transparency must be the priority—not the rehabilitation of a convicted trafficker's narrative.”
The group writes that many of them were “harmed” by Maxwell over the course of decades, and that they worry her deposition is “becoming another opportunity for deception rather than truth.” They accused her of repeatedly lying under oath and declining to identify powerful men who were involved in Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
“Ms. Maxwell was not a peripheral figure. She was a central and indispensable architect of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking enterprise,” they wrote. “Despite this, she has refused to meaningfully cooperate with law enforcement or provide credible, complete information about the scope of the trafficking network.”
CNN has asked Maxwell's lawyer for comment.
Ghislaine Maxwell has invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in her ongoing deposition with the House Oversight Committee, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice, is appearing before the panel virtually. She is currently serving time at a minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.
During the deposition, Maxwell appeared to be wearing a khaki-colored short-sleeve button-up shirt and was wearing glasses. Her lawyer Leah Saffian sat next to her at a table and had a laptop.
CNN's MJ Lee contributed reporting.
Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell's virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee has begun, per a source familiar.
Her lawyer, David Oscar Markus, is joining virtually. Another lawyer, Leah Saffian, is with Maxwell in person.
Maxwell is currently serving time at a minimum security prison in Bryan, Texas.
Markus, who was first to speak at the deposition, has let lawmakers know that Maxwell intends to invoke the Fifth Amendment. He also said she will speak if granted clemency by President Donald Trump.
A possible Department of Homeland Security shutdown by the end of the week hinges on a showdown over a DHS funding bill — with Democrats looking to impose limits on ICE agents after the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and Republicans refusing their key demands.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that efforts to find agreement over the Department of Homeland Security funding bill would “continue through the weekend.”
While Thune said he preferred a full-year funding extension as a backup, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday said he was not willing to accept anything less than Democratic leaders' demands.
Jeffries cast blame on Republicans for stalled negotiations on a deal to fund DHS, which includes FEMA and TSA, ahead of the February 13 deadline.
Democrats have put forward their list of requirements for a bill to fund DHS and reform ICE, including requiring immigration enforcement agents to wear body cameras and remove face masks and to use judicial warrants, an issue that has been a nonstarter for Republicans.
Jeffries said Democrats haden't heard back from the White House or GOP leaders on their “common sense” demands, adding, “in our view, the ball is in the court right now of the Republicans.”
“Either they're going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves, so that they're behaving like every other law enforcement agency in the country, or they're making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA and shut down TSA,” he warned.
CNN's Stephen Collinson and Alison Main contributed to this reporting.
President Donald Trump arrived back at the White House after midnight, after attending a Super Bowl watch party in Florida last night.
This is what's listed on Trump's schedule for today:
We'll keep you updated if anything changes.
Several victims of Jeffrey Epstein appeared in an ad released yesterday that demands more transparency from the government as it continues to post documents related to the late sex offender.
The video, released by the group World Without Exploitation, features women sharing pictures of themselves when they were younger. They call on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all files pertaining to various investigations into Epstein.
The ad comes as the Department of Justice continues to face scrutiny about what it has released as well as what has been redacted in the files.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the video in a social media post as “the most important ad you will see on Super Bowl Sunday.”
“You don't ‘move on' from the largest sex trafficking ring in the world,” the senator wrote. “You expose it.”
Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell is set to appear for a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill today, while the Prince and Princess of Wales are speaking out about Epstein as the scandal has engulfed the palace and UK parliament in recent weeks.
Maxwell deposition: Maxwell, who convicted of the sex trafficking of a minor and other charges in 2021, will appear before the House Oversight Committee this morning. It is important to note however, that committee chair James Comer expects she will assert her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and not actually testify.
In the UK: Meanwhile, Prince and Princess of Wales have been “deeply concerned” by revelations from the trove of new documents related to Epstein, a Kensington Palace spokesperson told journalists in Riyadh ahead of Prince William's visit to Saudi Arabia today. “Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.”
The chief of staff to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, resigned yesterday over the scandal around the appointment of Peter Mandelson — who has been linked to Epstein — as UK ambassador to the US.
Back in the US: GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is calling for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign. Asked on CNN's “Inside Politics” if Lutnick, who appeared to have corresponded with Epstein multiple times, should testify, the Kentucky lawmaker responded, “No, he should just resign.”
Documents revealed that Lutnick sought to meet with or call Epstein several times since 2005, including after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008.
And yesterday, several victims of Jeffrey Epstein appeared in an ad that demanded more transparency from the government as it continues to post documents related to the late sex offender. The ad demands that Attorney General Pam Bondi release all files pertaining to various investigations into Epstein, who died in 2019.
CNN's Max Foster, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Annie Grayer, and Micheal Williams contributed to this reporting.
In an exclusive interview with CNN's Manu Raju, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie says it's time for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign following the latest release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Here's a round-up of our reporting on the Trump administration's latest foreign policy developments.
Talks between Greenland and the United States are not currently where Greenland would like them to be — and it is too early to say what the outcome will be, the Arctic island's foreign minister said yesterday.
On January 21, Trump announced he had reached a “framework of a future deal” regarding Greenland. The talks between the US, Greenland and Denmark are aimed at finalizing that deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is expected” to visit Washington to meet with Trump on Wednesday, “where he will discuss with him the negotiations with Iran,” the Prime Minister's office said Saturday.
“The Prime Minister believes that any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and an end to support for the Iranian axis,” the statement concluded.
Yesterday, Iran's foreign minister said the country must uphold its right to continue uranium enrichment, after initial indirect talks with the United States over the country's nuclear progam.
A key point of contention remains Iran's demand to enrich uranium – a nuclear fuel that can be used to make a bomb if purified to high levels – which the US and its allies reject.
CNN's Sophie Tanno, Isabelle D'Antonio, Eugenia Yosef, Max Saltman and Laura Sharma contributed to this post.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said yesterday he does not expect Democrats and Republicans to come to an agreement ahead of the February 13 government funding deadline for the Department of Homeland Security.
“I absolutely would expect that it's gonna shutdown,” Fetterman, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview with Fox News.“We, the Democrats, we provided, I think it was 10, 10 kinds of basic things, and then the Republican(s) pushed back quickly, saying that that's like a Christmas wish list and that they're non-starters,” he said, adding later: “If I had to say now, I would probably expect that there is going to be a shutdown.”
If an agreement to fund DHS is not met, a partial shutdown is on the horizon, which would affect operations in that department. Agencies such as TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard would all be impacted.
Fetterman is one of eight Democrats who broke with their party at the end of last year to vote with Republicans to reopen the government after a 43-day shutdown.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also raised doubts about the prospect that Democrats and Republicans will come to an agreement on DHS. He told CNN's Dana Bash yesterday that his party hasn't heard back from the White House or GOP leaders on their “common sense” demands, adding, “in our view, the ball is in the court right now of the Republicans.”
President Donald Trump — who skipped the Super Bowl and instead attended a watch party in Florida — denounced Bad Bunny's halftime performance as “a slap in the face” and said “nobody understands a word” the Puerto Rican rapper was saying.
“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “This ‘Show' is just a ‘slap in the face' to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day.”
Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, rocked the stage Sunday night with many of his biggest hits, powerful imagery and theatrical nods to songs and symbols from throughout his Spanish-language catalog.
During the performance, Bad Bunny delivered a unifying message, expanding the meaning of “God bless America” to include all nations of the Americas — from Chile to Canada.
“God bless America, whether it's Chile, Argentina,” Bad Bunny said as he proceeded to list more than 20 nations in North and South America, and displayed the flags of many of them. He stood beside the US flag and the flag of Puerto Rico, a US territory.
The president criticized both the language and choreography of the performance.
“Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social, adding that the dancing was “disgusting,” particularly for young children watching across the US and around the world.
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social his thought on Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show.
Members of Congress can begin reviewing unredacted versions of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of Justice today, according to a new letter obtained by CNN.
The letter from DOJ outlines parameters for how members can review the unredacted versions of the more than 3 million pages that DOJ has released to the public.
Lawmakers will have access to computers in a reading room at DOJ where they cannot bring outside electronic devices but can take notes, according to the letter. The room will only be available to members and not staff, the letter stipulates. The DOJ asks members to provide 24 hours notice of when they'd like to view the materials.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced last month upon the department's latest public release of Epstein files that members would be able to schedule appointments to view the unredacted versions.
The architects of the law that required the Epstein files release, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, had requested to view the unredacted materials on January 30.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, also requested that all Judiciary Committee Democrats get to review the documents before Attorney General Pam Bondi is set to testify in front of the panel on Wednesday.
Massie was interviewed by CNN's Manu Raji on Sunday.
Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of the sex trafficking of a minor and other charges in 2021, is expected to appear for a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill today.
House Oversight Chair James Comer announced last month that he expects Maxwell to assert her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and not actually testify.
“We have nailed down a date, February 9, where Ghislaine Maxwell will be deposed by this committee. Her lawyers have made it clear that she's going to plead the Fifth. I hope she changes her mind because I want to hear from her,” Comer said on January 21.
Video clips released January 30 showed Maxwell answering questions about Epstein under oath in 2016 in response to a civil suit.
President Donald Trump drew swift condemnation from Democrats and Republicans for a since-deleted racist video posted to his Truth Social account depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle.
The social media post, which Trump has refused to apologize for sharing, was the latest in a long line of offensive messages amplified by the his account.
Here's what you need to know:
The video Trump shared largely contained debunked claims about fraud in voting machines. As that section of the video ended, a separate clip showing the Obamas' faces superimposed on the bodies of apes played, set to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
The post, which recalls the racist trope of comparing Black people with monkeys, prompted swift backlash. It was online for roughly 12 hours before it was deleted from Trump's feed.
The White House initially defended the post and downplayed the response to the video, calling it “fake outrage.” Following a bipartisan backlash, the White House then told CNN a “staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
Trump said that neither he nor his staff had seen all of the video before it was posted to Truth Social.
“Nobody knew that that was in the end. If they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”
When asked directly whether he would apologize, he declined.
When pressed, Trump said he condemned the racist portion of the clip. “Of course I do,” he said.
“I am, by the way, the least racist president you've had in a long time,” he said.
CNN's Alayna Treene, Adam Cancryn and Ellis Kim contributed to this reporting.
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Despite an expanded release to some 2,000 screens, the gushing enthusiasm recorded on the vox pop Popcornometer is not powering a word-of-mouth hit
Melania, Brett Ratner's authorised documentary following the first lady in the 20 days preceding Donald Trump's January 2025 inauguration, has dipped 67% in its second week of release in the US.
The film outpaced expectations over its first weekend, taking in $7.2m domestically and leading Amazon to expand their rollout from around 1,500 venues to just over 2,000. But indications are that appetite had already been sated, with Sunday projections standing at $2.3m, meaning a drop from No 3 to No 10 in the US box office charts.
Amazon pre-empted this disappointment with a statement on Saturday, flagging the film's already healthy performance, as well as what they hope will be long streaming legs.
“Melania's strong theatrical performance is a critical first moment that validates our holistic distribution strategy, building awareness, engagement and provides momentum ahead of the film's eventual debut on Prime Video,” said Amazon MGM distribution chief Kevin Wilson.
A streaming release date has not yet been announced.
The film, for which Amazon paid $40m after a bidding war, and then spent a further $35m on marketing, was released in 26 countries worldwide (a South African release was abruptly cancelled at the 11th hour).
Although international statistics are hard to source, the film has performed markedly less well across its some 3,000 overseas screens.
Top performing territories include the UK, where it opened at No 29 in the chart, taking £32,974 for a £212 per screen average, as well as Australia and Melania Trump's native Slovenia.
Critics have almost universally slated the movie, with the Guardian's Xan Brooks calling it “a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest” and “two hours of pure, endless hell”.
But audiences appear to have felt otherwise, leading to a record-breaking gap between the aggregate critics' score and audience members' equivalent on reviews curation site Rotten Tomatoes.
On that site its official reviews rating is just 8%, yet it has a 99% score from cinemagoers on the “Popcornmeter”, with one user praising “the best documentary I've seen in years. The cinematography was superb, the soundtrack was excellent, and Melania herself was spectacular, a great movie which should receive numerous awards”.
Rotten Tomatoes's parent company Versant has rejected speculation that the latter figure was the result of a flood of fake reviews, telling Variety “there has been NO manipulation on the audience reviews for the Melania documentary”.
They added: “Reviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning that it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film through Fandango”.
However, there appears to be a striking disparity between the warmth of those reviews labelled “verified” because the users have bought a ticket through a particular site and those collected in “all audience reviews” – which do not count towards its rating.
The former contains – as the 99% rating suggests – blanket praise and evangelism, with users urging “every red blooded American to see this movie to recognise the grace, sophistication and power of Flotius [sic]” and applauding the lack of nudity and profanity.
The users commenting appear in the overwhelming majority to be first-time posters, for whom Melania is their first review.
Critiques in the “all audience reviews” section tend to derive from accounts with a deeper prior engagement on the site, and include assessments such as “I thought it would have been based on her actual life, good and bad. There was no emotion, drama or depth. It's just a bad reality show,” and “Hot garbage. Don't waste your time or money.”
“Concealing the reputations of these powerful men is a blatant violation” of federal law, Rep. Ro Khanna said.
Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
Several members of Congress are expected this week to review hundreds, if not thousands, of files relating to disgraced financier and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, amid claims that files are being improperly redacted and that victims' names have been wrongly released to the public.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act — which passed last fall after considerable opposition from President Donald Trump, who campaigned to his advantage on releasing the files — required “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in the case to be released two months ago. Yet millions of files have not been released, raising further doubt about the administration's supposed commitment to transparency.
Meanwhile, many of the files within the latest batch of documents to be released improperly include the names and images of dozens of survivors of Epstein's crimes. Lawyers for the victims say that as many as 100 people have had their lives “turned upside down” as a result of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) impropriety.
In other examples, it appears that names that were mandated to be made public by the Epstein Transparency Files Act are still being blocked out. The act specifically stipulates that a person's name cannot be redacted to protect them from embarrassment or reputational harm — but multiple names appear to have been redacted for that purpose.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who co-authored the bipartisan law alongside Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), shared an example in which a person sent an email to Epstein describing, in extremely disturbing terms, the attributes of a child who had “just arrived.” The name of the person who sent the email was redacted in the DOJ's latest file release.
“Concealing the reputations of these powerful men is a blatant violation of the Epstein Transparency Act we passed,” Khanna wrote on Facebook.
Massie also expressed his discontent with the administration's actions.
“Where are the rest of the documents? Why did they release victims' names? They took extra time, they said, to be safe, and what are these redactions?” Massie said in a CNN interview this weekend.
Attorney General Pam Bondi “has no credibility on this,” Massie added, noting that Bondi had previously claimed files were on her desk before flipping positions, saying there was nothing new worth making public last year.
Several other members of Congress have complained about these issues. Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the ranking Democratic member on the House Judiciary Committee, requested that the DOJ allow him and other lawmakers to view unredacted versions of the files the department has made public.
“We seek to ensure that your redactions comply with the Act's requirement that materials be withheld only in narrow circumstances, such as protecting victims' personally identifiable information, and not on the basis of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary,” Raskin wrote.
The DOJ appears to have relented to that request, allowing lawmakers, starting this week, to view unredacted versions of the files that have been made public. The agreement requires those members of Congress to give the department 24 hours notice. They cannot bring in electronic recording devices, but will be allowed to take handwritten notes while viewing the files.
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won't see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the following terms:
Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, based in Madison, Wisconsin. Focusing on both national and local topics since the early 2000s, he has produced thousands of articles analyzing the issues of the day and their impact on people. He can be found on most social media platforms under the handle @thatchriswalker.
Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.
“Public health officers are being asked to facilitate a man-made humanitarian crisis,” said one nurse who resigned.
Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
Rebekah Stewart, a nurse at the U.S. Public Health Service, got a call last April that brought her to tears. She had been selected for deployment to the Trump administration's new immigration detention operation at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
This posting combined Donald Trump's longtime passion to use the offshore base to move “some bad dudes” out of the United States with a promise made shortly after his inauguration last year to hold thousands of noncitizens there. The naval base is known for the torture and inhumane treatment of men suspected of terrorism in the wake of 9/11.
“Deployments are typically not something you can say no to,” Stewart said. She pleaded with the coordinating office, which found another nurse to go in her place.
Other public health officers who worked at Guantánamo in the past year described conditions there for the detainees, some of whom learned they were in Cuba from the nurses and doctors sent to care for them. They treated immigrants detained in a dark prison called Camp 6, where no sunlight filters in, said the officers, whom KFF Health News agreed not to name because they fear retaliation for speaking publicly. It previously held people with suspected ties to al-Qaida. The officers said they were not briefed ahead of time on the details of their potential duties at the base.
Although the Public Health Service is not a branch of the U.S. armed forces, its uniformed officers — roughly 5,000 doctors, nurses, and other health workers — act like stethoscope-wearing soldiers in emergencies. The government deploys them during hurricanes, wildfires, mass shootings, and measles outbreaks. In the interim, they fill gaps at an alphabet soup of government agencies.
The Trump administration's mass arrests to curb immigration have created a new type of health emergency as the number of people detained reaches record highs. About 71,000 immigrants are currently imprisoned, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, which shows that most have no criminal record.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said: “President Donald Trump has been very clear: Guantanamo Bay will hold the worst of the worst.” However, several news organizations have reported that many of the men shipped to the base had no criminal convictions. As many as 90% of them were described as “low-risk” in a May progress report from ICE.
In fits and starts, the Trump administration has sent about 780 noncitizens to Guantánamo Bay, according to The New York Times. Numbers fluctuate as new detainees arrive and others are returned to the U.S. or deported.
While some Public Health Service officers have provided medical care to detained immigrants in the past, this is the first time in American history that Guantánamo has been used to house immigrants who had been living in the U.S. Officers said ICE postings are getting more common. After dodging Guantánamo, Stewart was instructed to report to an ICE detention center in Texas.
“Public health officers are being asked to facilitate a man-made humanitarian crisis,” she said.
Seeing no option to refuse deployments that she found objectionable, Stewart resigned after a decade of service. She would give up the prospect of a pension offered after 20 years.
“It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make,” she said. “It was my dream job.”
One of her PHS colleagues, nurse Dena Bushman, grappled with a similar moral dilemma when she got a notice to report to Guantánamo a few weeks after the shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August. Bushman, who was posted with the CDC, got a medical waiver delaying her deployment on account of stress and grief. She considered resigning, then did.
“This may sound extreme,” Bushman said. “But when I was making this decision, I couldn't help but think about how the people who fed those imprisoned in concentration camps were still part of the Nazi regime.”
Others have resigned, but many officers remain. While they are alarmed by Trump's tactics, detained people need care, multiple PHS officers told KFF Health News.
“We do the best we can to provide care to people in this shit show,” said a PHS nurse who worked in detention facilities last year.
“I respect people and treat them like humans,” she said. “I try to be a light in the darkness, the one person that makes someone smile in this horrible mess.”
The PHS officers conceded that their power to protect people was limited in a detention system fraught with overcrowding, disorganization, and the psychological trauma of uncertainty, family separations, and sleep deprivation.
“Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, chief spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, in an emailed statement to KFF Health News.
Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Public Health Service, said in an email: “Our duty is clear: say “Yes Sir!”, salute smartly, and execute the mission: show up, provide humane care, and protect health.” Christine is a recent appointee who, until recently, was a urologist specializing in testosterone and male fertility issues.
“In pursuit of subjective morality or public displays of virtue,” he added, “we risk abandoning the very individuals we pledged to serve.”
In the months before Stewart resigned, she reflected on her previous deployments, during Trump's first term, to immigration processing centers run by Customs and Border Protection. Fifty women were held in a single concrete cell in Texas, she recalled.
“The most impactful thing I could do was to convince the guards to allow the women, who had been in there for a week, to shower,” she said. “I witnessed suffering without having much ability to address it.”
Stewart spoke with Bushman and other PHS officers who were embedded at the CDC last year. They assisted with the agency's response to ongoing measles outbreaks, with sexually transmitted infection research, and more. Their roles became crucial last year as the Trump administration laid off droves of CDC staffers.
Stewart, Bushman, and a few other PHS officers at the CDC said they met with middle managers to ask for details about the deployments: If they went to Guantánamo and ICE facilities, how much power would they have to provide what they considered medically necessary care? If they saw anything unethical, how could they report it? Would it be investigated? Would they be protected from reprisal?
Stewart and Bushman said they were given a PHS office phone number they could call if they had a complaint while on assignment. Otherwise, they said, their questions went unanswered. They resigned and so never went to Guantánamo.
PHS officers who were deployed to the base told KFF Health News they weren't given details about their potential duties — or the standard operating procedure for medical care — before they arrived.
Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army general and a psychiatrist who has advised on medical care at Guantánamo for two decades, said that was troubling. Before health workers deploy, he said, they should understand what they'll be expected to do.
The consequences of insufficient preparation can be severe. In 2014, the Navy threatened to court-martial one of its nurses at Guantánamo who refused to force-feed prisoners on hunger strike, who were protesting inhumane treatment and indefinite detention. The protocol was brutal: A person was shackled to a five-point restraint chair as nurses shoved a tube for liquid food into their stomach through their nostrils.
“He wasn't given clear guidance in advance on how these procedures would be conducted at Guantánamo,” Xenakis said of the nurse. “Until he saw it, he didn't understand how painful it was for detainees.”
The American Nurses Association and Physicians for Human Rights sided with the nurse, saying his objection was guided by professional ethics. After a year, the military dropped the charges.
A uniformed doctor or nurse's power tends to depend on their rank, their supervisor, and chains of command, Xenakis said. He helped put an end to some inhumane practices at Guantánamo more than a decade ago, when he and other retired generals and admirals publicly objected to certain interrogation techniques, such as one called “walling,” in which interrogators slammed the heads of detainees suspected of terrorism against a wall, causing slight concussions. Xenakis argued that science didn't support “walling” as an effective means of interrogation, and that it was unethical, amounting to torture.
Torture hasn't been reported from Guantánamo's immigration operation, but ICE shift reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the government watchdog group American Oversight note concerns about detainees resorting to hunger strikes and self-harm.
“Welfare checks with potential hunger strike IA's,” short for illegal aliens, says an April 30 note from a contractor working with ICE. “In case of a hunger strike or other emergencies,” the report adds, the PHS and ICE are “coordinating policies and procedures.”
“De-escalation of potential pod wide hunger strike/potential riot,” says an entry from July 8. “Speak with alien on suicide watch regarding well being.”
Inmates and investigations have reported delayed medical care at immigration detention facilities and dangerous conditions, including overcrowding and a lack of sanitation. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the deadliest year in two decades.
“They are arresting and detaining more people than their facilities can support,” one PHS officer told KFF Health News. The most prevalent problem the officer saw among imprisoned immigrants was psychological. They worried about never seeing their families again or being sent back to a country where they feared they'd be killed. “People are scared out of their minds,” the officer said.
The PHS officers who were at Guantánamo told KFF Health News that the men they saw were detained in either low-security barracks, with a handful of people per room, or in Camp 6, a dark, high-security facility without natural light. The ICE shift reports describe the two stations by their position on the island, Leeward for the barracks and Windward for Camp 6. About 50 Cuban men sent to Guantánamo in December and January have languished at Camp 6.
A Navy hospital on the base mainly serves the military and other residents who aren't locked up — and in any case, its capabilities are limited, the officers said. To reduce the chance of expensive medical evacuations back to the U.S. to see specialists quickly, they said, the immigrants were screened before being shipped to Guantánamo. People over age 60 or who needed daily drugs to manage diabetes and high blood pressure, for example, were generally excluded. Still, the officers said, some detainees have had to be evacuated back to Florida.
PHS nurses and doctors said they screened immigrants again when they arrived and provided ongoing care, fielding complaints including about gastrointestinal distress and depression. One ICE monthly progress report says, “The USPHS psychologist started an exercise group” for detainees.
Doctors' requests for lab work were often turned down because of logistical hurdles, partly due to the number of agencies working together on the base, the officers said. Even a routine test, a complete blood count, took weeks to process, versus hours in the U.S.
DHS and the Department of Defense, which have coordinated on the Guantánamo immigration operation, did not respond to requests for comment about their work there.
One PHS officer who helped medically screen new detainees said they were often surprised to learn they were at Guantánamo.
“I'd tell them, ‘I'm sorry you are here,'” the officer said. “No one freaked out. It was like the ten-millionth time they had been transferred.” Some of the men had been detained in various facilities for five or six months and said they wanted to return to their home countries, according to the officer. Health workers had neither an answer nor a fix.
Unlike ICE detention facilities in the U.S., Guantánamo hasn't been overcrowded. “I have never been so not busy at work,” one officer said. A military base on a tropical island, Guantánamo offers activities such as snorkeling, paddleboard yoga, and kickboxing to those who aren't imprisoned. Even so, the officer said they would rather be home than on this assignment on the taxpayer's dime.
Transporting staff and supplies to the island and maintaining them on-base is enormously expensive. The government paid an estimated $16,500 per day, per detainee at Guantánamo, to hold those accused of terrorism, according to a 2025 Washington Post analysis of DOD data. (The average cost to detain immigrants in ICE facilities in the U.S. is $157 a day.)
Even so, the funding has skyrocketed: Congress granted ICE a record $78 billion for fiscal year 2026, a staggering increase from $9.9 billion in 2024 and $6.5 billion nearly a decade ago.
Last year, the Trump administration also diverted more than $2 billion from the national defense budget to immigration operations, according to a report from congressional Democrats. About $60 million of it went to Guantánamo.
“Detaining noncitizens at Guantanamo is far more costly and logistically burdensome than holding them in ICE detention facilities within the United States,” wrote Deborah Fleischaker, a former assistant director at ICE, in a declaration submitted as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union early last year. In December, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration's request to dismiss a separate ACLU case questioning the legality of detaining immigrants outside the U.S.
Anne Schuchat, who served with the PHS for 30 years before retiring in 2018, said PHS deployments to detention centers may cost the nation in terms of security, too. “A key concern has always been to have enough of these officers available for public health emergencies,” she said.
Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said the immigration deployments don't affect the public health service's potential response to other emergencies.
In the past, PHS officers have stood up medical shelters during hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas, rolled out covid testing in the earliest months of the pandemic, and provided crisis support after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Boston Marathon bombing.
“It's important for the public to be aware of how many government resources are being used so that the current administration can carry out this one agenda,” said Stewart, one of the nurses who resigned. “This one thing that's probably turning us into the types of countries we have fought wars against.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won't see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.
Amy Maxmen is a contributor at KFF Health News.
Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.
News of the infections comes less than a week after two cases of measles were identified at another Texas ICE jail.
Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, support us with a donation of any size.
Two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of COVID-19 were recently identified at a massive immigration detention center in El Paso, according to city officials and a Democratic congresswoman.
El Paso's U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar disclosed the infections after her Friday visit to Camp East Montana, the 5,000-bed tent facility the federal government hastily built last year on the Fort Bliss Army base. In a post on X, Escobar said, “Many of the chronic issues that I have reported out to the public and to members of my committee persist.”
She said medical leadership at the East Montana facility shared that information with her last month in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
City of El Paso spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta also confirmed the cases Saturday, writing in a statement that city health officials “received notifications related to tuberculosis at Camp East Montana through required reporting protocols.” She said that ICE, which oversees the facility, is “required to report notifiable conditions, including confirmed or suspected tuberculosis.” Texas state law mandates such reporting to local and state officials. But ICE is responsible for diagnosing, treating and managing tuberculosis and other diseases while immigrants remain in federal custody.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, and other ICE spokespeople did not respond to detailed questions Saturday. More than 24 hours later, McLaughlin denied in a statement that tuberculosis cases are currently present at the tent camp.
“There are no cases of tuberculosis at the El Paso ICE facility,” she said, offering no further details.
McLaughlin and other ICE spokespeople did not explain when the tuberculosis and COVID cases were first reported and what happened to the people Escobar and city officials said had been diagnosed with the illnesses last month. Federal officials also have not disclosed how many tuberculosis and other infectious diseases have been reported at the facility since the beginning of the year, if the facility had been placed on lockdown, whether people were quarantined as a result and what actions the government took.
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody,” McLaughlin said, adding that includes medical, dental and mental health screening. “This is the best healthcare many aliens have received their entire lives.”
Cruz-Acosta, the city's spokesperson, later wrote in a Sunday afternoon statement that the individuals with tuberculosis were “evaluated and treated by ICE and its contracted medical providers, and are no longer housed at the detention facility.” Cruz-Acosta added that she doesn't have any information about the COVID-19 cases because those are not reported to the city.
Around 3,100 people were being detained at the facility at the end of January, including 325 women, and “around one-third of detainees have a chronic illness and around 200 to 300 detainees require daily insulin,” Escobar said.
News of the infections comes less than a week after two cases of measles were identified at the South Texas Family Residential Center. The immigration detention center is 70 miles south of San Antonio and the only facility in the country currently holding parents with their children. It was placed on a lockdown on Feb. 2.
The cases of tuberculosis and COVID-19, two diseases that spread through the air, have underscored concern about the conditions at Camp East Montana and other immigration detention centers.
Immigration rights organizations have been warning about Camp East Montana's “inhumane conditions,” citing physical abuse and alarming medical neglect.
In the troubled facility's first six months of operation, three migrants have died — one being Geraldo Lunas Campos, who ICE initially said died after “experiencing medical distress.” About a week later, ICE told the Associated Press that he died during a suicide attempt after staff attempted to save him.
The El Paso Medical Examiner's autopsy report, released on Jan. 21, ruled Lunas Campos' death was a homicide, after there was so much pressure on his neck and chest that he couldn't breathe. Local and federal officials have not said whether they would seek criminal charges in the matter, which remains under internal investigation by ICE.
“What is absolutely clear is that the private company running this immigration detention facility is getting worse, not better,” Escobar said of Acquisition Logistics LLC, a small Virginia-based business with no listed experience running a correction facility.
Camp East Montana is the country's largest immigration detention center, but the Department of Homeland Security is looking to build at least two others in El Paso County and the Dallas area that may hold up to 9,500 people each.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Truthout is funded almost entirely by readers — that's why we can speak truth to power and cut against the mainstream narrative. But independent journalists at Truthout face mounting political repression under Trump.
We rely on your support to survive McCarthyist censorship. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation.
Colleen DeGuzman, Peggy Girshman Fellow at KFF Health News, is based in Austin, Texas, and reports on a broad range of public health topics. Previously, she was a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. She also was a reporting fellow for The Texas Tribune and reporter for The Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas. She has had internships at NBC's “Weekend Today” and Ashoka's Washington bureau, and is an NPR Next Generation Radio mentee.
Lomi Kriel is a is a reporter with the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit.
Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.
Elon Musk's SpaceX curbs illicit use of satellite internet network, which Ukraine says is already affecting operations
Russia's military is scrambling to find alternatives to Starlink satellite internet after access to the network was curtailed, disrupting a key communications system that its forces had been using illicitly on the battlefield.
Ukraine said last week that Starlink terminals being used by Russian troops had been deactivated after talks between its defence minister and Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX operates the satellite network.
Ukrainian officials said the move had already begun to affect Russian operations, including the use of drones.
Moscow had come to rely on thousands of contraband Starlink terminals smuggled into Russia, often through central Asia, to keep units connected along the frontline. The system allowed Russian forces to coordinate movements and drone strikes in areas where military radios were unreliable or easily jammed.
Russia has no homegrown alternative that comes close in terms of speed, coverage or ease of use. Ukraine says Russian units had started fitting drones with Starlink terminals, improving their accuracy and making them harder to disrupt electronically.
Musk said last week that efforts made to block Russian use of Starlink had had an effect. “Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked,” he wrote on X.
The move was an early victory for Ukraine's new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, given Musk's past reluctance to be drawn too deeply into the conflict and comments often seen as favourable to Moscow.
Ukrainian officials said they had introduced a “whitelist” system, allowing only verified Starlink terminals to connect to the network, in effect locking out devices believed to be in Russian hands.
It remains unclear how far the change will affect Russian forces on the battlefield. The shutdown, however, has prompted anger and frustration among pro-war Russian military bloggers who are closely embedded with frontline units.
“What everyone feared for a long time has happened,” wrote Yuriy Podolyaka, a Crimea-based video blogger with a following of almost 3 million on Telegram. “Elon Musk flipped the switch … our communications are in chaos.”
Another large pro-war Telegram channel, Dva Mayora, said the loss of Starlink had already been felt. “The deactivation of Starlink terminals used by Russian forces has had a negative impact on communications in our units,” it posted, adding that troops were rushing to set up backup systems that were “less convenient”.
Analysts say alternatives exist but fall well short of Starlink. For short-range links, units can rely on fibre-optic lines, wifi-based radio bridges or digital radio modems, all of which are slower to deploy and harder to use in mobile operations.
Russia also has its own satellite communications, including systems run by Gazprom Space Systems, which have been used on a limited scale during the war. But the company operates only a small number of geostationary satellites, meaning patchy coverage and lower data capacity.
Russian forces appear to be seeking workarounds to continue using Starlink, turning to intermediaries inside Ukraine and civilians prepared to register terminals in their own names.
“For the enemy, Starlink is so important that they are trying to build an entire network of people willing to register terminals for them,” Ukraine's defence ministry said on Telegram, alongside screenshots it said showed Russians advertising for Ukrainian nationals to activate the devices.
The issue has fuelled anger in Moscow that, four years into the war, the Russian army remains heavily dependent on western technology. “It is important to understand that relying on anything western in the current situation is dangerously overconfident,” said Aleksey Zhuravlyov, a State Duma lawmaker. “Even taking into account the active negotiations we are currently holding with the United States, that does not stop them from being our adversary.”
British police are assessing a report that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor allegedly shared confidential reports with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during the former prince's role as UK trade envoy.
Mountbatten-Windsor has previously repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over his ties to Epstein. He has not publicly responded to the latest allegations. CNN has contacted him for comment.
Graham Smith, the chief executive of British anti-monarchist group Republic, said Monday he had reported Mountbatten-Windsor to police for “suspected misconduct in public office and breach of official secrets.”
On Monday, Thames Valley Police told CNN, “We can confirm receipt of this report and are assessing the information in line with our established procedures,” a spokesperson for the police force said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Austrian snowboarder Benjamin Karl knew exactly what he would do if he won a gold medal at this year's Winter Olympics; what he hadn't planned for was the reaction from the rest of the world.
After retaining his parallel giant slalom crown in Livigno on Sunday, the 40-year-old celebrated by ripping off his top, baring his chest to the frenzied crowd, before flexing his muscles and dropping facedown on the snow.
The impassioned celebration was quickly clipped and shared across social media, with thousands enjoying what initially looked like a release of unbridled, unrehearsed joy.
And while Karl was absolutely over-the-moon with his gold medal moment, the reaction was very much planned as a tribute to his hero, Hermann Maier.
The skiing legend was one of the reasons that Karl got into the sport, and he would often celebrate his victories by ripping off his top.
“It was 25 years in my mind when I saw Hermann Maier in 2001 ripping off his shirt after winning the overall World Cup,” Karl told CNN Sports on Monday.
“He was my one and only idol and I waited my whole career for the right moment to do it, in tribute to him.”
Karl can now call himself a four-time Olympic medalist, having already won gold in the same event back in 2022 and silver in his Olympic debut in 2010 at Vancouver. He also claimed a bronze medal in the parallel slalom at Sochi 2014.
After his latest win, in his fifth Games, he became the oldest Olympic snowboard medalist ever and Austria's oldest winter medalist in any sport.
Out of all his medals, though, the first gold in Beijing stands out as the most special, allowing him to have fun in Milan Cortina.
“The first medal is always super, super special,” Karl said. “When I was 10, I was writing on a sheet my goals for life. I wanted to be the fastest snowboarder on Earth, a world champion and an Olympic champion, and when you reach that goal for the first time, it's always the best moment.
“But for my legacy, this second gold medal is really important, not that I had that in my mind. I just had so much fun. It was just a fun day out, carving down the mountain, through gates. It was a perfect day.”
Karl said he let himself enjoy his gold medal win for a brief moment on Sunday, but assured CNN Sports that he was in bed by midnight and already focusing on the remaining World Cup season.
The Austrian credits his love for snowboarding to his mother, who he said got him into the world of winter sports. But while snowboarding became his life, his first love was skiing, with Karl saying he could ski before he could even talk.
But after he found snowboarding at 10, the goal of becoming an Olympian was set.
“Olympics are, for sure, the greatest event for any sportsman,” he said.
“We have one chance every four years, one day in four years, you're not allowed to be ill or injured. You have to be ready on this day.
“That I made four medals in six chances in my Olympic life, six days out of a 20-year career, it's just amazing.”
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Ian Michael Elliott of neofascist Patriot Front worked ‘crisis relief missions' funded by Department of Agriculture
A federal security contractor that has been awarded millions of dollars by the Department of Agriculture hired a prominent white nationalist leader to work on its patrols last year.
Ian Michael Elliott, a longstanding senior figure in the neofascist group Patriot Front, was part of “crisis relief missions” undertaken on the US west coast by Knight Division Tactical, according to an image shared on LinkedIn in September by one of the company's executives.
Elliott is shown posing alongside other people as he helps hold up a flag with the contractor's logo on it. “Stellar company, sharp agents, quality work!” he would later write, in a five-star review posted on Knight Division Tactical's Google Maps page.
Knight Division Tactical did not respond to multiple requests for comment, though the company executive deleted his LinkedIn post showing Elliott after the Guardian reached out.
Elliott has long been a senior figure in Patriot Front, which researchers have identified as responsible for producing the majority of white supremacist propaganda in the US.
The group, which markets itself to disillusioned white men, has been likened to a “white nationalist pyramid scheme”. In 2023, five of its members were convicted over a plot to start a riot at a gay pride event.
Patriot Front is perhaps best known for organizing militaristic white nationalist marches through US cities, with nearly all of the participants hiding their faces. After a March in Louisville, Kentucky, last year, Courier Journal columnist Joseph Gerth called them “masked cowards” who “despise anyone who believes in an inclusive society”.
Earlier this month, Patriot Front members were present at the National Mall in Washington DC during the annual anti-abortion March for Life, where JD Vance spoke. Video posted by the group on Telegram shows that Elliott, who frequently serves as the bodyguard of the Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau, was among them.
Last year, Nashville's NewsChannel 5 revealed that Elliott is one of the leaders of efforts by Patriot Front to develop a 122-acre (49-hectare) compound near Tellico Plains, Tennessee, where white nationalists receive combat training in preparation for what they believe is a coming race war.
“They're kind of an entry portal, a place that seeks to recruit young, disillusioned white men who are interested in mixed martial arts, interested in fighting, interested in the idea of saving western civilization,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the program on extremism at George Washington University who studies US white supremacist movements.
He added that Patriot Front is one of several groups that has contributed to “the mainstreaming of fringe concepts that have helped radicalize young men, like the ‘great replacement' theory, something now echoed by figures close to the White House like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk”.
Elliott also leads Patria Gloria, a white nationalist grappling team affiliated with Patriot Front, and the neo-Nazi active clubs movement – Telegram posts show that Patria Gloria invited several active clubs to participate in training at the Tellico Plains compound last spring.
Experts have warned that active clubs make up a decentralized network of combat-ready white nationalist cells, and the Southern Poverty Law Center reported last year that Patriot Front secretly controls about a dozen of them; video posted on Patria Gloria's Telegram channel shows that Elliott represented Patriot Front at a tournament hosted by the Southern California Active Club last year.
Recently, a Russian street fighting promoter, whose ties to US white nationalists and active clubs the Guardian revealed last October, posted to Instagram that Elliott is joining its stable of fighters under the alias Norman.
Images posted on Telegram show Elliott training fellow white nationalists at Patriot Front's Tennessee compound. CNN reported last month that the building where Elliott held the training has been put up for sale, though Patriot Front intends to move forward with its plans to build out a large compound on surrounding land.
Elliott did not reply to a request for comment via Telegram. The app shows a message sent to his account was viewed.
How a prominent white supremacist leader came to work for a federal security contractor is unclear.
“It's not that surprising that there are white supremacists getting hired by government contractors,” said Lewis. “When officials are flooding the zone with the most racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic messages – take your pick – it's going to embolden groups like Patriot Front. It's going to tell them: ‘You have an ally in the White House, you have an ally in the Department of Justice.'”
State records show that, in 2023, the company was incorporated in Wyoming, a popular location for business registrations because there is no state income tax. It subsequently established branches in several other states and, according to its website, maintains offices in College Station, Texas.
Knight Division Tactical recruits heavily on social media, especially Instagram, where it has amassed 60,000 followers and frequently shares stylized memes promising potential recruits lucrative assignments in exotic locales.
For example, the company has in recent months claimed to have upcoming “missions” in Mongolia and Nigeria and has encouraged people in France and Switzerland to apply for work, advertising that successful applicants can earn up to $1,000 a day.
Meanwhile, federal procurement records show the company's sole government contracting activity in the US has been providing unarmed security and patrol services for the US Forest Service, the subagency of the Department of Agriculture that oversees the country's national forests and grasslands.
Knight Division Tactical was awarded $1.8m in contracts by the agency in the 2024 fiscal year and $2.1m in 2025.
Among them were two contracts around the time that one of the company's executives posted the image of Elliott as part of its crew on LinkedIn.
The first, valued at $350,275.48, was for security services in Eureka, California, from 17 July to 8 August 2025. The second, valued at $681.230.50, was also for security services in the area from 28 August to 16 October.
In videos posted on Knight Division Tactical's social media pages, co-founder and chief executive officer Michael Schulz has stated the company performs background checks on applicants early in the recruitment process. (Elliott's involvement with Patriot Front and other white nationalist groups can be uncovered with a basic Google search.)
“Companies contracted by the US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service manage their own hiring, background checks and oversight of personnel, independent of the agency,” said a spokesperson for the agency in a statement.
In addition to heavily recruiting online, Knight Division Tactical and its leadership also frequently post about conservative social issues and their professed Orthodox Christian faith. “We are elite Private Security Contractors,” wrote Schulz in a 2024 Facebook post. “We uphold the highest order of Christian virtues.”
The company's logo is a double-headed eagle, one of the most prominent Orthodox symbols dating to the Byzantine empire. In a 2024 Instagram post, Schulz said the company encourages contractors to participate in prayer and scripture studies together.
In November, co-founder and chief operating officer Matthew McCalla shared a social media post extolling historical Orthodox leaders who oversaw the killing of Muslim combatants in wartime.
In addition, Schulz is listed on incorporation records as the director of a traditionalist men's Christian organization called the Guild of Gentlemen that claims to “restore European civilization and the cultures within it”.
On its website, the guild blames feminism for the “destruction of women” and refers to the concepts of “racism” and “transgenderism” as “evil Marxist talking points”.
The site says the group held a conference in Dallas in 2024 and that Knight Division Tactical provided security for the event.
In an August 2025 podcast interview, Schulz and McCalla also claimed their company was developing a proprietary “crisis prediction and threat prediction technology” that can anticipate forest fires, hurricanes and terrorist attacks using unspecified data and information models.
Earlier this month, the company said on Instagram that it was “launching a pre-cursor to a major new technology”. For the time being, it added, that precursor was a server on the Discord app that costs $49.99 per month.
The main suspect in the attempted assassination of Russian General Vladimir Alekseyev has confessed to investigators that he acted on orders from Ukraine, according to an interview video released Monday.
Alekseyev, the first deputy chief of Russia's military intelligence agency GUR, was shot on Friday in a communal hall of his residence in Moscow. The prime suspect, Lyubomir Korba, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates at Russia's request and transferred to Moscow over the weekend. Kiev has denied involvement in the crime.
In footage published by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the 65-year-old Ukrainian-born Russian citizen said he was already on Kiev's payroll and was promised $30,000 for killing the general.
Korba stated he was recruited by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last August and sent to Moscow to surveil several targets, receiving $2,000 monthly from Ukraine. He said the order to prepare a hit on Alekseyev came in December.
“After the assassination attempt, I was instructed to go to the airport and take a flight to Dubai. In Dubai there was a ticket to Romania. From Romania I was supposed to be taken to Kiev. My group of handlers led by a general was supposed to meet me in Kiev,” he said.
The FSB alleges Polish special services assisted the SBU by involving Korba's son, a Polish citizen. Korba's acquaintance Viktor Vasin, who helped him rent an apartment, was arrested in Russia and confessed to knowingly aiding the Ukrainian plot, per another FSB video.
A third suspect, Zinaida Serebritskaya (née Antonyuk), also born in Soviet Ukraine, has fled Russia. She reportedly traveled to Türkiye on the eve of the shooting and is now in Ukraine.
RT News App
© Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2026. All rights reserved.
This website uses cookies. Read RT Privacy policy to find out more.
Markets
Hot Stocks
Fear & Greed Index
Latest Market News
Hot Stocks
Want to understand how artificial intelligence could change your job? Look to radiology as a clue.
Radiology has become a recent talking point in the AI race. It was mentioned multiple times last month by tech executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as in a White House whitepaper about AI and the economy.
Radiology is far from being the only occupation impacted by AI, which is gradually integrating into the work of software engineers, teachers and even plumbers, among many others. If widely adopted, Goldman Sachs estimates that advancements related to AI could displace 6 to 7% of the US workforce, although the technology is expected to create new jobs too.
But the radiology field has become a case study for how AI could enhance, and not replace, jobs. The type of work in radiology is also ideal for AI assistance, said Dr. Po-Hao Chen, a doctor specializing in diagnostic radiology at the Cleveland Clinic.
Radiology has plenty of available data for AI research and applications, which need copious amounts of data for training. AI can parse through troves of data much more quickly than human workers can, and it is already helping to speed up certain processes in radiology — for example, figuring out which scans need immediate attention.
The surprising truth about AI's impact on jobs
But human physicians are still required to do the bulk of the work – like making diagnoses, physically examining patients and writing reports. And radiology jobs are projected to grow faster than roles in other areas as the field continues to embrace the tech.
“(AI) is not only not replacing those workers, but it's actually increasing the amount of work they can do and increasing demand for their services,” said Jack Karsten, a research fellow at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “That's sort of a bright future that the tech industry can point to as far as this is AI doing good in the economy.”
AI is very good at analyzing images and spotting patterns in data, both critical to radiology. And the field has been digitized for years, meaning there is an abundance of data, according to Chen.
“There are smaller use cases that are analogue still, but in the US for the most part, every X-ray, every CT (scan), every MRI, can be available as zeros and ones,” Chen said.
Today, radiologists are using AI to help figure out which scans to prioritize, enhance image quality and assist with summarizing reports, according to Dr. Chen and two other radiology experts who spoke with CNN.
How AI shook the world in 2025 and what comes next
“It's something that doesn't replace anyone, that just makes our job more efficient and more meaningful,” said Dr. Shadpour Demehri, who works in interventional radiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
René Vidal, a professor in engineering and radiology at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Engineering department, views AI as particularly useful for capturing high-quality MRI scans with fewer measurements. That speeds up the process and allows more patients to be seen in the same amount of time.
Other applications are being explored in research, such as using AI to measure the volume of a tumor or automatically populate reports, although they're likely still far out, said Vidal.
AI tools must be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for medical use, which could take around eight years considering the development process and clinical testing, Vidal said. But those approvals are certainly happening: Of the 1,357 AI-enabled medical devices currently with FDA approval, 1,041 are for radiology.
At the same time, radiology jobs seem to be growing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment in radiology will grow 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, which is higher than the average of 3% across all occupations. Data from Indeed provided to CNN also indicates there were more radiology jobs in 2025 compared to five years ago.
Like digging ‘your own professional grave': The translators grappling with losing work to AI
Demand for imaging during the medical diagnosis process, along with an increased aging population, is likely driving the need for more radiology services, say the radiology experts who spoke with CNN.
But that wasn't always the thinking. Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, also referred to as the godfather of AI, said in 2016 that “people should stop training radiologists now” because deep learning – a subset of AI that models how the human brain learns – would handle the job better in five to 10 years.
Hinton said in an email to the New York Times last year that he spoke too broadly in those 2016 comments.
Demehri recalls there being a sense of anxiety in the radiology field about AI replacing human roles around the 2015 and 2016 timeframe. Now, the technology is seen as a “second set of eyes,” he said.
Still, there are risks around bias and potential overreliance on AI, according to Chen. Unlike human radiologists, for example, AI can accurately predict a person's race based on an X-ray, according to a 2022 MIT study, raising concerns about bias in diagnoses.
AI hiring is here. It's making companies — and job seekers — miserable
Chen says he also worries about the temptation to make staffing decisions – such as replacing a doctor with a nurse or a subspecialist radiologist with a primary care doctor – if AI becomes advanced enough. That might work in some cases, but not for the majority of conditions that radiology is used for, like detecting cancer or deadly infections.
“We have to understand that a lot of the performance of (the) algorithm comes from the fact that the automation output is reviewed by an expert,” he said. “And together, this collaboration, if you will, between the machine and the expert is what makes the improvement real.”
Most stock quote data provided by BATS. US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. All times are ET. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices Copyright S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and/or its affiliates. Fair value provided by IndexArb.com. Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited.
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed on Feb. 9 that suspects in the assassination attempt on Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, the first deputy head of Russian military intelligence (GRU), had pleaded guilty, Russian state-run media outlet RIA Novosti reported.
The FSB earlier said Alekseev's attackers were two individuals, Lyubomyr Korba and Viktor Vasin, who allegedly acted on Ukraine's orders. The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attempted attack on the Russian general.
According to the FSB, Korba and Vasin were allegedly recruited by Ukraine's Security Service (SBU), which promised $30,000 for the assassination of General Alekseev. The FSB also claimed that Polish intelligence was involved in Korba's recruitment, using his son, Lubosz Korba, who lives in Katowice.
Lyubomyr Korba was allegedly recruited in August 2025 in Ternopil, western Ukraine. He then underwent training at a facility in Kyiv before traveling to Moscow via Tbilisi, Georgia, FSB said.
In Moscow, the suspect allegedly spied on high-ranking military officials and, in December 2025, received an order to kill Alekseev.
His accomplice, Zinaida Serebritskaya, allegedly gave Korba the keys to the entrance of the general's residence, where she also lived. According to the FSB, she has since allegedly moved to Ukraine.
Another co-conspirator, Vasin, rented the apartment where Korba lived and provided him with public transportation tickets. The FSB said Vasin had participated in protests in Moscow and supported the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2024 by the murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
All three suspects are reportedly facing charges that could result in life imprisonment.
Bulgarian investigative journalist and head of investigations at The Insider, Christo Grozev, suggested on X that one of the suspects, Vasin, works for an FSB-linked company that manufactures surveillance tools.
"At least through August 2025, Viktor Vasin was employed as 'chief expert' at NTC Atlas, launched by FSB and now part of military-industrial behemoth Rostec," Grozev wrote.
According to him, Vasin also graduated from Russia's military command communications academy, which was listed on his CV in 2014.
The attempted assassination of Alekseev is "much more likely" to have been linked to a "domestic issue," given the general's role in the 2023 uprising of the Wagner Group, a mercenary unit, a former official told the Washington Post.
Alekseev was then involved in suppressing the mercenary uprising and was reportedly seen meeting with the group's leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, before Prigozhin died in a plane crash widely suspected of being orchestrated by Russia's intelligence services.
Alekseev was shot multiple times in Moscow by an unknown assailant, the Kremlin said on Feb 6. The following day, on Feb. 7, Russian state media reported that Alekseev had regained consciousness after successfully undergoing surgery.
Alekseev — born in 1961 in Soviet Ukraine — is the first deputy head of Russian military intelligence (GRU), serving in the role since 2011.
He was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2016 for organizing "malicious cyber activities" during the U.S. presidential election of that year which saw Donald Trump win his first term in office.
The Kremlin reportedly awarded him the title of Hero of the Russian Federation the following year.
Alekseev has also been accused by the U.K. and EU of orchestrating the chemical weapons attack in Salisbury in 2018 that targeted Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
News Editor
The number of complaints has increased 333 times since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets.
The vessel is part of the "shadow fleet," a group of tankers used by Moscow to export oil in violation of international sanctions, according to Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR).
Russia launched its worst-ever attack on Ukraine's nuclear-connected substations on Feb. 7, cutting the volume of electricity generated by the country's nuclear power by around 50%, Vitaliy Zaichenko, CEO of Ukrenergo, the state grid operator, told the Kyiv Independent.
Russia launched 11 Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 149 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 116 drones.
"It seems that they proposed it and we were ready — and now they are not," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
The suspect, identified as Yevhen B., was detained in Switzerland in May 2025 and extradited to Germany in December.
Ukraine targeted a Russian drone warehouse in Rostov-on-Don, located in Rostov Oblast, destroying three containers filled with FPV drones and their components, according to the report.
"We are moving from supplies to joint production and long-term solutions that systematically strengthen our defense," Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.
Mazda's Russian subsidiary has publicly introduced two crossover models — the CX-5 and CX-50 — sourced from a plant in China and sold with official warranties.
Newsmax, founded by Chris Ruddy, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, will open a full-fledged editorial office in Ukraine to produce local and regional news content.
The FSB earlier said Alekseev's attackers were two individuals, Lyubomyr Korba and Viktor Vasin, who allegedly acted on Ukraine's orders. Kyiv denied these claims.
The Hungarian government said on Feb. 8 that it is providing consular protection to its citizen detained by Ukraine over allegedly trying to help five Ukrainian draft-age men illegally cross the border.
The number includes 1,250 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
Russian forces carried out a series of attacks overnight on Feb. 8-9, targeting various cities with reported missile and drone attacks.
Millions read the Kyiv Independent, but only one in 1,000 supports us financially. One membership might not seem like much, but to us, it makes a real difference.
If you value our reporting, consider becoming a member — your support makes us stronger.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the Trump administration of refusing to implement alleged Russia–U.S. agreements on Ukraine and pursuing a policy of "economic domination," in comments to Russian-registered TV BRICS published on Feb. 9.
The remarks mark a sharper turn in Moscow's rhetoric toward Washington, with Lavrov claiming the U.S. has backtracked on what he described as "Anchorage agreements" allegedly reached in 2025 that envisioned Ukraine surrendering the entire Donbas region to Russia without fighting.
"They tell us that the Ukrainian issue needs to be resolved. In Anchorage, we accepted the proposal of the U.S.," Lavrov said. "They made an offer, we agreed, and the problem should have been resolved. It seems that they proposed it and we were ready — and now they are not."
The White House has not confirmed the existence of any such agreements, and earlier declined to acknowledge them in comments to the Kyiv Independent.
Lavrov said that despite declarations about moving toward "full-scale, broad cooperation," Washington continues to pursue what he described as an anti-Russian policy. He pointed to new sanctions and Western actions against Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers as evidence.
"In practice, everything looks the opposite: new sanctions are being introduced, and a war against (shadow fleet) tankers is being waged on the high seas," the minister said.
Russia has long demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donbas and has increasingly tied any future peace deal to such a move after more than a decade of fighting in the region.
Ukraine has ruled out a withdrawal, though Ukrainian officials have said alternative arrangements, including a demilitarized zone, could be considered.
The U.S. has also floated the idea of a free economic zone in parts of the war-torn region.
Washington has reportedly told Kyiv that security guarantees would follow only after a peace agreement with Russia, a deal widely expected to involve territorial issues related to Donbas.
A U.S. source familiar with the matter told the Kyiv Independent that Washington "is not trying to force any territorial concessions upon Ukraine," adding that "both sides must agree to a peace deal, but the contents of the peace deal are up to Russia and Ukraine."
Territorial questions remain the main obstacle in the negotiations.
Lavrov also criticized the Trump administration for not repealing laws adopted under former U.S. President Joe Biden that imposed sanctions on Russia after the start of its full-scale invasion.
The comments come as diplomatic activity intensifies around efforts to end Russia's war, with trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia potentially resuming as early as this week.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Washington is pushing for the war to end before the start of summer and may apply pressure on the parties in line with that timeline.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker pushed back on that characterization, saying on Feb. 9 that the United States has not set any deadline for ending the war.
"That June deadline was mentioned by President Zelensky," he said. I don't think that is anything that the United States has put out there. We'd like it sooner rather than later."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Feb. 5 that Washington would decide whether to impose additional sanctions on Russia based on progress in the peace talks.
Reporter
Tim Zadorozhnyy is the reporter for the Kyiv Independent, specializing in foreign policy, U.S.-Ukraine relations, and political developments across Europe and Russia. Based in Warsaw, he pursued studies in International Relations and European Studies at Lazarski University, through a program offered in partnership with Coventry University. Tim began his journalism career in Odesa in 2022, working as a reporter at a local television channel. After relocating to Warsaw, he spent a year and a half with the Belarusian independent media outlet NEXTA, initially as a news anchor and later as managing editor. Tim is fluent in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.
The number of complaints has increased 333 times since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets.
The vessel is part of the "shadow fleet," a group of tankers used by Moscow to export oil in violation of international sanctions, according to Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR).
Russia launched its worst-ever attack on Ukraine's nuclear-connected substations on Feb. 7, cutting the volume of electricity generated by the country's nuclear power by around 50%, Vitaliy Zaichenko, CEO of Ukrenergo, the state grid operator, told the Kyiv Independent.
Russia launched 11 Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 149 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 116 drones.
"It seems that they proposed it and we were ready — and now they are not," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
The suspect, identified as Yevhen B., was detained in Switzerland in May 2025 and extradited to Germany in December.
Ukraine targeted a Russian drone warehouse in Rostov-on-Don, located in Rostov Oblast, destroying three containers filled with FPV drones and their components, according to the report.
"We are moving from supplies to joint production and long-term solutions that systematically strengthen our defense," Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.
Mazda's Russian subsidiary has publicly introduced two crossover models — the CX-5 and CX-50 — sourced from a plant in China and sold with official warranties.
Newsmax, founded by Chris Ruddy, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, will open a full-fledged editorial office in Ukraine to produce local and regional news content.
The FSB earlier said Alekseev's attackers were two individuals, Lyubomyr Korba and Viktor Vasin, who allegedly acted on Ukraine's orders. Kyiv denied these claims.
The Hungarian government said on Feb. 8 that it is providing consular protection to its citizen detained by Ukraine over allegedly trying to help five Ukrainian draft-age men illegally cross the border.
The number includes 1,250 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
Russian forces carried out a series of attacks overnight on Feb. 8-9, targeting various cities with reported missile and drone attacks.
Millions read the Kyiv Independent, but only one in 1,000 supports us financially. One membership might not seem like much, but to us, it makes a real difference.
If you value our reporting, consider becoming a member — your support makes us stronger.
MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin's initiative to build a Eurasian security architecture is gaining momentum and attracting increasing interest from other countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TV BRICS.
Meanwhile, the United States is reluctant to follow through with its own proposals on Ukraine from the Anchorage summit.
TASS has compiled key statements from Russia's top diplomat.
The United States is now reluctant to follow through with proposals it put forward on Ukraine in Anchorage, and Russia sees "no promising future in economic terms" with the American side.
While Russia and the United States could have embraced broader cooperation following the summit in Anchorage, the opposite trend has been observed.
Moscow accepted Washington's proposal on Ukraine at the Anchorage talks that "the Ukrainian issue must be resolved."
The US position on Ukraine "was important" to Russia, regardless of what Kiev or Russophobic leaders in the European Union might have said.
Russia remains open to cooperation with the United States, but the Americans themselves "create artificial obstacles."
Not only has the administration of US President Donald Trump challenged the laws enacted by his predecessor Joe Biden "to punish Russia," it has imposed additional sanctions. The core of this "is sanctions against Russia, including the freezing of our gold and foreign currency reserves."
Moscow is not seeking to reject the use of the US dollar, but Washington has transformed its currency into a weapon against those it views as inconvenient: "Under the Biden administration, the United States took every step to weaponize the dollar against those it considers inconvenient."
The United States has been using unfair methods to suppress its competitors, including by imposing sanctions on Russian oil majors: "Unfair methods have been used against us —banning Russian oil companies like Lukoil and Rosneft."
Also, the United States is attempting to control Russia's "military-technical ties with major strategic partners," such as India and other BRICS members.
The North Atlantic Alliance, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have outlived their time: "Attention was concentrated on Western Eurasia, while the rest was largely considered under European control."
Russia is not advocating for the abolition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) or the World Trade Organization (WTO), instead it is has sought to reform those institutions so BRICS can "receive proportional votes and rights in all Bretton Woods institutions, commensurate with their actual weight in the global economy, trade, and logistics."
Russia pays particular attention "to the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union, the CSTO and, more broadly, the post-Soviet space."
The BRICS grouping can contribute to harmonizing comprehensive development plans across countries of the global majority: "BRICS provides, in effect, an overarching framework for integration across continents."
Russia should ensure its security in a situation where some Europe "threaten war against our country:" "Security also requires preventing the continued existence on our borders of a Nazi state created by the West out of Ukraine and used once again to wage war against Russia."
The West has unleashed a global war on Russia and is making "frantic attempts" to punish its partners.
Russia will reject the deployment in Ukraine of any weapons that may threaten its security interests: "We will, without any doubt, safeguard our security interests by preventing the deployment on Ukrainian territory of any weapons that pose a threat to us."
Western countries have invented the ‘shadow fleet' and are trying to detain vessels "on the high seas through the use of force" in the fight for outgoing dominance.
Putin's initiative "to strengthen Eurasian security and build a continental security architecture, is gaining momentum" and increasingly attracting interest from other countries.
The United States "is objectively losing its economic influence and weight in the world economy," while countries in the Global South are making themselves heard in the international arena.
The initiatives put forward by BRICS, including regarding payments and investments, are not meant to counteract the United States, but rather to establish mechanisms that are independent on Washington's strict control: "These initiatives are not intended as a provocation against anyone, primarily the United States, but rather arise from the fact that the United States places strict control over all processes in these areas and demands unilateral concessions."
BRICS countries will handle their energy security "in the context of actions taken by the Trump administration in the global energy sector."
MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. The suspects detained in the case of an assassination attempt against Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev confessed to having acted on orders from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) reported.
TASS has gathered the key information about the detainees and their testimonies.
- Lyubomir Korba, the gunman who attacked Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, was recruited by the SBU in August 2025 and underwent firearms training at a training range in Kiev, the FSB said, adding that Polish intelligence agencies had helped in his recruitment.
- Korba watched high-ranking military officers in the Moscow Region; Ukrainian intelligence agencies provided him with a gun through a cache outside Moscow.
- An electronic key to the front door of the apartment building where Alexeyev lives was sent to Korba through a cache by a woman named Zinaida Serebritskaya, who had rented an apartment there.
- Viktor Vasin, detained for complicity in the assassination attempt against General Alexeyev, is a supporter of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, designated in Russia as a terrorist organization.
- Ukrainian intelligence agencies promised to pay Korba $30,000 for killing Alexeyev.
- The detainees have admitted and provided details of preparations for the assassination attempt against Alexeyev, carried out on orders from the Ukrainian Security Service, the FSB said.
- The assassination attempt on Alexeyev took place in a residential building in northwestern Moscow on February 6.
- The gunman fired several shots at him.
- According to the FSB, the suspected attacker, Russian citizen Lyubomir Korba, born in 1960, was detained in Dubai with the assistance of UAE law enforcement and handed over to Russia.
- His accomplices were identified as Russian nationals Viktor Vasin, detained in Moscow, and Zinaida Serebritskaya, who fled to Istanbul the day before the attack.
‘Not easy mode' – Exercise Red Flag pits allied pilots against each other in preparation for deadly combat
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Connor Stringer is The Telegraph's Washington Correspondent. He leads coverage of the White House and US politics, reporting on trade, foreign policy and national security. Based in Washington, he has broken a series of world exclusives and covered the defining moments of Donald Trump's administration.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Connor Stringer is The Telegraph's Washington Correspondent. He leads coverage of the White House and US politics, reporting on trade, foreign policy and national security. Based in Washington, he has broken a series of world exclusives and covered the defining moments of Donald Trump's administration.
At 22,000ft above the Nevada desert, a rehearsal for war with China plays out in the skies.
Two US Marine F-35 B Lightning fighter jets break the clouds and glide into position alongside an RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker.
As the jets swallow 70 tonnes of fuel, four British Typhoons appear from below, their canopies glistening in the sun as they wait for their turn to refuel.
In a flash, the American F-35s detach their fuel nozzles from the hose trailing the RAF Voyager, banking hard right and accelerating into the warzone.
The fifth-generation fighters are using state-of-the-art war fighting technology that is so secret that The Telegraph is barred from taking pictures of them.
The manoeuvre, all of which lasts a matter of minutes, plays out like an aerial ballet at 300mph.
This is Exercise Red Flag – the annual wargame where US, British, and Australian pilots face off against each other in a two-week-long simulation aimed at preparing for war. The exercises change over time to reflect the developing threats facing the Western world.
Today, for the first time in the exercise's 51-year-long history, enemy adversaries are flying fifth-generation fighters, in an obvious nod to the threat posed by Chinese Chengdu J-20s and Shenyang J-35s.
“This is where war fighters get to practice advanced warfighting,” says Col Tony May, of the US Air Force, who is responsible for running the live wargame. “At the end of the day, it is about coming together to kick some ass.”
Red Flag, which is held at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, began in 1972 out of the realisation that pilots were not ready for combat when they took to the skies of Vietnam. This year, it brings together 3,000 troops and more than 100 aircraft to push elite fighters to their limits.
Where once the pilot's sights may have been set on taking out insurgents in Afghanistan or Iraq, the 2026 simulation is all about preparing for combat bad-actors with a “high technological capability”.
Teams are split into two. The “Blues”, which represent the allies, go toe-to-toe with the “Reds”, which are manned by pilots who have been trained to adapt the tactics and capabilities of potential adversaries.
Some 12,000 square miles of airspace are turned into a giant “sandbox” which is used to simulate every enemy and mission scenario imaginable in both day and night.
Even the US Marine F-35Bs, which are being flown by the red team for the first time, are adapted to mimic how the Chinese J-35s may perform.
If the hints about who the enemy is weren't clear enough, Operation Bamboo Eagle will follow the mammoth exercise. It moves the action across the eastern Pacific and feature more than 10,000 personnel.
There are also cyber and space-based elements woven into each mission, though officials are tight-lipped on what they are.
“We take all adversary aircraft and we're able to pretend to be them no matter who it is,” says Lt Col Ryan “Chip” Young, commander of the 65th aggressor squadron, which plays the enemy.
“We can change what we look like. I am executing tactics as a person would as an adversary, making mistakes, trying to figure out what the blue side is doing. There's a lot of close and long-range fights.”
The timing of this year's exercise could not be more significant. Beijing has accelerated its military development to historical levels across land, sea, air, and space.
The US's annual report revealed that China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027.
Last week, it unveiled plans for a space carrier that can deploy unmanned fighter jets capable of firing missiles from the edge of the Earth's atmosphere.
Such capabilities would give China a significant advantage, including over Taiwan and in the South China Sea, which could be the scene of a future war against the United States.
Under Nevada's winter sun, allied forces are tasked with striking the enemy's critical infrastructure before taking down radar and air defences.
This is where the RAF Voyager, an Airbus A330 fitted with a strengthened airframe and extra fuel tanks, comes in. It was scrambled around 1pm to keep the allied strike force, made up of American and Australian F-35s and British Typhoons, in the air.
The tanker's role is one of the most crucial in modern warfare, allowing the jets to fly longer distances and loiter over targets for longer without having to return to base.
It climbs high and begins a series of loops in the air, far from the hostile red forces, but close enough for its more than 111 tonnes of fuel to keep the allies' aircraft in battle.
In the cockpit, Flt Lt Matt Winwood keeps the tanker steady while systems operator “Wellie” watches the approaching Typhoons on a bank of monitors.
“These are some of the best pilots in the US forces here to train against, and they mean business. It's not easy mode,” Voyager captain Flt Lt Winwood says.
And he is right. Somewhere above us is our escort of fighters whose job it is to watch over the vulnerable Voyager while it carries out the refuelling. An enemy fighter, thought to be a fifth-generation F-35B, gets within 50 miles of the Voyager's “danger zone” – the point at which it must start retreating.
But it is shot down by our guardian. We survive, oblivious to how close the enemy came.
Afterwards, officials debrief and watch a simulated replay of the day's warfare.
“The level of technicality here, and the sheer space here, is absolutely invaluable,” Group Captain Jack Holts, who is responsible for the British deployment for the exercise, says. “That's why we are so keen to train with partners and why training in this kind of environment is very important.”
Each day, the flag above Nellis Air Force base has the winning team's colours flying above the losers. As we arrive back at base, the blue team colours are on top. The Allies are victorious. This time.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Please disable the ad blocking feature.
To use this site, please disable the ad blocking feature and reload the page.
This website uses cookies to collect information about your visit for purposes such as showing you personalized ads and content, and analyzing our website traffic. By clicking “Accept all,” you will allow the use of these cookies.
Users accessing this site from EEA countries and UK are unable to view this site without your consent. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Reuters
12:45 JST, February 9, 2026
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Shares of China's Montage Technology 6809.HK are set to open 57.2% higher on its Hong Kong trading debut on Monday, after the world's biggest memory interconnect chip supplier raised HK$7.04 billion ($900 million) in a share sale.
Its shares are set to open at HK$168 each versus its offer price of HK$106.89.
Popular articles in the past 24 hours
Popular articles in the past week
Popular articles in the past month
JN ACCESS RANKING
The Japan News / Weekly Edition
Our weekly ePaper presents the most noteworthy recent topics in an exciting, readable fomat.
Read more
eng
jp
© 2026 The Japan News - by The Yomiuri Shimbun
MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Kirill Dmitriev, Special Representative of the Russian President for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, has drawn attention to the statement by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis about the interference and disruption of negotiations on Ukraine by Britain in 2022 due to interest in the conflict.
"Czech PM Babis says peace in Ukraine was within reach in April 2022 — until the UK and [former Prime Minister] Boris Johnson intervened to derail it: "There was an interest in this conflict," Dmitriev wrote on X.
He said the breakdown of the talks was confirmed by Ukrainian delegation's lead negotiator in 2022.
Eight women call for full transparency from Trump administration in advert ahead of America's most-watched TV event
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Iona Cleave is a Foreign Breaking News Reporter at The Telegraph. She covers defence, war and breaking news from across the world, particularly the US, Middle East and Russia-Ukraine war.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Iona Cleave is a Foreign Breaking News Reporter at The Telegraph. She covers defence, war and breaking news from across the world, particularly the US, Middle East and Russia-Ukraine war.
A group of Jeffrey Epstein's victims released an advert on Super Bowl Sunday demanding the release of millions of remaining documents related to the late paedophile.
In the clip, which aired just ahead of America's most-watched TV event of the year, eight women called on the public to help press the Trump administration for full transparency.
“After years of being kept apart we're standing together,” the women said, while holding photos of their younger selves at the ages they were abused by Epstein. In unison, they added: “Because we all deserve the truth.”
Earlier this week, Mr Trump – whose second term has been marred by his one-time friendship with Epstein – told Americans it was time to “move on” from the sex offender.
The video's timing may cause a stir, as it was released right before Mr Trump, along with millions of others, tuned-in to watch the Seattle Seahawks battle the New England Patriots in the championship of the National Football League (NFL).
On January 30, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) released three million pages related to their investigation into Epstein, including 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
However, the DoJ's decision to hold back the other half of the approximate six million files has renewed concerns that some of Epstein's accomplices will not be held accountable and sparked further allegations over a cover-up.
Epstein's victims are leading the calls for the release of the remaining records. Their video ended with a call for the public to “stand with us” and “tell Attorney General Pam Bondi it's time for the truth”.
Recommended
The DoJ insists that the withheld files either reveal victims' identities, contain child pornography or interfere with ongoing federal investigations.
“We didn't protect or not protect anybody,” Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said as he announced that the department had “completed” its release of the files.
There are more than 38,000 references to Mr Trump, his wife and his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida across 5,300 of the newly released files.
Epstein died in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges in a death ruled a suicide.
His longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was jailed in 2022 and is serving a 20-year prison for her role in helping him recruit underage victims.
Members of Congress will be able to review the un-redacted files on computers at the justice department starting on Monday, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
The sporting spectacle's half-time show was performed by Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny completely in Spanish, despite fury from inside Maga at both his selection and refusal to bow to their demands to sing in English.
Despite the furore, the rapper wrapped his performance without controversy.
The Latino artist, who has been vocal in his opposition to the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign, instead emphasised unity in a dance-filled spectacle that featured Lady Gaga as a surprise guest.
He finished the show by holding up a football that said: “Together we are America”.
As fireworks exploded around the stadium, a Jumbotron message read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
The show also featured a young boy hugging Bad Bunny's Grammy Award, which he won three of last week.
The child's involvement is believed to be a reference to five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose detainment by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minnesota sparked a national outcry.
After the show, Mr Trump took to Truth Social to criticise the performance, calling it “absolutely terrible”.
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
In this June 17, 2009, file photo, shoppers are reflected in the window as they walk past an Eddie Bauer store, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The operator of roughly 180 Eddie Bauer stores across the U.S. and Canada has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, blaming declining sales and a litany of other industry headwinds.
The bankruptcy filing marks the third time in a little over two decades for the storied-but-now-tired brand that began as a Seattle fishing shop, later outfitted the first American to climb Mount Everest and made thousands of newfangled down jackets and sleeping bags for the military during World War I.
Eddie Bauer LLC said Monday it had entered into a restructuring pact with its secured lenders as it made the filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.
Most Eddie Bauer retail and outlet stores in the U.S. and Canada will remain open as the company winds down certain locations. It noted that it will conduct a court-supervised sales process, and if a sale can't be executed, it will begin a wind-down of its U.S. and Canadian operations.
“This is not an easy decision,” said Marc Rosen, CEO of Catalyst Brands, which maintains the license to operate Eddie Bauer stores in the U.S. and Canada. “However, this restructuring is the best way to optimize value for the retail company's stakeholders and also ensure Catalyst Brands remains profitable and with strong liquidity and cash flow.”
Eddie Bauer's stores outside of the U.S. and Canada are operated by other licensees, are not included in the Chapter 11 filings, and will stay open, according to the release.
Authentic Brands Group continues to own the intellectual property associated with the Eddie Bauer brand and may license the brand to other operators, the company said. The operations of other brands in the Catalyst Brands portfolio are not affected by this filing and will continue in the normal course, according to the company.
Eddie Bauer's e-commerce and wholesale operations will also not be impacted by the wind down, as they are operated by a company called Outdoor 5, LLC. That was a transition it made in January and became effective Feb. 2.
Eddie Bauer joins a growing list of U.S. retailers this year that are closing stores, as companies reorganize under bankruptcy protection or pare down their operations to focus on the most profitable businesses.
The parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue said last month that it was seeking bankruptcy protection, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago. A few days later, the parent company said it was closing most of its Saks Off 5th stores.
Amazon said earlier this month that it was closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations within days as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.
Eddie Bauer's namesake founder — an avid outdoorsman — started the company in Seattle in 1920 as Bauer's Sports Shop, according to the brand's website. In 1945, after making more than 50,000 jackets for the military, it launched a mail-order catalog.
“Bauer's Sports Shop was not just a place where people purchased clothing and gear, it was a community hub where folks gathered to share their wisdom, learn, and talk about their experiences in the outdoors,” the website says.
The company created an American goose-down insulated jacket, known as the “Skyliner,” in 1936, and it became the company's first patented jacket. It also outfitted the first American to climb Mount Everest — James W. Whittaker — with an Eddie Bauer parka in 1963.
After Bauer retired in 1968 and sold the business to his partner, the outdoor brand shifted more toward casual apparel and was bought by General Mills Inc. in 1971 and then by Spiegel Inc. in 1988. After Spiegel filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and most of its assets were sold, the remainder of the company was reorganized in 2005 as Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc.
In June 2009, Eddie Bauer filed bankruptcy and was acquired by Golden State Capital, the following month. In 2021, it was acquired by Authentic Brands and SPARC Group LLC.
A year ago, Catalyst was formed by the merger of SPARC and JCPenney, which Simon Property Group and fellow mall landlord Brookfield bought out of bankruptcy.
Rosen noted that even prior to the inception of Catalyst Brands last year, Eddie Bauer was in a “challenged situation.”
“Over the past year, these challenges have been exacerbated by various headwinds, including increased costs of doing business due to inflation, ongoing tariff uncertainty, and other factors,” he said.
He noted that while Catalyst's leadership was able to make improvements in product development and marketing, those changes could not be implemented fast enough to fully address the problems created over several years.
Eddie Bauer had nearly 600 stores at its peak in 2001, according to CoStar Group Inc., a commercial real estate data firm.
In a note published earlier this month, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote that while the Eddie Bauer name is “well known”, the brand hasn't kept pace with rivals like Swedish outdoor brand Fjallraven and Canadian label Arc'teryx. He also cited issues with quality deteriorating, which, for an outdoor brand measured by the performance of its products, is very problematic.
“And for many younger shoppers, the brand is seen as somewhat old-fashioned and a bit irrelevant, ” he noted.
_____
AP Business Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with members of the audience after delivering a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Peter Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, file)
The front door of 10 Downing Street in London, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Read more: Thames Valley police ‘assesses claims' the ex-prince Andrew sent sensitive reports to Epstein
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer battled Monday to cling to power as revelations about the relationship between the former U.K. ambassador to Washington and Jeffrey Epstein spiraled into a full-blown crisis for his 19-month-old government.
The prime minister's authority with his own Labour Party has been battered by fallout from the publication of files related to Epstein — a man he never met and whose sexual misconduct has not implicated Starmer.
Some lawmakers in Starmer's center-left Labour Party have called on him to resign for his error of judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson to the high-profile diplomatic post in 2024 despite his ties to the convicted sex offender. The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, joined those calls Monday, saying “the distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”
“There have been too many mistakes,” Sarwar said, attempting to distance himself from the unpopular Starmer ahead of elections for Scotland's semi-autonomous Parliament in May.
AP correspondent Laurence Brooks reports on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's attempt to fight for his job as revelations about Jeffrey Epstein's ties to a former ambassador spark a leadership crisis.
Starmer's chief of staff and his communications director have also quit in the last 24 hours. But Starmer's office said Monday that he does not plan to step down.
“He has a clear five-year mandate from the British people to deliver change, and that is what he will do,” Downing Street said in a statement.
After Sawar spoke, senior Cabinet colleagues spoke up to defend Starmer. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy wrote on X: “We should let nothing distract us from our mission to change Britain and we support the Prime Minister in doing that.”
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper posted: “At this crucial time for the world, we need his leadership not just at home but on the global stage.” Treasury chief Rachel Reeves wrote: “With Keir as our Prime Minister we are turning the country around.”
Lawmakers considered likely candidates to replace Starmer also backed him, including his former deputy Angela Rayner, who said the prime minister “has my full support.”
Starmer was due to address Labour lawmakers behind closed doors Monday evening in an attempt to rebuild some of his badly weakened authority.
Starmer fired Mandelson last September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier's 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor. Critics say Starmer should have known better than to appoint Mandelson in the first place. The 72-year-old Labour politician is a contentious figure whose career has been tarnished with scandals over money or ethics.
A new trove of Epstein files released by authorities in the United States last week has revealed more details about the relationship and put new pressure on Starmer.
Starmer apologized last week to Epstein's victims and said he was sorry for “having believed Mandelson's lies.”
He promised to release documentation related to Mandelson's appointment, which the government says will show that Mandelson misled officials about his ties to Epstein. But publication of the documents could be weeks away. They must be vetted on national security grounds and for potential conflicts with a police investigation.
Police are investigating Mandelson for potential misconduct in public office over documents suggesting he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. The offense carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Mandelson has not been arrested or charged, and he does not face any allegations of sexual misconduct.
Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, took the fall for the decision to give Mandelson the job by quitting on Sunday. He said he “advised the prime minister to make that appointment, and I take full responsibility for that advice.”
McSweeney has been Starmer's most important aide since he became Labour leader in 2020 and is considered a key architect of Labour's landslide July 2024 election victory. But some in the party blame him for a series of missteps since then.
Some Labour officials hope that his departure will buy the prime minister time to rebuild trust with the party and the country.
Senior lawmaker Emily Thornberry said McSweeney had become a “divisive figure” and his departure brought the opportunity for a reset.
She said Starmer is “a good leader in that he is strong and clear. I think that he needs to step up a bit more than he has.”
Others say McSweeney's departure leaves Starmer weak and isolated.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer “has made bad decision after bad decision” and “his position now is untenable.”
Since winning office, Starmer has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living. He pledged a return to honest government after 14 years of scandal-tarred Conservative rule, but has been beset by missteps and U-turns over welfare cuts and other unpopular policies.
Labour consistently lags behind the hard-right Reform UK party in opinion polls, and its failure to improve had sparked talk of a leadership challenge, even before the Mandelson revelations.
Under Britain's parliamentary system, prime ministers can change without the need for a national election. If Starmer is challenged or resigns, it will trigger an election for the Labour leadership. The winner would become prime minister.
The Conservatives went through three prime ministers between national elections in 2019 and 2024, including Liz Truss, who lasted just 49 days in office.
Starmer was elected on a promise to end the political chaos that roiled the Conservatives' final years in power.
Labour lawmaker Clive Efford said Starmer's critics should “be careful what you wish for.”
“I don't think people took to the changes in prime minister when the Tories were in power,” he told the BBC. “It didn't do them any good.”
live
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
House Democrats say Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, is appealing to President Donald Trump for clemency. This comes after lawmakers tried Monday to interview Maxwell, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights.
The former girlfriend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, is declining to answer House Oversight Committee questions, citing her 5th Amendment rights. GOP Rep. James Comer, who chairs the committee, says it is “very disappointing.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., flanked by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., left, and Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., speaks to reporters after a closed-circuit deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
This undated photo released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Ghislaine Maxwell. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)
Documentos que se incluyeron en la publicación de los archivos de Jeffrey Epstein por parte del Departamento de Justicia de EE. UU. fotografiados el viernes 2 de enero de 2026. (Foto AP/Jon Elswick, File)
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., joined at left by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters after a closed-circuit deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House lawmakers tried Monday to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, but the former girlfriend and confidant of Jeffrey Epstein invoked her Fifth Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be self-incriminating.
The House Oversight Committee wanted Maxwell to answer questions during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she's serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She's come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.
Amid a reckoning over Epstein's abuse that has spilled into nations around the globe, lawmakers are searching for anyone who was connected to Epstein and may have facilitated his abuse. Several also planned on Monday to look through unredacted versions of the files on Epstein that the Department of Justice has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.
Maxwell has been seeking to have her conviction overturned, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal last year, but in December she requested that a federal judge in New York consider what her attorneys describe as “substantial new evidence” that her trial was spoiled by constitutional violations.
An attorney for Maxwell cited that petition and also told lawmakers that if President Donald Trump ended her prison sentence, she would be willing to testify that neither Trump nor former President Bill Clinton were culpable for wrongdoing in their relationships with Epstein, according to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who exited the closed-door meeting.
Democrats said that was a brazen effort by Maxwell to have Trump end her prison sentence.
“It's very clear she's campaigning for clemency,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat.
Another Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, described Maxwell's demeanor during the short video call as “robotic” and “unrepentant.”
The Republican chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, said it was “very disappointing” that Maxwell declined to participate in the deposition.
Family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, one of the most outspoken victims of Epstein, also released a letter to Maxwell making it clear they did not consider her “a bystander” to Epstein's abuse.
“You were a central, deliberate actor in a system built to find children, isolate them, groom them, and deliver them to abuse,” Sky and Amanda Roberts wrote in the letter addressed to Maxwell.
Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas last summer after she participated in two-days of interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Comer had also subpoenaed her at the time, but her attorneys have consistently told the committee that she wouldn't answer questions. However, Comer came under pressure to hold the deposition as he pressed for the committee to enforce subpoenas on Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of Congress charges, they both agreed to sit for depositions later this month.
Comer has been haggling with the Clintons over whether that testimony should be held in a public hearing, but Comer reiterated Monday that he would insist on holding closed-door depositions and later releasing transcripts and video.
live
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hit back at media outlets questioning the FBI seizing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia.
A federal judge in Georgia has ordered the unsealing of documents tied to an FBI raid that seized 2020 election ballots from a Fulton County facility, potentially shedding new light on the bureau's investigation.
Judge J.P. Boulee, who was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019, gave the government until Tuesday to file the documents, including the search warrant affidavit with redactions.
"Although Petitioners originally filed this case under seal, both parties have now indicated to the Court that they do not oppose unsealing the docket or the motions filed by Petitioners," Boulee wrote in the order.
"Moreover, Respondent has stated that it does not oppose the unsealing of the search warrant affidavit and any other papers associated with the warrant subject to the redaction of the names of nongovernmental witnesses," the order continued.
GEORGIA'S FULTON COUNTY FILES MOTION SEEKING RETURN OF 2020 ELECTION MATERIALS SEIZED BY FBI
FBI officers are seen at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga, near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
The FBI raid took place Jan. 28 at Fulton County's main election facility in Union City, near Atlanta, and focused on records connected to the 2020 general election. A warrant cover sheet provided to the county listed items agents sought, including ballots, tabulator tapes, electronic ballot images and voter rolls.
The Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center on Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga, near Atlanta, as FBI agents search the facility. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Last week, Fulton County officials filed a motion seeking the return of around 656 boxes of original 2020 election materials that the FBI had seized.
TRUMP DOJ DEMANDS MINNESOTA VOTING RECORDS OVER SAME-DAY REGISTRATION 'VOUCHING' CONCERNS
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The heavily Democratic Fulton County has come under scrutiny following President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden. Biden carried Georgia, but Trump has insisted that widespread voter fraud contributed to him losing the state.
Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
Logan Paul gives one word answer to Fox News Digital as to whether he's excited for Bad Bunny's halftime show.
Boxer Jake Paul on Sunday explained his "fake citizen" jab aimed at singer Bad Bunny ahead of the Grammy Award winner's Super Bowl LX halftime show performance.
Paul wrote on social media he wasn't taking a swipe at Bad Bunny because he's from Puerto Rico, but instead because he was speaking out against things like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl LX football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, California. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
"To clarify: I wasn't calling anyone a ‘fake citizen' because they're from Puerto Rico. I live in Puerto Rico, and I love Puerto Rico. I have used my platform to support Puerto Rico time and time again and will always do so," he wrote. "But if you're publicly criticizing ICE who are doing their job and openly hating on America, I'm going to speak on it. Period. That's the same reason I called out Hunter Hess.
"If you benefit from a country and the platform it gives you, but publicly disrespect it at the same time, that's what I mean by being a fake citizen. And I agree love is more powerful than hate. Love America."
DRAKE MAYE WANTS TO 'GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND REDO IT' AFTER PATRIOTS' SUPER BOWL LX DISASTER
Jake Paul is introduced during a weigh-in ahead of his heavyweight boxing match against Anthony Joshua, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Miami Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Paul wrote earlier in the day he was boycotting the Super Bowl halftime show over Bad Bunny's stance against ICE, adding that he was a fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America.
The singer prominently spoke out against ICE when he received his Grammy Award for Album of the Year earlier this month.
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl LX football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, California. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
"ICE out," he said. "We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens — we are humans, and we are Americans."
Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
The Department of War announced that the U.S. had "hunted" and boarded a tanker ship "from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean." (Credit: Department of War/X)
The War Department announced on Monday morning that the U.S. military boarded a vessel overnight "without incident."
The department's post on X noted that the U.S. had "hunted" the ship, called the Aquila II, "from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean."
"When the @DeptofWar says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DoW from defending our Homeland — even in oceans halfway around the world. Overnight, U.S. military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility," the Monday post explained.
US MILITARY SEIZES TWO SANCTIONED TANKERS IN ATLANTIC OCEAN
The War Department noted that the U.S. boarded the Aquila II after hunting it "from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean." (Department of War/X)
"The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It ran, and we followed. The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean," the post continued.
"No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain. By land, air, or sea, our Armed Forces will find you and deliver justice. You will run out of fuel long before you will outrun us," the department asserted.
US FORCES SEIZE OIL TANKER IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA IN PRE-DAWN MISSION
The War Department said U.S. forces boarded the ship. (Department of War/X)
"The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies the ability to defy American power in the global maritime domain," the post concluded.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted the War Department's post on X.
US MILITARY SEIZES ANOTHER FUGITIVE OIL TANKER LINKED TO VENEZUELA
The War Department noted that the U.S. boarded the Aquila II. (Department of War/X)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The department's post included footage of troops descending a rope to board the vessel from a hovering helicopter.
"The successful interdiction of the Aquila II underscores the unmatched reach and resolve of the United States military under President Trump's and Secretary Hegseth's leadership. As we've publicly stated, our quarantine measures are ironclad, and no vessel defying them can evade justice, whether in the Caribbean or the far reaches of the Indian Ocean," Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"The Department of War will continue to project power across every domain to safeguard our homeland and deter illicit actors worldwide," Wilson added.
Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
Fox News Flash top sports headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on FoxNews.com.
The couple, who were on stage during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX halftime show on Sunday, were legally married, according to multiple reports.
The newlyweds were featured numerous times throughout the halftime show. They were surrounded by backup dancers on stage when they got married.
The couple originally invited Bad Bunny to attend their wedding, but instead Bad Bunny invited them to get married in front of a massive audience, according to the reports.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
A couple dressed as a bride and groom participate in the Bad Bunny performance during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl LX football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The game was in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
While the couple certainly enjoyed the halftime show, as they received the gift of a lifetime from Bad Bunny, the show was not viewed positively by all.
President Donald Trump did not mince words, calling it the worst ever in a post to Truth Social.
TURNING POINT USA'S SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW PAYS TRIBUTE TO CHARLIE KIRK
A couple dressed as a bride and groom participate in the Bad Bunny performance during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl LX football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The game was in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
"The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The halftime show also featured surprise performances by Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. The show ended with a message on the scoreboard that read, "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl LX football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Trump may not have enjoyed the show, but Seattle Seahawks fans certainly had fun during the game. The Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 29-13 to win their second Super Bowl in franchise history.
Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Ryan Canfield is a digital production assistant for Fox News Digital.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
Nick Wright unveils his Super Bowl LX pick, New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks prop bets.
The Seattle Seahawks' win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX marked a new chapter in the so-called "Drake curse" narrative.
Drake has leaned into the chatter and long-running jokes about his betting habits by openly sharing his sports wagers on social media. The narrative centers on the idea that teams he backs are somehow destined to lose.
On Saturday, Drake, who has a business partnership with Stake — an online sportsbook — took to social media to say he picked the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Drake performs live on stage during day two of Wireless Festival 2025 at Finsbury Park on July 12, 2025, in London, England. (Simone Joyner/Getty Images for ABA)
"Bet against me if you dare," he captioned an Instagram post showing a screenshot of a $1 million wager on New England to win. Had the Patriots pulled off the upset, Drake stood to collect an estimated $2.95 million payout.
SEAHAWKS WIN SUPER BOWL LX AFTER DOMINANT DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE AGAINST PATRIOTS
But the odds were ultimately not in the "Thank Me Later" rapper's favor. The Seahawks defense dominated the Patriots to secure a 29-13 victory, giving Seattle its second Vince Lombardi Trophy in franchise history.
A website, thedrakecurse.com, tracks the "One Dance" singer's wager activity. According to the site, Drake has placed 12 wagers related to the Super Bowl since 2022, compiling a 4-8 win-loss record.
To Drake's credit, he was successful in his prediction that the Kansas City Chiefs would knock off the San Francisco 49ers two years ago in the Super Bowl.
Rapper Drake performs onstage during "Lil Baby & Friends Birthday Celebration Concert" at State Farm Arena on Dec. 9, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Prince Williams/Wireimage)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III rushed for 35 yards Sunday and was named Super Bowl LX MVP.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye threw two touchdowns but was also intercepted twice. Next year's big game shifts from Northern California to Southern California as it returns to SoFi Stadium — the shared home of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers.
Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Chantz Martin is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
Logan Paul gives one word answer to Fox News Digital as to whether he's excited for Bad Bunny's halftime show.
Bad Bunny's controversial Super Bowl halftime show garnered immediate praise by prominent Democrat leaders on Sunday night.
The show, which was almost entirely in Spanish, angered many conservatives, including President Donald Trump, who called the performance, "absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!"
The show has become the subject of highly-partisan debate and cultural differences within the country.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
California Gov. Gavin Newsom went so far as to declare Sunday "Bad Bunny Day" prior to Sunday's game, and then thanked the Latin trap artist after the show.
"America, the beautiful. THANK YOU, BAD BUNNY," Newsom wrote on X.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., praised Bad Bunny in Spanish in an X post, and then pointed out that she shares the surname name "Ocasio" with the artist in a post on BlueSky.
"Ocasio gang rise up," she wrote with a picture of Bad Bunny wearing an Ocasio 64 jersey.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani re-shared a post by New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson, praising the Latin artist.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, shared an image of Bad Bunny in the style of Barack Obama's famed 2008 "hope" campaign poster with the caption, "Bad Bunny understood the assignment…"
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., made multiple X posts celebrating the Puerto Rican artist and took aim at conservative figures for criticizing the show, including boxer Jake Paul and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris' new "Headquarters" X account made multiple posts celebrating the show and attacking Trump and Jake Paul for criticism of it.
BAD BUNNY'S SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW IGNITES TRUMP'S FURY, DIVIDES VIEWERS
Trump's criticism of the halftime show became one of the most viral storylines of the entire Super Bowl on Sunday.
"The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"This ‘Show' is just a ‘slap in the face' to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD — And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Prominent conservative influencers were among the show's harshest critics, and even Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice Harmeet Dhillon chimed in.
The show was expected to be the first Super Bowl halftime show to be sung entirely in Spanish. However, pop artist Lady Gaga showed up to sing the Bruno Mars song "Die With a Smile."
Many fans opted to skip this year's Super Bowl halftime show to watch Turning Point USA's "All-American" halftime show, headlined by Kid Rock.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell defended having Bad Bunny as the performer earlier this week.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
"Listen, Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world and that's one of the reasons we chose him," Goodell said. "But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on and this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents and to be able to use this moment to do that and I think artists in the past have done that.
"I think Bad Bunny understands that and I think he'll have a great performance."
Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson's reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to the enforcement of Title IX, and in legacy media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and ESPN.com.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG.
Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet discusses the success of their patriotic counter-programming to the NFL's Bad Bunny halftime set.
R&B artist Chris Brown appeared to throw his hat into the ring for Super Bowl halftime performer consideration on Sunday night as Bad Bunny's show appeared to divide viewers on social media.
Brown seemingly reacted to the Puerto Rican star's performance, which took place during Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Chris Brown performs on stage during his BREEZY BOWL XX tour at Chase Field on Sept. 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. (John Medina/Getty Images)
"I think it's safe to say … they need me!" he wrote in a post on his Instagram Stories.
Bad Bunny's performance fell flat with President Donald Trump, who made his opinion on the show known through a Truth Social post.
BAD BUNNY'S SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW IGNITES TRUMP'S FURY, DIVIDES VIEWERS
Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform the halftime show in Super Bowl LX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots at Levi's Stadium on Feb. 8, 2026. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
"The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"This ‘Show' is just a ‘slap in the face' to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD — And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Others lamented that the entire performance was in Spanish.
Bad Bunny performs during the Half Time show in Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium on Feb. 8, 2026. (Darren Yamashita/Imagn Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Sports stars like J.J. Watt and Jalen Brunson expressed support for the show. Watt called it a "vibe" despite not being able to understand Bad Bunny. Brunson thanked the singer for the performance.
Super Bowl LXI will take place on Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and
agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can
opt-out at any time.
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by
Factset. Powered and implemented by
FactSet Digital Solutions.
Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by
LSEG.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Federal agents conduct immigration enforcement operations Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy, File)
Police and federal officers throw gas canisters to disperse protesters near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
A gas mask and goggles are seen attached to a Customs and Border Protection officer's leg outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, Oct. 4, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
Observers film while federal agents conduct immigration enforcement operations Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy, File)
Federal immigration enforcement agents shatter a truck window and detain two men outside a Home Depot in Evanston, Ill., Dec. 17, 2025. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Beyond the car windows being smashed, people tackled on city streets — or even a little child with a floppy bunny ears snowcap detained — the images of masked federal officers has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations.
Not in recent U.S. memory has an American policing operation so consistently masked its thousands of officers from the public, a development that the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to safeguard employees from online harassment. But experts warn masking serves another purpose, inciting fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between the police and its citizenry.
Whether to ban the masks — or allow the masking to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday's midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.
“Humans read each others' faces — that's how we communicate,” said Justin Smith, a former Colorado sheriff who is executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs' Association.
“When you have a number of federal agents involved in these operations, and they can't be identified, you can't see their face, it just tends to make people uncomfortable,” he said. “That's bringing up some questions.”
Masks on federal agents have been one constant throughout the first year of President Donald Trump's mass deportation operation.
What began as a jarring image last spring, when plain-clothed officers drawing up their masks surrounded and detained a Tufts University doctoral student near her Massachusetts home, has morphed into familiar scenes in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. The shooting deaths of two American citizens at the hands of federal immigration officers during demonstrations against ICE raids in Minneapolis sparked widespread public protest and spurred lawmakers to respond.
“Cameras on, masks off” has become a rallying cry among Democrats, who are also insisting the officers wear body cameras as a way to provide greater accountability and oversight of the operations.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol that unmasking the federal agents is a “hard red line” in the negotiations ahead.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement says on its website that its officers “wear masks to prevent doxing, which can (and has) placed them and their families at risk. All ICE law enforcement officers carry badges and credentials and will identify themselves when required for public safety or legal necessity.”
Fueled with funds from the Trump's big tax cuts bill, which poured some $170 billion into Homeland Security, ICE has grown to become among the largest law enforcement operations in the nation. Last year, it announced it had more than doubled its ranks, to 22,000, with rapid hiring — and $50,000 signing bonuses. Homeland Security did not respond to an emailed request for further comment.
Most Republicans say the current political climate leaves the immigration officers, many of them new to the job, exposed if their faces and identities are made public.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he just can't agree with Democrats' demand that officers unmask themselves.
“You know, there's a lot of vicious people out there, and they'll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know, your children or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home,” he said. “That's just the reality of the world that we're in.”
It appears no other policing agency in the country regularly uses masking on a widespread basis. Instead, masks are used during special operations, particularly undercover work or at times during large crowd control or protest situations, and when there is inclement weather or individual health concerns.
Experts said only perhaps during the Ku Klux Klan raids or in the Old West has masking been a more widely used tool.
“It is without precedent in modern American history,” said the American Civil Liberties Union's Naureen Shah in Washington.
She said the idea of masked patrols on city streets seeking immigrants can leave people scared and confused about who they are encountering — which she suggested is part of the point.
“I think it's calculated to terrify people,” she said. “I don't think anybody viscerally feels like, OK, this is something we want to become a permanent fixture in our streets.”
Toward the end of the first Trump administration, Congress sought to clamp down after masked federal agents showed up in 2020 to quell protests in Portland and other cities. A provision requiring agents to clearly identify themselves was tucked into a massive defense authorization bill that Trump assigned into law.
Last year, California became the first state in the nation to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces. The Trump administration's Justice Department sued, saying the state's policies “create risk” for the agents.
Smith, of the sheriffs' association, said there's no easy answer to the current masking debate.
He suggested perhaps a middle ground could be reached — one that would allow officers to wear masks, but also require their badge or other identifying numbers to be prominently displayed.
Advocates said while unmasking the federal agents would be an important step, other restraints on immigration enforcement operations may be even more so.
They are pushing Congress to curb the ability of ICE officers to rely on administrative warrants in immigration operations, particularly to enter people's homes, insisting such actions should be required to use judicial warrants, with sign off from the courts.
There is also an effort to end roving patrols — the ability of immigration officers to use a person's race, language or job location to question their legal status, sometimes called “Kavanaugh stops” after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurring opinion to a Supreme Court decision last summer.
Greg Chen, senior director of government affairs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said because Congress gave Homeland Security such robust funding in the tax cuts bill, “That's why the policy reforms are so important right now to bring the agency in check.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who recently returned from Minnesota, said the weight of the masked enforcement operation can be felt in ways that impact everyone — regardless of a person's own immigration status.
“It's a very a heavy presence of surveillance and intimidation,” she said. “No one is exempt.”
live
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Rep. Thomas Massie's (R-KY) fight for political survival is bleeding into Kentucky's Senate race after two of the Republican contenders endorsed his challenger to curry favor with President Donald Trump.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) and entrepreneur Nate Morris endorsed Ed Gallrein in quick succession on Thursday, leaving former Attorney General Daniel Cameron as the only major candidate to stay on the sidelines in Massie's race.
Massie, a libertarian and six-term House member, has embraced his status as a pariah in Trumpworld, owing to his opposition to the president's tax law and role in forcing the release of the Epstein files.
But Republicans, especially those seeking Trump's endorsement, want nothing to do with his candidacy and see Gallrein's entry into the race at Trump's urging as an opportunity to signal their loyalty to the president.
In announcing the endorsement, Barr's campaign said he would be hosting a meet-and-greet with Gallrein in Kentucky on Friday and dubbed Morris as “Late Nate” for offering his endorsement later the same afternoon.
Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and state Senate candidate, touted their backing as a sign that “MAGA conservatives” are uniting behind him.
The endorsements mark the latest wrinkle in what has become a bitter race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Early on, that meant distancing themselves from McConnell, himself a foe of the president, and promising to be a reliable Trump defender in Congress.
Yet all three candidates have since turned to other Trump critics to cement their standing with the White House.
In this latest dust-up, Barr and Morris are pointing to donations the other gave to Massie in past election cycles. Morris, a Lexington businessman, donated to Massie in 2020 and 2022, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Barr, meanwhile, made a donation in 2020 through his leadership PAC.
(Trump first called for Massie to be “thrown out” of the GOP in 2020, but later endorsed him in 2022.)
The falling out between Trump and former Rep. Liz Cheney is another feud shaping the campaign, with Morris citing donations Barr gave through his leadership PAC to Cheney and three other House Republicans who voted to impeach the president in 2021.
Barr, in turn, notes that Morris donated to former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley two years before she challenged Trump for the presidential nomination.
“Those guys endorsing Woke Eddie isn't about my race. It's about their campaigns,” Massie told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
The Cameron campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but his team has largely stayed out of the mud-slinging between Morris and Barr as they seek to overtake him in polling. Until recently, Cameron had a comfortable lead over both competitors, but two independent polls released this week showed them siphoning off support, with Cameron now in a close second and Morris roughly 10 points behind.
A Trump endorsement could fundamentally reshape the race, given he won the state by a whopping 30 points in 2024. One poll from Quantus Insights found that almost half of Republican primary voters would be more likely to support a candidate who gets Trump's backing. A large percentage of voters are also still undecided.
For that reason, each candidate is not simply trying to signal their MAGA bona fides to Kentucky's voting electorate. They are appealing to Trump himself in the hope that he wades into the race, or at least decides not to back a challenger.
“I don't think that these guys endorsing Massie's challenger is really aimed at Kentucky politics,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist. “It's probably more aimed at the White House.”
“I think that Trump has two things that he cares about – No. 1, are you loyal to him? And No. 2, can you win?” Feehery added.
Cameron lost a 2023 bid for governor to Democrat Andy Beshear despite a Trump endorsement and has struggled to keep up with fundraising in his Senate race. But his strong polling position is due in part to his name ID in the state and endorsements from a number of Kentucky officials.
Of the candidates, Barr has the largest campaign war chest and the backing of several House members aligned with the president, including former White House physician Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the chairwoman of House Republican leadership.
But Morris is newly touting a $10 million cash infusion from tech mogul Elon Musk and has steadily pumped his own wealth into the campaign. In addition to Musk, Morris has endorsements from the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, multiple Trump-aligned senators, and former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
Trump is not the only litmus test on the ballot. Morris is attempting to make the border a mainstay of his campaign, advocating a freeze on immigration until everyone in the country illegally is deported.
All three are also painting one another as too “woke” for Kentucky, a message that has seeped into Massie's race as well.
In a new ad, Massie claimed that Gallrein supports a “comeback” for diversity initiatives after “Trump crushed the woke agenda.” The ad, which flashes Trump on the screen, suggests that Massie understands the president's sway in the state, even as he bucks him on Capitol Hill.
Just this past week, Trump called Massie a “moron” at a prayer breakfast in Washington, prompting Massie to accuse him of being upset because “I'm still fighting for what he promised the American people.”
SHERROD BROWN LOSES FOURTH UNION ENDORSEMENT TO REPUBLICAN JON HUSTED
The two have had an on-and-off-again relationship for years, with Massie notoriously holding up pandemic-era spending over Trump's objections during his first term as president.
The latest break has become a boon for Massie in terms of fundraising, but he is facing a deluge of spending from a Trump-aligned PAC supporting Gallrein.
Jeffrey Epstein's life as a free man was about to end, but first he needed to cancel breakfast plans with a friend: Steve Bannon, the right-wing influencer and former adviser to President Donald Trump.
In the days leading up to Epstein's arrest in July 2019, the two men exchanged a steady stream of text messages, veering from breezy banter and dark humor to more serious strategizing around Bannon's efforts to foment a global populist movement.
Writing from Paris, Epstein pressed Bannon to rally US support behind a Slovakian leader seeking a top NATO post. Bannon, meanwhile, wanted Epstein's help connecting a close ally in Israel with the country's former prime minister. They also traded barbs about the indictment of a British anti-Muslim activist and made plans to meet the morning of July 7 once Epstein returned from Europe.
The conversation came to a halt on July 6. After messaging with Bannon that day about their upcoming rendezvous, Epstein suddenly wrote, “All canceled.” He sent the message at 7:37 p.m. ET, according to US Department of Justice records. By then, federal authorities had intercepted Epstein at a New Jersey airport and arrested the New York financier on charges he sex trafficked minors.
But for its abrupt ending, the exchange mirrored hundreds of other text and email messages between the two men in the Epstein files. The records, released by the DOJ and House Oversight Committee, reveal a close personal relationship — and show Epstein's deep involvement in Bannon's ambitions on the world stage.
For years, Bannon has served as a leading voice for the American alt-right, and he has sought to spread to other countries the movement that helped propel Trump to the presidency. Until now, his maneuverings abroad, well documented by US and foreign media, have drawn little speculation that Epstein played any role.
Conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein — whose body was found in his jail cell while he was awaiting trial in August 2019, with his death ruled a suicide — have long animated Bannon's followers, generally directed at the same elites he regularly targets and not Bannon himself. Last summer, Bannon joined other MAGA loyalists in criticizing the Trump administration's handling of documents related to Epstein's crimes. He has been far less vocal, however, about his own relationship with Epstein.
Bannon did not return phone calls and text messages from CNN.
Epstein offered Bannon the same things he extended to many powerful confidantes: strategic advice, connections to the highest levels of government and business, and access to his vast wealth. He appeared increasingly invested in Bannon's success even as he recognized his own history — Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two state prostitution charges, one involving a child — could complicate their cause.
“Lets make sure you are keeping your own path on front burner. Strategy etc.,” he wrote Bannon in August 2018, before adding: “at the same time. Take no heat re me. Not worth it for the moment.”
Bannon, for his part, appeared eager to capitalize on the relationship despite Epstein's criminal past. He regularly shared headlines from his efforts abroad and tapped into Epstein's extensive network. At one point, he asked Epstein: “Do u know anyone in Europe that wants to control the European Parliament and with it the EU.”
In private exchanges, the two sometimes plotted next steps and workshopped Bannon's messaging.
The night before Bannon was set to appear at a September 2018 forum hosted by The Economist, Epstein suggested framing for how Bannon should discuss Trump's contentious trade wars.
“Brilliant brilliant brilliant,” Bannon responded, “help me develop that argument.”
Bannon appeared on Epstein's radar after the 2016 election.
In the days following Trump's stunning victory, Epstein served as a sounding board to the rich and powerful. Business leaders across Europe, a senior British politician, a pair of prominent journalists and a New Age guru all reached out to Epstein by email, searching for insight into what the outcome would mean for financial markets, politics and the world order.
“I have been comforting people all day,” he replied from Paris to a particularly despondent email. “its going to be better than fine.”
One acquaintance, however, shared something other than shock — sending Epstein a 2014 interview of Bannon, granted before he became Trump's campaign manager and the architect of his improbable win. In it, Bannon had predicted with eerie precision the populist uprising that would carry Trump to the White House, forecasting a middle-class revolt, led by right-wing forces, that would soon upend geopolitics.
Epstein was introduced to Bannon shortly after the election, the journalist and author Michael Wolff wrote in his 2019 book, “Siege: Trump Under Fire.” In a passage Wolff shared with Epstein before publishing, Bannon reportedly told Epstein, “You were the one person I was truly afraid of coming forward during the campaign.”
But more than a year would pass before they connected to export Bannon's global vision. Their alignment took shape as both men found themselves on the margins of Trump's orbit. Bannon had been pushed out of the White House in August 2017 after serving as a senior adviser, and Epstein's once-close friendship with Trump ended in the mid-2000s, according to the president, though they each owned massive estates on the same barrier island in South Florida.
In early 2018, Wolff shared with Epstein gossip that Bannon was weighing a formal public break from the president while forming his own nationalist party. Wolff offered a bullish view on Bannon's prospects, arguing his platform was “coherent, rational, and, apparently appealing to a great many people.”
“What does he have to lose?” Wolff asked.
(Asked for comment about the email, Wolff didn't address his remarks and instead encouraged CNN to read the chapter on Epstein in his 2021 book, “Too Famous,” which he said “has substantial material about Steve.”)
Over the next month, Bannon appeared to walk Epstein through his plans for a new center-right coalition, one that could outlast democratic elections for more than a decade. Over email, Bannon described his movement as “reverse Alabama” — “Populist/Nationalist first; Conservative Christians (catholic/evangelical) next.”
Epstein was hungry for more details.
“I need to understand flow of funds,” Epstein said, adding there would be “money needed for think tank, for ads. for policy meetings.. though (sic) leaders.” He mentioned cryptocurrency as a potential option and encouraged Bannon to study the blockchain.
Communications accelerated from there, and so did their relationship. Epstein helped arrange travel for Bannon, pestered him to get his blood screened and offered to pay for his medical expenses.
“We have become friends,” Epstein confided to a Dubai businessman.
Bannon was soon making waves in Europe, speaking to packed rooms as he looked to spread an anti-elite, anti-migrant message. He kept Epstein apprised of his movements, at one point sharing a news clip with the headline: “German Media Confess to Underestimating Steve Bannon; He Is ‘As Dangerous as Ever.'”
Epstein replied: “luv it.”
For his part, Epstein coached Bannon on how to court Europeans, warning him the continent “can be a wife not a mistress.”
“If you are going to play here, you'll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn't work,” he wrote. “Lots and lots of face time and hand holding.”
Epstein had his own interests abroad, particularly the political future of Slovakian diplomat Miroslav Lajčák, the president of the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 and 2018. Lajčák, Epstein told Bannon in an email, would “guide the EU project if you like him.”
“his govt will fall this week - as planned,” Epstein wrote in March 2018, punctuating it with a smiley face.
Lajčák, a former foreign minister in Slovakia, resigned last month from his position as an adviser to the Slovakian government after the latest Epstein release, according to Reuters. Lajčák has denied wrongdoing.
Epstein also offered to serve as an intermediary with “Kurz,” a likely reference to then-Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose rise was on Epstein's radar. Epstein said Kurz was eager to meet Bannon.
As they moved around the world like pieces on a Risk board, Epstein and Bannon reflected on their consequential partnership.
“Now you can understand why trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends,” Epstein once texted Bannon.
He messaged back: “Dangerous.”
By August 2018, Bannon indicated the tide was turning in their favor.
In a text message to Epstein, he took credit for the fall of the Belgian government (“5 hours after my speech” in Brussels, he noted) and predicted populist and nationalist groups would soon flex their numbers in Great Britain, France and elsewhere. He was even hopeful that political allies might win control of the European Parliament the following spring.
“We can run the tables here,” Bannon wrote.
Some of the excitement was justified. In 2019, moderate and establishment parties took hits across the continent, while nationalist, anti-migrant messengers made considerable gains. While this broke the coalition between centrist parties at the European Parliament, far-right groups did not win a majority of seats.
Bannon's ties to Epstein grew more problematic during this period. In November 2018, The Miami Herald started publishing a series of meticulously reported stories by Julie K. Brown including accounts from dozens of Epstein's victims and detailing how he had evaded more serious federal charges. The series gained national attention, in part because the role a Trump Cabinet official had played in negotiating the unusual plea deal more than a decade earlier.
“Reminder,” Epstein wrote Bannon as the spotlight turned back to his legal troubles, “I fully understand my toxicity for the moment. and I want you to win.”
Meanwhile, Bannon was increasingly pulled into domestic politics. Republicans had taken a beating during the midterm elections, and special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference was casting a shadow over Trump's presidency.
Bannon told Epstein in May 2019 that Trump's political operation was in “chaos” with internal polls predicting an Electoral College landslide against the president.
Epstein urged his friend to focus on Europe. He appeared concerned about Bannon's well-being and encouraged him to get more sleep.
The two were also working on another project that was eating up their busy schedules: a potential documentary featuring Epstein. The Justice Department recently released two hours of video of Epstein speaking with an off-camera interviewer whose voice resembles Bannon.
Many of their final emails concern missed chances for them to record more footage, unaware that a deadline was fast-approaching.
“I am focused on you WINNING! So no worries,” Epstein wrote on June 11 after one such failed get-together. “Movement first.”
Less than a month later, Epstein was in federal custody.
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Kenneth Walker Jr. never saw his son play in the NFL before Sunday night. He'd sat with him in the hospital when his boy was treated for blood clots in his lungs and he'd worked with his son to prove the doctors wrong – to prove that he would play football again.
But the overwhelming in-person experience of an NFL game was too much. Then his son's agent changed his mind: He had to show up for Super Bowl LX.
Suffice to say, Kenneth Walker III has set quite the standard for himself to live up to the next time his dad is in the stadium.
‘Those are a bunch of bad boys': Seattle's defense beats up the Patriots in a Super Bowl performance for the ages
Walker, a fourth-year player out of Michigan State University, ran for 135 juking, sliding, shuffling, lung-busting yards against the New England Patriots on Sunday night and put himself among the greats of the game by being voted the MVP of Super Bowl LX.
“My dad, he comes out to Seattle all the time and watch games, but he never goes to the game because he don't like crowds,” Walker said after his stellar performance.
“So, this is his first NFL game, and we won a Super Bowl, so it means a lot to me and I know you're proud of me for real.”
Walker has had some dominating performances in big games throughout his football career – five touchdowns in a classic Spartan win over Michigan in 2021 and 116 yards over the San Francisco 49ers and three touchdowns in the divisional round of these playoffs spring to mind – but he's never really had a game like this.
With his defense dominating on the other side of the ball and his own offense sputtering, Walker had to be Him for the Seahawks in a way that he hadn't been asked all year – mostly because he had Zach Charbonnet beside him.
Charbonnet and Walker made up the running back duo that was the pace-changer for the Seahawks offense, the complement to their devastating aerial attack led by Sam Darnold. But in the divisional round, Charbonnet tore his ACL and was ruled out for the rest of the season.
So, the ball, literally and figuratively, was given to Walker.
“You never want to see your brother get hurt, but I was gonna have to pick up the slack and I just wanted to make a positive impact on my team in whatever way possible,” Walker told reporters after the game.
After softening up the New England defense in the opening quarter, Walker started to find a groove.
At one point, NBC's color commentator Cris Collinsworth openly wondered how many yards Walker had picked up after going backward. He was all over the place, breaking tackles and making guys miss when they had a clean shot at him. The Seahawks couldn't get the ball into the end zone, but it was Walker putting them in position to score the field goals that built their lead in the opening stages of the game.
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, Walker was ready to burst. And he made a run he'll never forget – even though it didn't count.
“The O-line had the hole wide open, I just really had to beat the safety and whoever was on my left,” he said of his 49-yard run into the end zone that was called back for a holding penalty.
“I scored and looked back and it's a flag and, you know, that's probably the worst feeling ever. But, we won the game, so I'm not gonna complain.”
There's one word that his teammates kept using about Walker.
“K9 is special,” said Seattle safety Julian Love. “There's not a person in the building that doesn't believe that we're a better team when he's going, and so to see him and when he gets MVP, it's crazy. He's earned it. I mean, there's been so much doubt on his name.
“He shows up each day. He's a quiet guy. He's a menace with that ball in his hands, and so he showed it today. The MVP is crazy, his whole playoff run. Obviously, Zach (Charbonnet), we love him, and it was vital having both of them all season. But it was more on K9's shoulders when Zach went down. And so, he showed up for us.”
“I'm so happy for him,” said Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the team's star wide receiver. “Y'all don't understand what K9 has gone through. He's a special player. He's a special player and our o-line – they're special. We have a special group of guys and I feel like when you look back at this team, y'all will realize how special we are.”
In a league where everyone is constantly predicting the demise of the running back position, Walker is proof that the old ways still work. Turning around and handing the ball off can be the way that you settle down an offense in the biggest game of their lives. It can be the way that a defense softens up to the point that you can finally get in the end zone, even if it doesn't count. It can lead you down the field for five goals – a new Super Bowl record.
And it can win you the Vince Lombardi trophy.
“When the doctor told me I couldn't play no more – I just thought football was over,” Walker said after the game. “That's what I was doing all my life, so it was a shocking moment, but you know my dad worked with me throughout that whole process and he was in the hospital with me, as well and my mom.
“Just going through that, it just made me grateful for each and every day to be able to go out there and strap up and play this game and just still be alive, for real.”
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, and brought out special guest Lady Gaga. (Feb 8.)
Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Grammy Award-winner Coco Jones performs “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during pregame festivities for Super Bowl LX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Blue Ivy Carter, right, and Rumi Carter, center, pose for photos in the end zone before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day performs before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Charlie Puth performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brandi Carlile performs “America the Beautiful” before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Stars were front-and-center at Super Bowl 60, with Chris Pratt and Jon Bon Jovi introducing the teams, a series of soaring pre-game performances and Bad Bunny's much-anticipated halftime show featuring a tour of Puerto Rican culture and a real-life marriage.
Before the game at Levi's Stadium, Blue Ivy Carter and her sister Rumi leaped in an end zone and Green Day delivered a tribute to the Super Bowl's 60th anniversary.
Brandi Carlile kept it sincere and simple for “America, the Beautiful,” Charlie Puth made “The Star-Spangled Banner” big and soulful and Coco Jones brought a bit of the elements of both to “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Bad Bunny brought Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin and a whole lot of his native Puerto Rico to his halftime show.
“God bless America!” he shouted toward the end, a rare English phrase in the 13-minute halftime show. Then he gave a roll call of the nations of North, South and Central America, including Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, the United States and Canada.
A parade of flags from those nations marched through the sugar plantation fields that functioned as the show's centerpiece.
After the list of nations, and at the end of the show, he declared, “Mi Patria Puerto Rico, seguimos aquí,” or “My homeland Puerto Rico, we are still here.”
He also brought out a parade of celebrities, including Cardi B, Jessica Alba and Pedro Pascal.
The 31-year-old began the performance in the furrows of the faux sugar cane crops, walking past unmistakable Puerto Rican imagery including farmers in straw hats, old men playing dominos and a shaved ice stand as he performed his 2022 reggaeton hit “Tití Me Preguntó.” He carried a football and wore an all-white football jersey with the number 64 and his real last name, Ocasio.
The opening and closing of the show were not really visible inside the stadium because it was obscured by the sugar cane plants, many of which were people in costumes who ran on to the field to form the maze.
He then stood atop a tiny pink house with dancers in the front yard and performed “Yo Perreo Sola” and stood atop a pickup truck as he did “EOO.”
The scene shifted to a wedding, where the marrying couple parted to reveal Lady Gaga as the first surprise guest. She joined Bad Bunny in performing “Baile Inolvidable.” Gaga did her own Super Bowl halftime show in 2017.
The couple was actually married during the show, according to a representative for Bad Bunny, who said he served as a witness and signed their marriage certificate.
Bad Bunny then broke into his “NuevaYol” in a faux shopping center parking lot.
Ricky Martin, a Puerto Rican star from a previous generation, joined him for “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii.”
The show came a week after the 31-year-old superstar won the Grammy for album of the year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” a love letter to his home.
The halftime show included a young boy watching the Grammy telecast on TV with his parents. Bad Bunny appeared and handed the boy a Grammy statuette.
As the show ended, he held up the football to the camera. It had a message that was also on the scoreboard: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
On Truth Social, President Donald Trump called the show “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!”
San Francisco Bay Area punk-pop vets Green Day took the pre-game stage and performed a snippet of their song “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” to a parade of former Super Bowl MVPs.
Local heroes Steve Young, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice were among those who walked out during the song meant to celebrate 60 years of Super Bowls.
Billie Joe Armstong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool then blasted into the harder and less sentimental stuff, including “Holiday,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “American Idiot.”
Armstrong did not censor the f-word in the lyrics of “American Idiot.” The word was muted on the NBC telecast but drew loud cheers inside the stadium.
Billie Joe Armstrong, of Green Day performs before prior to the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Singer-songwriter Charlie Puth delivered a sweeping and soulful rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The 34-year-old from New Jersey stood at a Rhodes electric piano as he sang and was backed by a choir and horn section.
Before that, Brandi Carlile gave an earnest acoustic rendition of “America, the Beautiful.”
The 44-year-old folk and country rocker wore a black suit and was backed by a violin and cello on the field at Levi Stadium.
The Grammy winner told the AP this week that she'd use no prerecorded tracks, saying “the people deserve to have you live.”
After the song Carlile, who is from Ravensdale, Washington, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) outside Seattle said she was “relieved, and so excited for the Seahawks baby let's go!”
Charlie Puth performs the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Coco Jones, a 28-year-old singer-songwriter and actor from Columbia, South Carolina wore a white gown and was backed by a string octet as she performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song that has become known as the unofficial Black national anthem.
“I feel really amazing, I hope that I did my ancestors proud, and I hope that I inspired the nation to come together,” Jones told the AP just after the song.
She FaceTimed with her mom on the sideline ater the performance while her fiance, Cleveland Cavaliers player Donovan Mitchell, held the phone.
Written by James Weldon Johnson, the song has been performed at the Super Bowl each year since 2021, the first Super Bowl after the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, when Black Lives Matter sentiment, and the song, became especially prominent.
Coco Jones performs “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)
Chris Pratt rocked a Seahawks jersey while attending the Super Bowl and gave a rousing introduction to the team before they ran out onto the field.
On the opposite side of the field, Jon Bon Jovi delivered the Patriots' intro.
Stars including Travis Scott and Jay-Z were on the sidelines ahead of the game. Jay-Z's daughters, Blue Ivy and Rumi Carter, leaped in one of the end zones to take a photo.
Blue Ivy Carter poses for photos in the end zone before the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Among those sitting in suites watching the game were Justin Bieber, Hailey Bieber and Adam Sandler.
During game breaks, Bay Area rapper LaRussell jammed alongside a choir, performing everything from rap classics such as his song “I'm From the Bay” and a rendition of Too $hort's “Blow the Whistle,” along with gospel melodies.
LaRussell is the first artist chosen to curate the house band at the Super Bowl.
Among the commercials shown during the game was an unexpected first look at “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” a Netflix sequel to Quentin Tarantino's “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” with Brad Pitt reprising his stuntman character and David Fincher directing.
___
Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
live
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Over 100 million viewers were presented with a choice at halftime of the 2026 Super Bowl: stick with Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny's performance on NBC or tune into an alternative show featuring Kid Rock that was hosted by the right-wing organization Turning Point USA.
The NFL's selection of Bad Bunny, who sings primarily in Spanish, to do the halftime show led to fierce backlash from the Right, mostly due to his outspoken criticism of the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda. It sparked a boycott from President Donald Trump and his Cabinet, who have appeared at some of the biggest sporting events over the past year but passed on traveling to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, for the game.
The criticism culminated in Turning Point hosting its own program dubbed the “All-American Halftime Show,” which featured Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. Bad Bunny retains a huge following, though, setting up what has turned out to be a significant cultural clash on the sidelines of the big game.
Here's how the two performances went down on Sunday night.
Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, came out on the field of Levi's Stadium shortly after 8 p.m., donning an all-white suit with a jersey over it and singing “Titi Me Pregunto,” a song he released in 2022.
His outfit disproved rumors that he would wear some sort of dress during the performance, which instead saw him switch to the suit for most of the 13-minute performance.
The show included him singing 14 of his hit songs as he navigated an island-themed set, likely a nod to his hometown in Puerto Rico. It included numerous surprise guests, most notably Lady Gaga, who sang in English. Bad Bunny sang entirely in Spanish, though he did throw in a “God Bless America” message at one point.
It ended with performers running across the field with numerous flags, mostly of countries in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. flag was prominent in the final act.
While not explicitly political, Bad Bunny's performance did include a nod to his Grammys speech last weekend, in which he said, “ICE out.” The reference occurred when he handed a Grammy award to a boy who could be seen watching the speech on a TV set. For most of the show, he was also holding a football that had the message “Together, we are America” written on it.
Turning Point's “All-American Halftime Show” began with an electric guitar version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” followed by songs from country musician Brantley Gilbert, Gabby Barrett, Lee Brice, and finally Kid Rock.
Kid Rock, who was by far the main act and is a vocal supporter of Trump, walked out to “Bawitdaba,” which rocked the crowd present in the venue. He later played a cover of “Til You Can't” by Cody Johnson.
The show was held at a small venue that had patriotic imagery displayed on the walls. Despite not being held at a bigger stadium, there was still an in-studio audience present, though nothing approaching the number of people at Levi's Stadium.
While Bad Bunny's performance had the advantage of being live at the game, Turning Point's show brought in a sizable number of streamers. That number surpassed five million on the YouTube stream.
Despite previously saying he wouldn't watch the Super Bowl halftime show with Bad Bunny, Trump nonetheless weighed in on it in a screed posted to Truth Social.
He called it “absolutely terrible” and “an affront to the Greatness of America,” while expressing displeasure with Bad Bunny singing in Spanish and the performers' dance routine.
MAGA VS. LIBERAL TASTEMAKERS: ALTERNATIVE SUPER BOWL SHOW LATEST BATTLE FOR AMERICAN CULTURE
“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World,” the president posted.
“This ‘Show' is just a ‘slap in the face' to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD,” Trump added.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth also suggested he skipped Bad Bunny's performance in favor of Turning Point's event, posting on X that he and his family were watching the latter show.
Lee este artículo en español
Key Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Pablo Guanipa was arrested by heavily armed men on Sunday night, his supporters said, just hours after he had been released from a jail where he was held as a political prisoner.
Guanipa's family and political allies said he had been “kidnapped” by a group of men and accused the Caracas regime of being responsible.
The country's public prosecutor's office later confirmed it had requested Guanipa be placed under house arrest, claiming a breach of his release conditions, without providing details.
Leader of the conservative Primero Justicia party, Guanipa was among several high-profile political prisoners freed on Sunday, in the latest effort from Caracas to satisfy US demands following Washington's ouster of strongman leader Nicolás Maduro.
But Guanipa, 61, was later snatched by a group of men in the Los Chorros neighborhood of Caracas, said Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Laureate María Corina Machado, who is not in the country.
“Heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived in four vehicles and took him away by force,” she said on X.
Guanipa's son Ramón said in a video that his father was “ambushed” at a late night event “by approximately 10 agents who had no identification whatsoever.”
“They pointed their guns at them, they were heavily armed, and they took my father,” he said, before demanding to see proof his father was still alive.
Guanipa's Primero Justicia party also accused the Caracas regime of being behind the kidnapping. “We hold (interim President) Delcy Rodríguez, (National Assembly President) Jorge Rodríguez, and (Interior Minister) Diosdado Cabello responsible for any harm against the life of Juan Pablo,” it said in a statement on X.
CNN has reached out to the prosecutor's office for more information on the release conditions Guanipa is accused of breaching.
In the past, conditions have ranged from travel bans and periodic court appearances to gag orders, according to lawyer Gonzalo Himiob, vice president of the rights group Foro Penal. He emphasized that even after political prisoners are released, legal proceedings remain open in all cases, so they are not considered fully free.
After Maduro was captured by US special forces last month, his former deputy Rodríguez took over as leader with the blessing of the Trump administration, on the proviso Caracas complied with a raft of US demands – from access to oil to the release of political prisoners.
Guanipa was arrested in May 2025, following claims by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, made without evidence, that he was involved in an alleged “terror” plot against regional and legislative elections. Guanipa has repeatedly denied the accusation.
Guanipa was freed earlier Sunday night after more than eight months in prison.
Shortly after walking out of a detention center in Caracas, Guanipa had uploaded a video on social media, declaring, “Today we are being released. Much to discuss about the present and future of Venezuela, always with the truth at the forefront.”
Machado had celebrated the news of his release earlier Sunday. “My dear Juan Pablo, counting down the minutes until I can hug you! You are a hero and history will always recognize it,” she wrote on social media.
Venezuela's Machado gave Trump her Nobel prize. In return she received a swag bag but no promise of support
Another of Machado's allies, lawyer Perkins Rocha, was also released on Sunday, but under strict restrictions, according to his wife María Constanza.
Foro Penal said it had confirmed that at least 30 political prisoners were released on Sunday, according to the group's director, Alfredo Romero.
Others who were freed include Luis Somaza, a member of the Popular Will party, and Jesús Armas, an activist and former opposition councilman.
Venezuela's opposition and human rights groups have long accused the country's authoritarian regime of using arbitrary arrests to suppress dissent. Foro Penal estimates that hundreds of additional political prisoners still remain behind bars.
The government has denied that it holds people for political reasons, arguing that those in prison have committed crimes.
Sunday's releases come days after Venezuela's National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez promised relatives of political prisoners that “all detainees” would be freed. Rodríguez, the brother of acting president Delcy Rodríguez, said the process would be completed “no later than” Friday, February 13.
College students in Venezuela confronted acting President Delcy Rodríguez during her visit to the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) on Tuesday to demand that her government release professors and students imprisoned for political reasons.
‘Put your hand on your heart': Students in Venezuela demand Rodríguez pledge to release imprisoned professors and students
His announcement comes as the acting socialist government moves forward with an amnesty bill that could lead to the mass release of prisoners – some of whom have been held since 1999, when strongman leader Hugo Chávez came to power – as a first step toward what officials describe as national reconciliation.
Guanipa's case has raised doubts about that process. “The so-called amnesty, that veneer of false dialogue, is dead before it was born,” said the opposition party Alianza Bravo Pueblo.
Although the government announced the release of “a significant number of people” days after the US captured Maduro, rights groups and family members believe that the pace of releases has been slow.
So far, more than 380 people have been freed from prison, according to Foro Penal, while the government claims to have released more than 800.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN's Michael Rios, contributed to this report.
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
The Food and Drug Administration said Novo Nordisk's TV advertisement for its newly launched Wegovy pill for obesity included "false or misleading" claims about the medicine's abilities and benefits to patients.
In a letter to Novo dated Feb. 5, the FDA said the ad misbrands the oral drug, making its distribution a violation of federal law. The agency requested that the drugmaker take immediate action to address the violations, which could include ceasing all ads containing misleading claims.
In a statement Monday, Novo Nordisk confirmed that it received the letter and clarified that the ad has been running since the pill's launch, but is not the company's Super Bowl spot.
"We take all regulatory feedback seriously and are in the process of responding to the FDA to address their concerns regarding the advertisement's presentation," Liz Skrbkova, Novo's head of U.S. media and stakeholder relations, said in the statement.
It adds to the mounting hurdles the Danish drugmaker is facing as it scrambles to win back market share from chief rival Eli Lilly and cheaper compounded copycats in the booming GLP-1 market.
The company's Wegovy pill is key to those efforts. It was the first-ever GLP-1 pill for obesity to enter the market in January, and Novo last week said more than 170,000 American patients are already taking the drug.
Bloomberg first reported on the FDA letter on Monday.
In the letter, the FDA said Novo's ad misleadingly suggests its pill offers superior benefits to other approved GLP-1 weight loss drugs. The agency said phrases used in the spot, including "live lighter" and "a way forward," imply greater weight loss than other treatments and added benefits beyond that, despite no evidence to support those claims.
The ad's statements "misleadingly imply benefits beyond physical weight loss such as emotional relief, reduced psychological burden, hope, or direction for patients' lives, positioning the drug as a solution to broader life challenges rather than a treatment for a specific condition, when this has also not been demonstrated," the FDA said in the letter.
The FDA also flagged the ad for failing to properly present risk information in both audio and text, a requirement for television drug advertising.
Also on Monday, Novo Nordisk sued Hims & Hers, asking the court to stop the telehealth company from mass marketing compounded versions of its Wegovy pill and injections.
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
This year's Super Bowl brought out more than just fans in jerseys.
Hollywood stars and CEOs were also in attendance, and many wore bold looks and status symbols that were hard to miss.
Tom Brady, Jay-Z, and Travis Kelce were just a few of the people who brought their fashion A-game.
Here's a look at the luxury pieces that made for standout looks, from designer outerwear to expensive watches.
No one showed that better than Travis Kelce.
He looked sharp at the big game in a black double-breasted Fear of God blazer, which retails for $2,200. He accessorized with a pair of Chrome Hearts Cliterally sunglasses.
Jay-Z and Blue Ivy Carter were two of them, making their annual appearance at the game together.
The rapper wore a Roc Nation x Paper Planes x NFL Super Bowl LX black hoodie featuring the slogan "The Game Needs Me" on the front. It retails for $140 on the NFL site.
Meanwhile, his daughter rocked a black Off-White varsity bomber jacket. She paired it with a Balenciaga Neo Cagole City bag in denim, which retails for $3,500.
Tom Brady did just that when he showed up to the Super Bowl in a custom NFL MVP varsity jacket with his name on it.
He also appeared to wear a blue ceramic Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, a watch he's been spotted with several times before.
The timepiece can be found on the resale market for prices upward of $479,000.
Like Tom Brady, Bad Bunny wore an Audemars Piguet — the $75,700 Royal Oak Selfwinding watch — at the Super Bowl.
Jay-Z, on the other hand, was one of the attendees who wore a Patek Philippe. His $394,000 timepiece, the Grand Complications 6102P-001, had a celestial design.
Travis Scott arrived at the Super Bowl in vintage Chanel. He wore a cream linen baseball jersey with the interlocking CC logo and accessorized with several gold chains, including one featuring a crucified Jesus pendant on an anchor.
He also wore what appeared to be diamond stud earrings, a Casio calculator watch on his wrist, and yes, his orange iPhone 17 Pro made its way into the look, too.
Travis Scott wasn't the only celebrity to wear sparkling accessories.
During Bad Bunny's halftime show, Lady Gaga made a guest appearance while wearing her massive diamond engagement ring and a cascading pair of Chopard earrings.
Jump to
Every time Polly publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
PwC is cutting down the number of US locations where entry-level consultants can start their careers with the firm.
The Big Four firm has limited hiring for new associates in the advisory division to 13 offices, Yolanda Seals-Coffield, chief people and inclusion officer for PwC US, told Business Insider in an interview.
Previously, entry-level consulting hires could join any of PwC's 72 US office locations. But since fall 2025, advisory associates have been assigned to one of 13 offices, which include key markets like New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
Tax and assurance recruits can still apply to all of PWC's US offices, a firm spokesperson told Business Insider.
"The idea is that we want to bring people together in a connected way for those first couple of years," she said. PwC declined to provide the list of locations that will continue to hire entry-level consultants.
The isolation of the COVID years, combined with the way that AI is changing the nature of work, has chipped away at some of PwC's sense of connection around learning and development, especially for younger employees, said Seals-Coffield.
By consolidating junior consultants into fewer offices, PwC hopes to build a greater sense of community and encourage new recruits to grow together in their first two years, said Seals-Coffield. After that, they may move to different offices.
"You may start in Atlanta and then say, great, I've got my two years of experience. I want to go work in Alabama, which is where I'm from and where I really want to work," said Seals-Coffield.
Limiting the number of offices they can join will not impact overall hiring numbers, a PwC spokesperson told Business Insider. The firm continues to evaluate hiring goals annually to account for business needs and considerations, they added.
The decision to bring consultants together in their first years in the firm is part of PwC's broader push towards collaborative learning.
On Thursday, the firm launched the Learning Collective, a new workplace learning strategy focused on everyday, collaborative knowledge-sharing and developing the mix of human and AI skills needed for the future.
"Getting our people to spend more time together, learning and growing in an intentional way, is the goal of the experience," she added.
Upskilling the workforce for the AI future has become a top priority across all industries, but the pressure is particularly acute among the Big Four professional services firms and other consulting leaders such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group because of how rapidly the new technology is changing the nature of the work they do.
Straight advisory projects are being replaced with building, implementing, and maintaining tools for companies, requiring technology expertise over research skills. As consultants begin working with AI agents, they also need to sharpen their "human" skills, such as empathy and critical thinking.
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at pthompson@businessinsider.com or Signal at Polly_Thompson.89. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
Jump to
Databricks said Monday it has raised $5 billion in funding and $2 billion in new debt capacity at a $134 billion valuation.
The privately held data analytics software company also said that its annualized revenue exceeded $5.4 billion for the January quarter, up 65% year over year, while delivering free cash flow over the past year.
That type of performance might whet the appetites of public market investors, who have not seen many new issuances of technology companies with high growth rates. Databricks is prepared to go public "when the time is right," co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi told CNBC in an interview.
This year is shaping up to potentially feature notable tech IPOs. Fast-growing artificial intelligence labs Anthropic and OpenAI are also considering 2026 initial public offerings, according to people familiar with the matter. Elon Musk said in December that his rocket company SpaceX could also go public this year.
Like many other companies, Databricks is generating revenue from AI. The company helps its clients connect their data with AI models to launch custom agents, in addition to providing tools for storing, processing and querying data. AI products now generate $1.4 billion in annualized revenue, Databricks said in a statement. The pace of Databricks' overall expansion is accelerating — in June, the company forecast 50% growth.
The company said in December that it was raising more than $4 billion in the round at a valuation of $134 billion.
"We weren't sure we're going to actually be able to raise all of the five," said Ghodsi, adding that there was heavy interest in recent weeks. He said it can take months for venture capital to reflect major changes in equity markets.
Goldman Sachs, Glade Brook Capital, Morgan Stanley, Neuberger Berman and the Qatar Investment Authority are among the investors in the new round. JPMorgan led the debt round, and now Databricks has billions in cash on hand.
"If this correction hasn't bottomed out yet, and it's just going to continue, we're just going to continue as a private company," Ghodsi said.
Databricks is now larger than rival Snowflake, which reported $1.21 billion in revenue in the October quarter. Snowflake's market cap stands at about $58 billion. With the wide release of its Lakebase database last week, Databricks has expanded its market, challenging incumbents such as Oracle and SAP.
Oracle and Snowflake shares both fell about 13% last week as software stocks took a step down across the market. That happened due to investors worrying that open-source plugins for Anthropic's Claude Cowork AI-powered productivity tool might pose new competitive challenges for public software companies.
"The correction is an overreaction, and you're going to see all these companies be around, and nobody's getting rid of them anytime soon," Ghodsi said. "Their moat is shrinking."
Founded in 2013, Databricks ranked No. 3 on CNBC's 2025 Disruptor 50 list.
— CNBC's Ashley Capoot contributed to this report.
WATCH: Trading the tech takedown with Altimeter's Brad Gerstner
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
Funds have continued to pour in to support workers affected by layoffs at The Washington Post, raising more than $700,000 across two GoFundMe campaigns.
The layoffs were announced last Wednesday, and within one day, a GoFundMe page had raised $350,000 for laid-off staff. Five days on, and around 4,700 supporters have donated over $520,000 to this page.
The GoFundMe, which launched just a few hours after company executives began cutting workers, was organized by Post reporter Rachel Siegel and other members of the newsroom's union.
A separate GoFundMe page for the Post's international employees has also raised almost $200,000 with about 2,100 donations.
According to the newsroom's union, the cut has affected hundreds of jobs at the organization.
Every time Roya publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Roya and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
A spokesperson for The Washington Post told Business Insider that it "is actively supporting employees impacted by last week's restructuring, including transition support for our international employees."
Post owner and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has drawn significant criticism over his stewardship of the company in the last few days. In a statement this weekend, he said: "The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity."
"Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus."
Kara Swisher, the tech journalist and ex-Post employee, gave $10,000 to the page set up for laid-off staff.
The former Washington Post executive editor, Martin Baron, appeared to have donated $9,000 in total, comprising $4,000 for the international staff GoFundMe and $5,000 for the general one.
Other top donors appeared to include longtime former and current staffers Dan Balz, Eugene Robinson, and Lois Romano.
Business Insider's Dan Whateley and Sydney Bradley previously reported that the amount of money in the fundraisers and the speed at which they hit six figures make them outliers among media layoff fundraisers.
Laid-off staffers at Vox Media pulled in about $7,000 in their January GoFundMe, while Teen Vogue got about $41,000 after November layoffs.
"Post Guild members have come together to support their colleagues with this GoFundMe," said a spokesperson for the Washington Baltimore News Guild last week.
The spokesperson blamed "inexcusable business decisions of top Post leadership" for the cuts.
"The Washington Post is taking a number of difficult but decisive actions today for our future, in what amounts to a significant restructuring across the company," a Post spokesperson said last week in a statement on the layoffs.
"These steps are designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus on delivering the distinctive journalism that sets The Post apart and, most importantly, engages our customers."
Jump to
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
As OpenAI faces intensifying pressure from rival Anthropic's improved coding tools, CEO Sam Altman is telling employees and investors that his company is seeing its share of momentum.
Altman told OpenAI employees on Friday that ChatGPT, the company's popular artificial intelligence chatbot, is "back to exceeding 10% monthly growth," according to an internal Slack message viewed by CNBC. OpenAI is also preparing to launch "an updated Chat model" this week, Altman said.
More than 800 million people use ChatGPT each week, but Google and Anthropic have been gaining ground. OpenAI declared a "code red" in December to improve ChatGPT, and temporarily sidelined several projects to focus on that effort.
In his message on Friday, Altman said OpenAI's coding product, Codex, grew about 50% from a week ago. Codex competes directly with Anthropic's Claude Code, which has seen a wave of adoption over the last year.
OpenAI launched a new Codex model, GPT‑5.3-Codex, last week, as well as a stand-alone app for users with Apple computers. Altman said Codex's growth is "insane," according to the internal message.
"This was a great week," Altman wrote.
It was also a contentious week.
Altman and other senior executives took to social media to respond to swipes from Anthropic, which ran Super Bowl ads that poked fun at OpenAI's decision to run ads within ChatGPT. In a post on X, Altman said that the commercials were "deceptive" and that OpenAI would "obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic depicts them."
On Monday, OpenAI will officially begin testing ads within ChatGPT, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. Last month the company said the ads will be clearly labeled, appear at the bottom of the chatbot's answers and will not influence ChatGPT's responses.
OpenAI expects ads to make up less than half of its revenue long term, the person said. The digital ad market has long been dominated by Google and Meta, with Amazon becoming a bigger player in recent years.
Altman and CFO Sarah Friar have been selling investors on OpenAI's growth story as the company looks to wrap up what could be a $100 billion fundraising round, sources told CNBC.
In private meetings, the executives are highlighting OpenAI's strength with consumers, growing enterprise business and access to compute, according one person, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.
OpenAI has been circulating charts as part of the discussions. One chart shows that Codex, based on internal data, is eating into Claude Code's market share, according to a screenshot seen by CNBC.
OpenAI expects fundraising talks to heat up over the next two weeks, one person said. OpenAI closed a $41 billion round in March than included a $30 billion contribution from SoftBank and $11 billion from other investors.
The current funding round could close in two parts, as CNBC previously reported. The first would include capital from Microsoft and Nvidia as well as Amazon, which is in talks to invest up to $50 billion in the company. Other contributions from participants like SoftBank, which has discussed putting in another $30 billion, would follow.
The details of the round are fluid and could still change.
WATCH: The Super Bowl ad game: Top ads to look forward to this weekend
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
In this article
Novo Nordisk on Monday said it is suing online telehealth provider Hims & Hers for mass marketing cheaper, unapproved copies of the drugmaker's new Wegovy obesity pill and injections in the U.S.
Novo is asking the court to permanently ban Hims from selling compounded versions of its drugs that infringe on the company's patents and is seeking to recover damages.
"This is a complete sham, and it has been a sham since the shortage ended," said John Kuckelman, Novo's group general counsel of global legal, intellectual property and security, in an interview.
"The fact is that their medicines are untested, and they're putting patients at risk," he added, referring to how the safety, efficacy and quality of compounded medicines are not verified by U.S. regulators.
The move escalates the feud between Novo and Hims, which said on Saturday it will stop offering its new copycat obesity pill after facing scrutiny from federal regulators and legal threats from the Danish drugmaker. Hims had planned to offer the oral drug for as little as $49 for the first month, roughly $100 less than Novo's approved Wegovy pill.
In a statement on Monday, Hims said the lawsuit is "a blatant attack by a Danish company on millions of Americans who rely on compounded medications for access to personalized care" and is another case of Big Pharma "weaponizing the US judicial system to limit consumer choice."Hims added it has a "long history of providing safe access to personalized healthcare" to patients.
Novo Nordisk's Copenhagen-listed shares climbed more than 3% on Monday, while Hims' NYSE-listed stock fell more than 27%.
The lawsuit comes as Novo works to reclaim market share in the booming obesity drug market and fend off competition from both Eli Lilly and a wave of compounded alternatives. Those copycats have proliferated under a regulatory loophole that allows companies like Hims to sell compounded versions of patent-protected drugs when branded treatments are in short supply.
Semaglutide — the active ingredient in Novo's pill and its blockbuster injections — is no longer in shortage in the U.S., thanks to the company's efforts to ramp up manufacturing capacity. There are no shortages reported for the Wegovy pill, which has had an explosive launch since it entered the U.S. market in early January.
Even so, Novo estimated in January that as many as 1.5 million Americans are using compounded GLP-1 drugs.
Hims has said its compounded pill and other GLP-1 products contain semaglutide, despite the ingredient being protected by U.S. patents through 2032. Hims has said its versions are legal because they are "personalized" in dosage.
But Novo said it does not directly or indirectly sell semaglutide for copycats, and accused Hims of engaging in illegal mass compounding.
"I would just say we do want an end to mass compounding, to unlawful mass compounding," Kuckelman said, noting that Novo is not trying to stop all compounding practices.
He said compounding has to be based on legitimate grounds, "as opposed to you producing mass stocks of what you're calling a personalized medicine, which is really just a dosage variation."
Compounded drugs can be produced on a case-by-case basis when a doctor determines it is medically necessary for a patient, such as when they can't swallow a pill or are allergic to a specific ingredient in a branded drug.
On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration announced it planned to take legal action against Hims for the pill, including restricting access to the ingredients and referring the company to the Department of Justice over potential violations.
Kuckelman said some telehealth platforms, such as Ro, "are doing the right things" by transitioning to providing patients with real FDA-approved products from Novo and its competitors.
But "some won't, and the only way it appears that we're going to get Hims and others to stop this is through hopefully government enforcement actions and through lawsuits like the one that we've filed today," he said.
Novo and Lilly have aggressively cracked down on compounding pharmacies over the past two years as they benefit from the soaring popularity of their weight loss and diabetes drugs. Novo has so far filed around 130 lawsuits dealing with deceptive marketing practices and consumer fraud, Kuckelman said.
Lilly has gone through a similar legal process with tirzepatide, the active ingredient in its weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro, which is no longer in short supply in the U.S.
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
Every time Tom publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
SpaceX has made its Super Bowl debut ahead of a potential record-breaking IPO.
The rocket company ran its first Super Bowl ad for its Starlink satellite internet on Sunday, the first time any of Elon Musk's companies have run an ad at the showpiece event.
The 30-second spot features audio from a speech by legendary science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, set to footage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Starship rocket boosters returning to Earth.
It shows Starlink operating in a series of remote locations and touts the satellite internet service's mission of "fast, affordable internet, available everywhere."
The ad marks a departure for Musk's companies, which have in the past shunned advertising in favor of using the billionaire's outspoken public persona for publicity.
Every time Tom publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Tom and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
Fast, affordable internet. Available all around the world!Order in less than 2 minutes by visiting https://t.co/fUko3xSviJ or, if you live in the US, by calling 1-888-GO-STARLINK to get connected with the Starlink service plan that works best for you 🛰️🌎❤️ pic.twitter.com/D17EDQi9wL
Tesla reportedly laid off its entire marketing team during widespread workforce cuts in 2024, while SpaceX has typically relied on eye-catching rocket tests, such as its Starship booster catch, to boost its public profile.
Both companies have started running advertising in recent years across a number of platforms, including Musk's X, and Starlink has previously featured in Super Bowl ads run by partners such as T-Mobile.
SpaceX running its own stand-alone Super Bowl ad is a significant development, with 30-second ad slots costing between $8 million and $10 million on average this year, per broadcaster NBCUniversal.
It comes as SpaceX gears up for a public offering later this year that could value the rocket company at as much as $1.5 trillion.
Last week, Musk announced that SpaceX would merge with his AI startup xAI, in a move the world's richest man said would help launch a network of solar-powered orbital data centers to train powerful AI models.
SpaceX's recent success has been driven in large part by Starlink, which uses a constellation of more than 9,000 low-orbit satellites to provide wireless internet. In December, the company said Starlink has 9 million customers and is active in 155 countries.
Jump to
In this article
Big Tech stocks were a mixed bag on Monday, after a bruising week that saw more than $1 trillion wiped from their market caps.
Oracle climbed 9% and Microsoft had edged about 2% higher. Nvidia gained about 3%. Meta was largely flat while Alphabet lost about 1%. Amazon shares sank about 2%.
Oracle got a boost from D.A. Davidson's upgrade on the stock.
The market grew jittery after expenditure outlooks continued to shoot through the roof in Big Tech earnings last week, as companies doubled down on AI bets.
Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta reported a combined capital expenditure of about $120 billion in the fourth quarter alone. The figure could approach $700 billion in 2026, higher than the gross domestic product of countries like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Israel.
Jim Reid, head of global macro research at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a Monday note that last week was the worst for the "Magnificent 7" stocks since April, when U.S. tariffs plunged markets into crisis and the stocks fell 4.66%.
Signs of recovery were on show as the markets closed last week, with Magnificent 7 stocks rising 0.45% on Friday, despite Amazon falling 5.55%, Reid said.
Cloud companies' growing margins come alongside "potential stock volatility" amid macro headwinds, said Justin Post, a research analyst at Bank of America Securities, in a note on Monday.
"But management teams seem confident in their ability to forecast demand and that capacity will be fully utilized in 2026," he added.
The markets reacted negatively to Amazon and Alphabet's capex guidance being "well above" consensus expectations, said David Lefkowitz, CIO head of US equities at UBS Financial Services on Friday, adding this "overshadowed stronger-than-expected cloud growth for both companies."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC's "Halftime Report" on Friday that the tech industry's surging capital expenditures for AI infrastructure were justified, given the "sky high" demand for computing power.
Analysts predict room to grow for hyperscaler capex.
"As monthly tokens processed grows exponentially, aggregate cloud revenue for GCP/AWS/Azure accelerates, data center commitments expand, and data center component suppliers highlight accelerating demand, we believe there will continue to be upward pressure on hyperscaler capex estimates," Morgan Stanley said in a note on Monday morning.
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
At America's oldest bank, 134 new workers don't sleep or take sick days. They don't even have names.
They're what BNY calls "digital employees." They work side by side with humans. They have unique roles and are evaluated by how well they do them. Some of their jobs were done by people last year.
"The digital employee works 24/7, which is obviously very different to our human counterparts," said Rachel Lewis, who oversees nine digital employees in addition to thousands of humans as head of payment operations for BNY. "It's really focused on very specific repetitive tasks that allow our human employees to do much more human, intense, interesting-type roles."
BNY employs 48,100 humans, down from about 53,400 in 2023, according to a recent earnings presentation. CFO Dermot McDonogh was asked on the firm's fourth-quarter analyst call last month what the 134 digital employees mean for cost savings at the firm.
"Our head count has trended down a little bit, but that's not really anything to do with AI yet," McDonogh said. "We talk about, internally, AI is unlocking capacity. We don't think about it in the narrow definition of efficiency. It's all about growing with clients, increasing revenues and optimizing the potential for our employees."
Across Wall Street, analysts and investors are starting to ask more questions about how the industry's expenses on AI will translate into higher efficiencies and greater returns. BNY spent $3.8 billion on technology in 2025, or about 19% of its revenue. That's the highest proportion among its large-bank peers, according to data collated by CNBC.
"There's an AI arms race. The banks are part of that, said Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo. "But you don't define success by who spends the most. You define success by who has the best results."
"It's a lot of 'spraying and praying' when it comes to spending on tech, generally," he said.
However, BNY has been identified as one of the companies that could see the biggest benefits from AI. Goldman Sachs' research team screened the Russell 1000 for potential productivity improvements, based on labor costs and wage exposure to AI automation. The firm ranked BNY toward the top of that list, saying the bank could see a potential 19% boost to earnings per share.
But in several conversations CNBC had with executives at BNY, they've been steadfast that the multitude of technology investments won't come at the expense of human employees.
"I wouldn't think about it that way," said Michelle O'Reilly, BNY global head of talent. "I would think about it more as unlocking that productivity – enabling all employees to be productive."
While the company is building more digital employees, it's also upskilling the human ones. Shortly after ChatGPT was released in late 2022, BNY set up its AI Hub.
"That's when we really doubled down and realized that this would be transformational for the bank," said Leigh-Ann Russell, BNY's chief information officer and global head of engineering. "Our biggest focus initially was enablement – getting some training rolled out to every one of our employees at the bank."
BNY built a platform it calls Eliza, which pulls in a variety of open-source, commercially available models that are integrated with the firm's internal data and compliance. Almost all of BNY's workforce has completed a 10-hour training for Eliza, and thousands more have taken it a step further through a multi-day AI bootcamp that can help non-engineers find creative ways to automate parts of their jobs.
The name "Eliza" is a tribute to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the wife of the bank's founder and America's first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.
"Democratization of this technology is one of our sweet spots on how we feel like we've been successful so far," Russell said. "I have this juxtaposition of this original history of this amazing 241-year institution and being at the forefront of AI, and I think that's just a lovely reminder of technology over the centuries."
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
Every time Lauren publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is transforming the company's culture during his tenure, leaving a lasting impression on some current and former employees.
That includes Jeffrey Snover, a retired Microsoft chief technology officer and Google engineer, who recalled an "actionable lesson in leadership" he learned from Nadella in a recent blog post.
In short, he said, Nadella stressed that executives need to figure out how to succeed with the resources they have, rather than complain.
"If you are an exec and don't have the resources to support your strategy, you have the wrong strategy," Snover wrote. "Quit whining and wasting time trying to get the resources to support that strategy — do your job — get a strategy that can work with the resources you have."
In a subsequent statement shared with Business Insider, Snover said he thinks Nadella is "the best CEO in America by a very wide margin."
Every time Lauren publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Lauren and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
In the blog post, Snover recalled the speech Nadella gave during a meeting with Microsoft's senior executives that laid out the leadership lesson.
"Don't come whining that you don't have the resources you need. We've done our homework. We've evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities, and allocated our available resources to those opportunities," Nadella said, according to Snover. "That is what you have to work with. Your job is to manufacture success with the resources you've been allocated."
Snover wrote that Nadella, who became CEO in 2014, told executives they could control only two things: How they managed their teams and how they allocated resources.
"And I want to be clear with you. If you are in this room, you need to deliver outsized success. To do that, you will need to allocate resources ahead of conventional wisdom," Nadella said. "Conventional wisdom will generate conventional success, and that won't allow you to stay in this room. You need to have courage and be bold."
Snover, who left Microsoft in 2022, said Nadella's speech provided executives with a framework for thriving.
"Satya was not giving us a pep talk, he was giving us an architecture for success," Snover wrote.
In a follow-up blog post, Snover wrote that project proposals were gathered ahead of the meeting, so it was the "Lord of the Flies/Game of Thrones stage of resource allocation."
"Resource allocation isn't just about money; it's the most effective weapon for killing redundancy and enforcing architectural alignment," Snover wrote. "If you can't afford to build your own silo, you finally start acting like a platform company."
Under Nadella, Microsoft's company culture shifted from being highly competitive toward an emphasis on teamwork, including implementing an evaluation system that rewarded collaboration.
Jump to
Every time Charissa publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Pronnoy Goswami, 31, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2022, I thought: Why me?
I didn't have lots of bad habits, I hadn't abused my body, and it took me a long time to accept what was happening to me.
I considered giving up my dream of solving meaningful problems in tech at scale, taking a career break to focus on my health, and leaving the US to go back to my home country of India.
Ultimately, I stayed in the US and continued with my career while making huge changes to my lifestyle and work routine. I'm proud of what I've achieved in tech in spite of my adversities, and along the way, I've found my voice and a new vision of success.
Every time Charissa publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Charissa and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
When I first got sick in 2021, I was working in Washington as a software engineer at Microsoft. Previously, I'd spent two years in software engineering at McKinsey, and a few months interning at PayPal. I now work at a large enterprise software company.
I was on a trip with my partner just before Thanksgiving when I had rectal bleeding and felt weak, but I didn't think it was anything more serious than hemorrhoids or food poisoning. My symptoms kept getting worse, even after I consulted doctors and took medication. I was going to the restroom 15 to 20 times a day, and I lost a lot of weight.
By Independence Day, I couldn't drive because I had excessive stomach cramps while sitting, like someone was putting a knife in my stomach and twisting it.
Doctors noticed my gut was inflamed, and referred me to a gastroenterologist. I was very scared.
A colonoscopy showed I have ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that causes symptoms like abdominal pain and rectal bleeding.
I'm used to putting 100% into my work, and when I was diagnosed in 2022, I'd been working on projects at Microsoft I felt were impactful. I took three to four weeks of sick leave, then returned to work, but I was completely remote for a year after my diagnosis.
My body struggles to absorb nutrients, and I get tired very quickly. I've had to make many dietary changes to manage flare-ups, including cutting out caffeine, alcohol, lactose, chile, and red meat.
When my wife and I went on honeymoon in Hawaii in August 2025, we planned the trip down to the restaurants I could eat at and what I'd order. But then I ate something I hadn't planned at a lūʻau, and I was sick for two days, which was disheartening.
At first, I was scared to tell people about my condition, but when I started sharing with my colleagues, I found people empathized and judged me according to my merits.
I have bad days related to my condition 20% of the time, and sometimes have to step away for appointments and procedures. For example, I have a colonoscopy every year because ulcerative colitis puts me at higher risk of getting colorectal cancer. I always try to catch up with tasks in my own time, and accept that I have to achieve the same things as others in less time.
I left Microsoft and started working at a large enterprise software company in 2023. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the allure of startups is all around. However, I'm not physically or mentally ready to take the leap of faith to work at one yet. The stability of my current job is vital for my health.
I also need to be careful with what jobs I consider, because a workplace might not be a good fit if it has a strict policy of being in the office five days a week and doesn't make accommodations. Plus, I'm very happy where I am.
Before I got sick, I took my health for granted, but I've started treating my body like a temple and am careful with how I'm spending my energy. I've come to define success as being healthy, because it helps me solve problems at work better.
It's also given me a voice. My diagnosis made me want to be more purposeful with my time, so I started exploring creative passions, like writing a newsletter and technical blogs. I want to connect with like-minded people and not live in a shell.
When I look back at what I've achieved in my career since my diagnosis, I feel God has been kind to me. I've done interesting, cutting-edge work in tech, like building important infrastructure.
But I'm not done yet. I'm still in the early innings of my career, and I have a long way to go.
Microsoft declined to respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Do you have a story to share about navigating a diagnosis alongside your career? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com
Jump to
Every time Taylor publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
You don't usually expect restaurant-style service at 35,000 feet — but Turkish Airlines still staffs a 'flying chef' in business class on its longest routes.
These rare culinary specialists, who are separate from flight attendants, take food orders, plate meals in the galley, and oversee premium service on long-haul flights.
The role is designed to make dining feel closer to a restaurant than standard airline catering — but chefs don't actually cook from scratch due to flight safety rules. They use ovens to heat and finish pre-prepared meals and then arrange the presentation.
These chefs also take customer feedback from the air to help improve and develop meals in catering kitchens on the ground.
I recently experienced the unique service on a 10-hour flight from Istanbul to New York in January. Considering Turkish won Skytrax's 2025 awards for Europe's best business class and best business class catering, I was eager to see how the seat and food measured up.
I strategically chose the Boeing 787 for its modern business cabin; the Boeing 777 that also flies the route doesn't have the nicer design.
Between the lie-flat seat, the large TV, and the restaurant-style meals, the cabin felt like my living room on a lazy Saturday night.
I slept well and appreciated the wide variety of food, from poached eggs and swordfish to a trolley full of savory appetizers.
Here's what the full experience was like. Business Insider paid a media rate for the business class upgrade to New York.
Turkish's Istanbul business class lounge is unreal, with cooked-to-order meals like omelettes and kebabs, drink stations, and sleep suites that feel like mini hotel rooms.
My layover time qualified me for a suite, but they're first-come, first-served — I was lucky to wait only about 15 minutes.
The bed was so comfortable I slept five hours straight, with a shared bathroom and shower just across the hall.
I chose seat 8A, in the last row, for privacy and to be among the first to deplane. Although it's right by the galley and lavatory nearest the boarding door, I didn't notice much noise with headphones on.
Most Turkish business cabins don't have doors. Some A350s do, and the airline is planning a new "Crystal Business Class" with sliding doors, but most planes — including the 787 I flew on — still don't.
It's not a dealbreaker by any means, and the seat wings help cocoon the space a bit, but there is less overall privacy than with a door.
The business class seats lie fully flat, and mine felt both spacious and cozy. I could comfortably sleep on my stomach, and I particularly liked the mattress pad and the dual-texture blanket, which has a soft plush on one side.
I also appreciated the 1-2-1 cabin that let me freely reach the aisle. Many of Turkish's old planes still have 2-3-2 layouts that force middle and window-seat travelers to crawl over their neighbor to reach the restroom.
The seat had multiple storage spots: a cabinet, a footrest cubby, and a slim seatback pocket — plus an overhead bin to myself.
I stashed my purse, Kindle, chargers, boots, backpack, and jacket without feeling cramped.
Turkish handed out gender-specific kits with lotion, dental items, socks, an eye mask, and a hair tie for women. The case can be reused as a travel bag on future trips.
Slippers were also provided.
The seat's television was large and fully controllable via a handheld remote. I watched "The Big Bang Theory," "Fast and Furious," and an Agatha Christie-style whodunit called "Murder at the Embassy."
Instead of a flight attendant, a dedicated flying chef takes orders, plates meals, and preps appetizer and dessert carts.
Most of the menu — like meats and soups — are fully or nearly fully cooked on the ground in airline kitchens, but finished in the air by the chef and cabin crew using onboard ovens.
The cabin crew still hands out drinks and hot towels, but with meals covered, I imagine they can better focus on other tasks.
All of the food was served on real dishware and with flatware — no cheap plastic.
Turkish offers a "dining-on-demand" strategy that lets passengers choose when they want to eat.
For example, I slept a few hours after breakfast before requesting tea, though the crew member also brought me a small sandwich. It was simple — handcrafted with a roll, lettuce, and cheese — but perfect while I watched a movie.
There were also free snacks available throughout the flight, like popcorn, fruit, mixed nuts, chocolate, cookies, and chips.
The breakfast started with appetizers: fresh juice, fruit salad, cheeses, smoked turkey, marinated olives, and bread with butter and jam.
The entrée options included poached eggs with a savory sauce called shakshuka, spinach-and-cheese stuffed pastries and flatbreads (börek and gözleme), and sweet curd crepes with fruit and berry sauce.
I had the poached eggs, which were prepared on the ground but were still fluffy with a perfectly runny yolk on the plane.
The second meal included a huge range of appetizers: octopus salad, salmon tartare, shrimp salad, artichoke salad, fried aubergine, beef patties, chicken salad, cheese, red pepper soup, creamy pea soup, and Köpoğlu (essentially Turkish eggplant caviar).
Everything was arranged on a trolley by the chef and rolled down the galley for passengers to pick and choose; the presentation made the experience feel more fancy, and everything was tasty.
I had never seen swordfish on an airplane menu and couldn't resist trying it. It looked a little dull, but it was well-seasoned and more flavorful than the white fish I've had on other flights or even in some restaurants.
The other lunch options were grilled spring lamb chops and ricotta cappellacci. The Turkish desserts included eclairs, pear strudel, peach ice cream, and assorted cheeses and fruits.
Besides Turkish, select Saudia, Austrian Airlines, and Garuda Indonesia flights feature onboard chefs.
Turkish's chefs, staffed through catering partner DO&CO, also spend time at meal-prep facilities, providing feedback and helping maintain quality — a hands-on approach that shows in the in-flight service.
I rarely check luggage, but I had too many souvenirs this time.
Luckily, my bag survived the transfer from Zagreb, Croatia, and arrived in New York safe and sound.
Jump to
The Cuban government said international airlines can no longer refuel there due to fuel shortages after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that supplies the communist country with oil.
The island nation's leadership said Sunday that Cuba will run out of aviation fuel from Monday, likely disrupting airlines operating there, according to EFE news agency, citing two sources. The kerosene shortage is expected to persist for the next month, with all of Cuba's international airports affected.
Cuba's Foreign Ministry and the Cuban Embassy in London did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
The Trump administration has sought to tighten the U.S. chokehold on Cuba since Jan. 3, when it conducted an audacious military operation to depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Cuba's government.
Trump, in an executive order issued at the end of January, said the Cuban government constituted "an unusual and extraordinary threat," which required a national emergency declaration.
The U.S. president said Cuba's ties to countries including China, Russia and Iran, human rights violations, and communist leadership destabilize the region "through migration and violence."
As part of the announcement, Trump said U.S. tariffs may target countries that provides any oil to Cuba, whether directly or indirectly.
Gripped by a deepening energy crisis, Cuba on Friday outlined extensive measures designed to protect essential services and ration fuel supplies for key sectors.
The plan reportedly includes restrictions on fuel sales, the closure of some tourist establishments, shortening school days, and a reduction of the working week at state-owned companies to four days, from Monday to Thursday.
Russia, which holds friendly ties with Cuba, said Monday that Havana's fuel situation was "truly critical" and that U.S. attempts to further pressure the country were causing numerous problems.
"The situation in Cuba is truly critical. We know this. We are in intensive contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels. Indeed, let's say the U.S.'s stranglehold is causing many difficulties for the country," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday, according to state news outlet RIA Novosti.
Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, previously said the country's leadership condemned Washington's tariff threats in the "strongest possible terms."
In a statement posted on Jan. 30, Parrilla also accused the U.S. government of resorting to "blackmail and coercion in an attempt to make other countries to join its universally condemned blockade policy against Cuba."
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week that her government would aim to send humanitarian aid to Cuba from Monday, adding that the country is working to find a diplomatic solution to resume oil shipments to the Caribbean island.
Mexico had paused shipments of crude and refined products to Cuba amid pressure from the Trump administration.
Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.
Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.
© 2026 Versant Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Versant Media Company.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes.
Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data
and Analysis.
Data also provided by
Every time Aditi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrew Athias, 33, a Philadelphia-based digital marketer and content creator. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I was one of the 500 bunches of dancing grass at Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show. I got paid $18.70 per hour for the gig, but I would've done it for free.
I'm a big Bad Bunny fan. I've been to three of his concerts since my girlfriend introduced me to him in 2021.
I found the grass gig through a company called Backlit, which handles finding extras for the halftime show. I found it last year when I saw Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl halftime show, but I forgot about it until Bad Bunny was announced as Super Bowl's headliner in October, and I decided to apply.
I was one of the few crazy people to fly over from the East Coast to be part of the field cast. I flew out to San Francisco from Philadelphia in the middle of a snowstorm and have been out here for two weeks, rehearsing for the big day, and it has been worth it.
Every time Aditi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Aditi and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
The requirements for the role were pretty basic. You had to be no taller than six feet, no shorter than five feet seven inches, and of an athletic build.
The listing said we had to be able to wear a 40-plus-pound costume and to be comfortable dancing in proximity with other performers for long periods. Other than that, we had to measure every part of our body from head to toe, elbow to floor, shoulder to clavicle, etc. Those were the only requirements.
They didn't tell us we'd be wearing a grass costume and kept it super vague.
My part was actually really easy. They just told me where to stand, and they said, "Don't move. Stand here and be one with the grass."
The suits were heavy and uncomfortable. Every now and again, you'll have a blade of plastic grass going places where grass should not go. Fortunately, we were given some protective goggles.
There were definitely times when we were wearing the suits for about six or seven hours because they had to make alterations. There were about eight practices in total, with the last three lasting 12 hours each.
But the production crew did their best to make this suit as wearable as possible; they listened to every complaint and tried to fix it.
And getting to see behind the scenes of the production was a treat.
It was really cool to see Bad Bunny perform just a foot away. But because he was in LA for the Grammys during some of our rehearsals, the crew had a Bad Bunny stand-in they called "Good Rabbit."
One of the other things they asked for in the application was whether you had marching band experience or experience in the entertainment industry. I was in a collegiate a capella group, so I'm not scared of performing in front of big crowds.
But it's definitely different when you have a stadium full of people vibing, moving, grooving to Bad Bunny's music.
I spent about $2,600 on flights, hotels, and a rental car for the two weeks. I'm a content creator without a full time job now, so I didn't have to take any paid time off for this.
The hardest part of the whole thing wasn't the long hours or the heavy costume, but rather keeping quiet about it. They made us sign an NDA to not talk about it or post anything on social media for two weeks.
So when I saw people posting about what his setlist was going to be, it was so hard to have so much knowledge and power and not be able to do anything with it.
I told only a very small handful of people that I was going to San Francisco and would be involved in the half-time show.
I didn't tell them what I was dressed as. I didn't tell them where to look for me on the field. All I said was, "You're going to see me. You just didn't know that you saw me."
Jump to
Every time Callie publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
When Bad Bunny took the field at the 2026 Super Bowl for a historic, joyful halftime show, he wore a jersey with his Latino heritage stitched into its very fabric.
It's an apt metaphor for his performance, which eschewed explicit anti-ICE statements (he covered that at the Grammys, anyway) in favor of celebration with a side of symbolism.
Nods to the Puerto Rican singer's motherland were peppered throughout the set, which was designed to evoke the US territory's signature aesthetics, from sugar cane fields to a storefront labeled "La Marqueta" (a slang term for market) and various vendors selling tacos and piraguas (shaved ice). While performing "El Apagón," a song about the frequent blackouts and infrastructure issues affecting Puerto Ricans, Bad Bunny brought this symbolism to the forefront, waving the Puerto Rican flag.
He also proclaimed in English, "God bless America," and brandished a football printed with the phrase "Together, We Are America." He added in Spanish, "We're still here." (Puerto Rico is a US territory, and Puerto Ricans are American citizens.)
It was a stark and knowing contrast to the Latinophobia and anti-immigrant messaging hawked by the Trump administration. So much so that President Donald Trump complained online about Bad Bunny's performance and his choice to sing primarily in Spanish.
Every time Callie publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Callie and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
"The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense," Trump wrote on Truth Social after Bad Bunny left the stage. "Nobody understands a word this guy is saying."
For those who understand visual storytelling, however, Bad Bunny's performance made perfect sense. He didn't need to say "ICE out" or declare an explicit political opinion. In keeping with the recent tradition of Super Bowl halftime shows, Bad Bunny used iconography to take a stand instead.
Bad Bunny's performance shares DNA with Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl appearances, both of which used bold imagery to make strong statements.
Beyoncé's surprise appearance at Coldplay's 2016 Super Bowl halftime show became famous — and, to some, infamous — for the iconography present in her performance of her then-new single, "Formation." In the midst of Trump's first presidential campaign, Beyoncé and her backup dancers wore outfits that channeled the Black Panther Party, an organization formed amid the '60s Civil Rights Movement that fought for Black liberation.
The song itself isn't explicitly political. But as a celebration of identity and legacy that features lyrics about Beyoncé's parents, her daughter, and her features ("I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils"), Beyoncé performing it — with visual references to the song's themes in her and her dancers' costumes, to boot — was innately political.
It's not that Beyoncé is allergic to making explicit political statements: She famously performed in front of the word "Feminist" at the 2014 VMAs, and sang "Votin' out 45, don't get out of line" on her 2022 album "Renaissance," referring to Trump as the 45th president. But when the NFL hosts musicians for the night, they've lately preferred make their statements symbolic rather than overt.
Last year, Kendrick Lamar followed suit during his own Super Bowl halftime show, outfitting himself and his dancers in red, white, and blue. Although Lamar kept the music focused on his own enemies and triumphs, he used audacious visual language to pose broader, poignantly relevant questions: Who's allowed to claim patriotism? What does it mean to be an American, especially in times of oppression and conflict?
Bad Bunny's performance raised similar questions, but offered simpler, more optimistic solutions. For the finale, he was surrounded by backup dancers, band members, and other performers holding flags from around the world; when he proclaimed "God bless America," he listed out all the countries in both North and South America.
Bad Bunny is not a politician, nor can he single-handedly cure the world of hatred and division. Still, for a brief moment, on a small square of American turf, he chose to use the stage to show millions of people what that could look like.
Jump to
Every time Aditi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
Bad Bunny used his Super Bowl spotlight to make a political statement — but not the one many were anticipating.
The Puerto Rican singer highlighted the importance of diversity during his halftime show on Sunday in San Francisco, without mentioning Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At the end of his set, right after his song "Café Con Ron," his backup dancers ran out carrying flags of countries in North and South America. In English, the singer said, "God Bless America," then listed out the names of all countries on both continents.
He sang before a billboard with the words "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE."
He also held up a football emblazoned with the words: "TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA."
Every time Aditi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Aditi and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
He then sang the last song in his set, his popular track "DTMF," before closing up the show.
Bad Bunny was joined by rapper Cardi B, Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Ricky Martin, Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal, and Lady Gaga, singing her hit song "Die with a Smile."
While Bad Bunny did not mention ICE at the Super Bowl, the singer has slammed violence linked to immigration in recent days.
During the Grammys last week, in his speech accepting the album of the year award for "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," Bad Bunny said, "Before I say thanks to God, I'm going to say: ICE out."
He dedicated his award to "all the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams."
Singers Billie Eilish and Olivia Dean also made immigration-related statements during their acceptance speeches at the Grammys.
This comes after immigration violence-linked protests erupted nationwide. On January 31, there were nationwide strikes against ICE. People poured into the streets, protesting the fatal shootings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers.
The leaders of Minnesota's biggest corporations, like Target and Cargill, called for peace in an open letter to government officials in January.
Big Tech employees from companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Spotify have signed multiple petitions, urging their CEOs to press the White House to abolish ICE and divest from corporate contracts with the agency.
Jump to
Every time Lauren publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
OpenAI is running a Super Bowl LX ad that encourages people to use its coding agent to build their dream projects.
It does not, however, mention Anthropic or the rival's not-so-subtle dig at ChatGPT in its own Super Bowl ads released earlier this week.
Anthropic's ads, while not mentioning OpenAI directly, make fun of its plans to run advertisements on the platform.
"Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude," the tag line reads.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Anthropic's Super Bowl ad last week in a lengthy X post.
"First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed," Altman wrote. "But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest."
OpenAI's own one-minute ad, released on Sunday, is more earnest. It shows a man's lifelong pursuit of knowledge from childhood to adulthood. The ad ends with him using OpenAI's Codex tool to further his goals.
"Our job was to make a film that feels like the beginning of a builder's story with the curiosity, the frustration, and the eventual breakthroughs," Michael Tabtabai, OpenAI's vice president of Global Creative, said in a statement.
"We drew from the influences that shaped our own researchers and engineers, then paired that with real stories from across the country of people using ChatGPT to build in everyday life," he said. "If someone watching thinks, 'I wonder if I can do that,' we've done our job."
Jump to
Every time Lee Chong Ming publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Enter your email
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Asif Saleem, a financial services go-to-market lead for Japan and the Asia Pacific region at Google. Asif is the father of 13-year-old Usman Asif and 18-year-old Shanzey Asif. It's been edited for length and clarity.
It's important for parents to help kids understand we're going through a very transformative time. This is like the era when the internet or mobile first emerged. With AI, it may be even bigger.
Kids need to understand this and embrace the technology. Whatever they end up studying — computer science, English, or philosophy — they can make AI part of it.
I was curious about Cursor and some of the other vibecoding tools, so I joined a few "Code with AI" weekend sessions for executives.
I really enjoyed it. Within a matter of hours, we were able to develop different applications. I developed a statement analyzer for a financial services system.
Every time Lee Chong Ming publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox!
Stay connected to Lee Chong Ming and get more of their work as it publishes.
By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy.
Once I came back home, I spoke to my family about it and showed them the demo. My children, Usman and Shanzey, are both tech-savvy, so that drove their interest. They attended the same course a few weeks later.
They were the youngest in the class. The good part was that they were completely independent, so I let them be on their own. That's how they ventured into vibe coding and participated in Cursor's 24-hour weekend hackathon in Singapore.
They've become more curious about things. Through vibe coding, they've learned to be more creative and to use technology to understand how things work.
Neither of them has a formal technology background — they're not software developers — but they've been able to think through ideas, be more creative, and use technology to solve problems.
Technology is the biggest enabler. The question is how humans use it — whether for good or bad. If it's for good, what are the guardrails?
Using it for good means creating value, solving real challenges, and making information more accessible.
Managing screentime is the reason we developed a reward system for Usman because he's young and he loves gaming. Gaming comes as a reward for achieving goals. Those goals include making your own breakfast, making your bed, or helping clean the house.
When Shanzey is studying, she can't use AI for the content she's creating — it can't even be AI-inspired. It has to be her original work.
That's super important because schools validate whether output is AI-generated. The same applies to Usman.
It's important to have both physical and digital skills. Usman plays football because physical activity is important at his age. Shanzey is focused on school right now — her exams are very important, and getting good grades matters.
I'd say my role is more like a coach — brainstorming with them. My wife does the same, helping them think through ideas and keeping them honest.
I'm often busy with work, so a lot of this couldn't be done without my wife's help.
There's nothing better than hands-on learning. That's something I've learned over the last few years.
You will face challenges and go through them. Parents should get their kids to do things, give them challenges, and nurture them as they work through those challenges. With hands-on experience, they can get better results faster.
With building an app, we co-create the idea, but then the important part is making it happen and reporting back on progress.
At Google, I work with enterprise customers trying to transform their businesses with AI. I can see what's happening on the ground and how things are changing.
I also see a lot of young talent at Google. They come in thinking about creating apps and learning skills, and I mentor some of them as well.
It's important to communicate this to my family. I spent time helping them understand how the world is changing and why it's important for them to understand AI.
It's not about running away from technology. AI will keep advancing, and the only thing you can do is be accustomed to it, no matter what you want to become.
We're now in a situation where we have very intelligent large language models, and we're also moving toward agentic AI, where you can work with agents that help you do a lot more. Speed and agility are improving, and you can now work within larger ecosystems that combine humans and machines, achieving much more.
If you know how to coexist and let machines do meaningful work with you, that's a skill to aspire to.
Do you have a story to share about vibe coding? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com.
Jump to
Breaking a familiar pattern, bitcoin BTC$70,411.45 is on the rise during the U.S. session, climbing to $70,800 after falling to just above $68,000 earlier in the day.
Bitcoin is now higher by 0.5% over the past 24 hours, with ether ETH$2,063.57, XRP XRP$1.4281 and solana SOL$85.45 ahead closer to 1.5% over the same time frame.
Risk assets are generally in the green on Monday, with the Nasdaq up 1% and the S&P 500 up 0.5%. Gold is ahead 1.9% to $5,075 per ounce, and silver is up 7.4% to $82.50 per ounce.
"What we are experiencing is the weakest bitcoin bear case in its history," wrote Bernstein's Gautam Chhugani, reiterating the firm's $150,000 year-end price target on bitcoin.
"When all stars are aligned, [the] Bitcoin community manufactures a self-imposed crisis of confidence," Chhugani continued. "Nothing blew up, no skeletons will unravel; [the] media is back again to write an obituary."
"Time," said Chhugani, "remains a flat circle on Bitcoin."
Getting a bit more technical, Schwab's Jim Ferraioli said it is helpful to look to bitcoin miners to determine when the bottom is in.
“Previous selloffs have usually bottomed near bitcoin's cost of production," said Ferraioli. "Miners with less efficient equipment will often shut down operations temporarily ... We can see this in real time by watching the mining difficulty adjustment — as more miners leave the network, difficulty falls. Once it starts to rise again, that is confirmation the bottom may be in."
Indeed, CoinDesk reported earlier that bitcoin mining difficulty just dropped by its largest amount since 2021 as at least some miners did capitulate to plunging prices.
Crypto platform Bullish (BLSH) is leading the sector higher on Monday with a 14..2% gain. Other big advancers include Galaxy Digital (GLXY), up 8.2% and Circle Financial (CRCL), up 5.1%. Strategy (MSTR) is up 3% and Coinbase (COIN) 1%.
Bitcoin miners who have pivoted to AI infrastructure are posting large gains as well as Morgan Stanley initiated positive coverage on TeraWulf (WULF) and Cipher Mining (CIFR) — both are up 14%. Hut 8 (HUT), IREN (IREN) and Bitfarms (BITF) are each ahead about 7%.
About us
Copy link
Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan have joined Tempo, the upcoming stablecoin-focused blockchain, fresh off the acquisition of their previous venture Farcaster.
The pair, who created the crypto-based social network in 2020, announced the move on their respective X accounts on Monday. It's not clear what specific roles the pair will fill at Tempo.
“Stablecoins are a generational opportunity,” Romero said on X. “I'm excited to work with Matt Huang, Georgios Konstantopoulos and the rest of the team to make them mainstream.”
“Tempo is working on the most important problem in finance: building a global payments network that is fast, inexpensive and transparent,” Srinivasan said on X.
Farcaster, which Romero and Srinivasan led for the past five years, was acquired last month by Neynar, a startup that builds tools for Farcaster developers, as it struggled to get the product to catch on with users.
As part of the deal, Neynar took over the protocol's smart contracts, code repositories, mobile app and Clanker, an AI token launchpad. Romero, Srinivasan, and several employees at Merkle Manufactory, the firm behind Farcaster, stepped away from day-to-day development.
After the acquisition, Romero said he plans to return all $180 million Farcaster raised to investors.
For Romero and Srinivasan, the move to Tempo keeps the pair at the pinnacle of the crypto industry.
Before founding Farcaster, they both worked at Coinbase. Romero ran consumer business and international expansion as a vice president, while Srinivasan directed the crypto exchange's engineering and product teams.
Tempo has been stacking talent in recent months.
The project, backed by fintech giant Stripe and crypto venture firm Paradigm, added former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist to its ranks in October.
Former Optimism Labs CEO Liam Horne and Rice University Professor Mallesh Pai also joined late last year.
Tempo already counts over a dozen firms as partners, including Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Visa, and Klarna.
In December, the project rolled out its testnet ahead of a full launch scheduled for later this year.
Tim Craig is DL News' Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.
Oops, something went wrong
Publicly traded Ethereum treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) added another 40,613 ETH valued around $83.2 million to its industry-leading Ethereum stash last week, despite its unrealized losses currently sitting near $7.5 billion.
The firm now holds 4,325,738 Ethereum worth more than $8.8 billion, representing about 3.58% of the circulating ETH supply.
“BitMine has been steadily buying Ethereum, as we view this pullback as attractive, given the strengthening fundamentals,” Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement. “In our view, the price of ETH is not reflective of the high utility of ETH and its role as the future of finance."
The firm has remained committed to acquiring Ethereum as it falls further from its August all-time high mark of $4,946. The second-largest crypto asset by market cap has now dropped 10% in the last seven days of trading, recently changing hands at $2,123 after falling as low as $1,824 last week.
That rebound might be the start of a major recovery effort though, according to Lee.
“ETH sees V-shaped recoveries from major lows. This happened in each of the eight prior declines of 50% or more. A similar recovery is expected in 2026,” he said, adding that the “best investment opportunities” come after declines.
The Most Surprising Bitcoin and Crypto Stories in the Epstein Files
The token will need a massive rebound in order to put BitMine back into the black on its purchases. The firm garnered an average acquisition cost of more than $4,000 per ETH on its first 3.7 million tokens, according to data from its latest quarterly report filed with the SEC.
Adding in estimates from its acquisitions since November 30, BitMine currently sits on unrealized or paper losses of almost $7.5 billion, according to data from analytics platform DropStab.
Shares of BMNR are up around 3.5% on Monday, changing hands around $21.18 despite ETH showing only a 1.5% gain in the last 24 hours. Shares in the top ETH treasury firm are now down around 59% in the last six months.
Bitcoin miner Cango (CANG) completed the sale 4,451 BTC over the weekend, raising roughly $305 million in USDT as it looks to reduce leverage and reposition its business around artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The company said it raised $305 million from the sale, suggesting an average sale price of about $68,524 per coin, or not far above multi-year low prices for bitcoin.
Shares are little-changed in Monday trading, but are lower by 83% on a year-over-year basis.
The company's bitcoin sales were “based on a comprehensive assessment of current market conditions,” the firm said, as it plans to shift into AI computing infrastructure. Cango plans to deploy modular GPU units across its global network of over 40 sites to serve small and mid-sized businesses needing on-demand AI inference capacity, it said.
The company used the proceeds of its BTC sale to pay down a bitcoin-collateralized loan, bolstering its balance sheet. The company still holds 3,645 BTC worth more than $250 million, according to data from BitcoinTreasuries.
“In response to recent market conditions, we have made a treasury adjustment to strengthen balance sheet and reduce financial leverage, which provides increased capacity to fund our strategic expansion into AI compute infrastructure,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Its move into the AI sector comes as it faces what it framed as a gap between rising compute demand and existing grid capacity. Cango wrote that it's well positioned to take advantage of that gap.
Cango is not alone. A growing group of bitcoin miners is scaling back exposure to pure mining and redirecting capital and infrastructure toward AI data centers and high-performance computing.
Bitfarms (BITF) has said it plans to exit crypto mining entirely by around 2027, and famously declared it's no longer a bitcoin company as it shifts to high-performance computing and AI workloads.
Analysts at KBW have warned that the industry's pivot toward AI workloads is compelling, but that the path to monetization is fraught with execution risks. That led to a downgrade not only on Bitfarms but also in Bitdeer (BTDR) and Hive Digital (HIVE).
Tom Boggioni is a writer, born, raised and living in San Diego — where he attended San Diego State University. Prior to writing for Raw Story, he wrote for FireDogLake, blogged as TBogg, and worked in banking, marketing and construction.
Donald Trump's relationship with cryptocurrency advocates has deteriorated as digital currency values decline and his administration falters on crypto legislation.
According to Axios reporter Zachary Basu, members of the "hyper-online, male-dominated crypto space" who supported Trump's 2024 campaign are experiencing buyer's remorse. Initial enthusiasm has soured following Trump-branded meme coins that generated massive profits for insiders while leaving retail traders with worthless tokens.
Complications intensified after revelations that the Trump family's crypto venture generated hundreds of millions in revenue, including through a secret investment by an Emirati royal. The subsequent cryptocurrency market decline, combined with stalled crypto legislation due to Trump's conflicts with Democrats over his personal dealings, has frustrated investors.
Axios reported, "Despite multiple factors driving bitcoin's downturn, the president once hailed as crypto's greatest ally has now become one of its most visible scapegoats."
Crypto evangelist Carl Runefelt expressed regret on social media: "For everyone who listened to me when I said we go to $300,000 this cycle: I'm terribly sorry… I was wrong. At least I lost more than you… I'm shocked actually about this cycle. WHAT WENT WRONG??? It all seemed so perfect one year ago."
Runefelt subsequently added, "Yeah, trump was a reason for me to believe in $300k. At the end he was bad for crypto… Big mistake to have him as president."
Another crypto investor, Bitcoin Teddy, sarcastically observed, "When Trump said we wouldn't have to pay taxes on crypto gains, I didn't realize he was removing the gains."
While evidence remains unclear regarding whether crypto backlash will influence upcoming midterm elections, Axios notes a broader pattern: "The backlash captures a deeper problem for Trump: Niche and newly mobilized constituencies he courted in 2024 are growing disillusioned with his presidency."
You can read more here.
ALSO READ: Top FBI agent who tracked MN assassin switched to probe ICE victims: 'Americans less safe'
Copyright © 2026 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 |
Masthead
|
Privacy Policy
|
Manage Preferences
|
Debug Logs
For corrections contact
corrections@rawstory.com
, for support contact
support@rawstory.com
.
Home » Crypto News
Share:
Share:
Investors withdrew $187 million from digital asset products last week, but the pace of outflows has slowed significantly. Historically, these changes reveal crucial inflection points in investor sentiment.
CoinShares stated that the deceleration suggests that panic selling may be subsiding, which may imply that the market could be stabilizing and that a potential low point in crypto prices might be forming.
In its latest edition of Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report, CoinShares revealed that the latest price correction pushed total assets under management (AuM) down to $129.8 billion, the lowest level since the announcement of US tariffs in March 2025, which also coincided with a local low in asset prices. Trading activity surged last week, which drove exchange-traded product (ETP) volumes to a record-breaking $63.1 billion.
This figure exceeded the previous peak of $56.4 billion recorded in October of the prior year. The strong activity indicates increased investor interest and momentum.
Investor sentiment was negative for Bitcoin, which experienced $264 million in outflows, alongside $11.6 million moving out of short positions. On the other hand, altcoins attracted fresh capital, as XRP led with $63.1 million, Solana $8.2 million, and Ethereum $5.3 million. XRP continues to dominate year-to-date inflows, recording $109 million. Chainlink and Litecoin saw more modest gains of $1.5 million and $1 million.
Additionally, multi-asset products raked in $9.3 million over the past week.
Outflows were concentrated in the US at $214 million, with Sweden at $135 million, and Australia at just $1.2 million. Despite this, other regions experienced meaningful inflows. For instance, Germany received $87.1 million, Switzerland $30.1 million, Canada $21.4 million, Brazil $16.7 million, and Hong Kong $6.8 million. The data highlights a mixed global picture.
Price weakness continues as Bitcoin slipped to $69,000 on Sunday and has hovered near that level into Monday. Despite this, Bitget CMO Ignacio Aguirre Franco said that the crypto asset has a path to the $150,000-$180,000 range this year if ETF flows stabilize and macro conditions improve. Ongoing Layer 2 development and growing DeFi activity strengthen Ethereum's outlook, the exec said while predicting a potential target of $5,000-$6,000 with increased traditional finance participation. Franco added,
“Regulatory developments like the recent Clarity Bill and advancing market-structure legislation will also positively impact crypto markets by providing clearer compliance frameworks that reduce uncertainty and make these assets more attractive to institutions and traditional funds. As institutional capital finds easier entry points and global regulatory alignment improves, overall market stability and innovation are reinforced.”
Chayanika has been working as a financial journalist for seven years. A graduate in Political Science and Journalism, her interest lies in regulatory implications with a focus on technological evolution in the crypto realm.
Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. Full disclaimer
The cryptocurrency industry went under intense pressure last week, with Bitcoin and Ethereum leading the crash and multiple cryptocurrencies hitting new multi-month lows. The crash was more pronounced with Bitcoin, though, and the imbalance in selling pressure is quietly shifting the relationship between the two assets.
The interesting imbalance is relayed in Ethereum's performance relative to Bitcoin. A technical analysis of the ETH/BTC ratio shared on the social media platform X by Jonathan Carter indicates that Ethereum may be approaching a critical breakout point against Bitcoin, following an extended period of compression on the 2-week candlestick timeframe chart.
Long-Term Triangle On The Verge Of Break
According to technical analysis of the ETH/BTC 2-week chart, Ethereum is nearing an important point against Bitcoin after years of consolidation beneath a descending trendline. This long-running pattern originates from a major peak in relative valuation in July 2017, when 1 ETH was worth 0.154 BTC in Bitcoin terms, and has since formed a series of lower highs to form a falling resistance trendline. The lower boundary of this pattern is a long-tested support zone around 0.02 that has repeatedly drawn buying interest for Ethereum in relation to Bitcoin.
At the time of writing, the ETH/BTC ratio is trading around 0.030. However, the most recent 2-week candlestick has flipped green, and this development is important to the bullish outlook of Ethereum's performance against Bitcoin.
The bullish projection is based on a full playout of the green candlestick with a push towards the descending triangle's resistance trendline. If the pair can convincingly break above the descending triangle's upper trend boundary with sustained momentum, then this would allow Ethereum to enter a phase of sustained outperformance against Bitcoin.
How High Could ETH/BTC Go If A Breakout Happens?
Crypto analyst Jonathan Carter outlined a series of potential upside targets should the ETH/BTC pair break free from its downward trend. The first target is around 0.040 BTC, which would represent a clear departure from the compressed range seen across recent months. If momentum continues, higher potential objectives include 0.060, 0.085, 0.105, 0.124, and all the way up to the 2017 peak of 0.154.
Translating these ratio-based targets into absolute price levels is less straightforward, as the projections are based on Ethereum's performance relative to Bitcoin and not standalone price moves. Such a performance can happen in two major ways: either Ethereum receives more inflows than Bitcoin, or Bitcoin could crash more than Ethereum during a market-wide correction.
The former scenario would most likely translate into a sustained rotation into Ethereum and the wider altcoin market, setting the stage for an altcoin season. Nonetheless, both scenarios will see the otherwise strong Bitcoin dominance dropping massively.
Select market data provided by ICE Data Services. Select reference data provided by FactSet. Copyright © 2026 FactSet Research Systems Inc.Copyright © 2026, American Bankers Association. CUSIP Database provided by FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved. SEC fillings and other documents provided by Quartr.© 2026 TradingView, Inc.
Ahead of a pending ransom deadline in the Nancy Guthrie case, CNN News Central's Kate Bolduan speaks with Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Vice President of Intelligence and Security Research at SentinelOne, about how bitcoin works and how it could actually help track down Guthrie's abductor(s).
© 2026 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app on Google Play.
Scan the QR code to download the CNN app from the Apple Store.
Searching for your content...
In-Language News
Contact Us
888-776-0942
from 8 AM - 10 PM ET
Feb 09, 2026, 08:30 ET
Share this article
Bitmine has 2,873,459 staked ETH, representing $6.2 billion at $2,125 per ETH; MAVAN staking solution on track to launch Q1 2026
Bitmine now owns 3.58% of the ETH token supply, over 72% of the way to the 'Alchemy of 5%' in just 6 months
Bitmine recently closed on initial $200 million investment into Beast Industries
Bitmine Crypto + Total Cash Holdings + "Moonshots" total $10.0 billion, including 4.326 million ETH tokens, total cash of $595 million, and other crypto holdings
Bitmine leads crypto treasury peers by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high trading liquidity of BMNR stock
Bitmine is the 107th most traded stock in the US, trading $1.3 billion per day (5-day avg)
Bitmine remains supported by a premier group of institutional investors including ARK's Cathie Wood, MOZAYYX, Founders Fund, Bill Miller III, Pantera, Kraken, DCG, Galaxy Digital and personal investor Thomas "Tom" Lee to support Bitmine's goal of acquiring 5% of ETH
LAS VEGAS, Feb. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- (NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc. ("Bitmine" or the "Company") a Bitcoin and Ethereum Network company with a focus on the accumulation of crypto for long term investment, today announced Bitmine crypto + total cash + "moonshots" holdings totaling $10.0 billion.
As of February 8th, 2026 at 3:00pm ET, the Company's crypto holdings are comprised of 4,325,738 ETH at $2,125 per ETH (NASDAQ: COIN), 193 Bitcoin (BTC), $200 million stake in Beast Industries, $19 million stake in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) ("moonshots") and total cash of $595 million. Bitmine's ETH holdings are 3.58% of the ETH supply (of 120.7 million ETH).
"ETH prices declined -62% from 2025 highs, while Ethereum daily transactions hit an all-time high (ATH) of 2.5mm (per theblock.co) and active addresses soared in 2026 to an ATH of 1 million daily (per theblock.co)," said Thomas "Tom" Lee, Executive Chairman of Bitmine. Crypto prices are highly volatile, and in fact, this is the 8th time since 2018 that ETH prices have fallen 50% or more from a recent high, meaning declines like this are seen annually. In 2025, from January to March, ETH prices fell -64% and yet still surged from $1,600 to $5,000 later in the year."
"ETH sees V-shaped recoveries from major lows. This happened in each of the 8 prior declines of 50% or more. A similar recovery is expected in 2026. The best investment opportunities in crypto have presented themselves after declines. Think back to 2025, the single best entry points in crypto occurred after markets fell sharply due to tariff concerns," said Lee.
"In the past week, we acquired 40,613 ETH," continued Lee. "Bitmine has been steadily buying Ethereum, as we view this pullback as attractive, given the strengthening fundamentals. In our view, the price of ETH is not reflective of the high utility of ETH and its role as the future of finance."
As of February 8, 2026, Bitmine total staked ETH stands at 2,897,459 ($6.2 billion at $2,125 per ETH). "Bitmine has staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale (when Bitmine's ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners), the ETH staking rewards is $374 million annually (using 3.115% CESR), or greater than $1 million per day," stated Lee.
"Annualized staking revenues are now $202 million, up +7% in the past week (see chart). And this 2.9 million ETH is about 67% of the 4.3 million ETH held by Bitmine. The CESR (Composite Ethereum Staking Rate, administered by Quatrefoil) is 3.11%. Bitmine's own staking operations generated a 7-day yield of 3.3234% (annualized). We continue to make progress on our staking solution known as The Made in America VAlidator Network (MAVAN). This will be the 'best-in-class' solution offering secure staking infrastructure and will be deployed in early calendar 2026. Bitmine is currently working with 3 staking providers as the Company moves towards unveiling MAVAN in 2026," continued Lee.
Bitmine crypto holding reigns as the #1 Ethereum treasury and #2 global treasury, behind Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR), which owns 713,502 BTC valued at $51 billion. Bitmine remains the largest ETH treasury in the world.
Bitmine is one of the most widely traded stocks in the US. According to data from Fundstrat, the stock has traded average daily dollar volume of $1.3 billion (5-day average, as of February 6, 2026), ranking #107 in the US, behind Arista Networks (rank #106) and ahead of Monolithic Power Systems (rank #108) among 5,704 US-listed stocks (statista.com and Fundstrat research).
The GENIUS Act and Securities and Exchange Commission's ("the SEC") Project Crypto are as transformational to financial services in 2025 as US action on August 15, 1971 ending Bretton Woods and the USD on the gold standard 54 years ago. This 1971 event was the catalyst for the modernization of Wall Street, creating the iconic Wall Street titans and financial and payment rails of today. These proved to be better investments than gold.
The Chairman's message can be found here:https://www.Bitminetech.io/chairmans-message
The Fiscal Full Year 2025 Earnings presentation and corporate presentation can be found here: https://Bitminetech.io/investor-relations/
Select images from Bitmine's Annual Meeting can be found here.
To stay informed, please sign up at: https://Bitminetech.io/contact-us/
About BitmineBitmine (NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) is the leading Ethereum Treasury company in the world, implementing an innovative digital asset strategy for institutional investors and public market participants. Guided by its philosophy of "the alchemy of 5%," the Company is committed to ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset, leveraging native protocol-level activities including staking and decentralized finance mechanisms. The Company will launch MAVAN (Made-in America VAlidator Network), a dedicated staking infrastructure for Bitmine assets, in Q1 of 2026.
For additional details, follow on X:https://x.com/bitmnr https://x.com/fundstrat https://x.com/bmnrintern
Forward Looking StatementsThis press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." The statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. This document specifically contains forward-looking statements regarding progress and achievement of the Company's goals regarding ETH acquisition and staking, the long-term value of Ethereum, continued growth and advancement of the Company's Ethereum treasury strategy and the applicable benefits to the Company. In evaluating these forward-looking statements, you should consider various factors, including Bitmine's ability to keep pace with new technology and changing market needs; Bitmine's ability to finance its current business, Ethereum treasury operations and proposed future business; the competitive environment of Bitmine's business; and the future value of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Actual future performance outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond Bitmine's control, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of Bitmine's Form 10-K filed with the SEC on November 21, 2025, as well as all other SEC filings, as amended or updated from time to time. Copies of Bitmine's filings with the SEC are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Bitmine undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.
SOURCE BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc.
(NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc. ("Bitmine" or the "Company") a Bitcoin and Ethereum Network company with a focus on the...
(NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc. ("Bitmine" or the "Company") a Bitcoin and Ethereum Network Company with a focus on the...
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency
Blockchain
Blockchain
Do not sell or share my personal information:
India has again shown it prefers strict regulation over market freedom in the cryptocurrency sector. In the Union Budget 2026–2027, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will keep its tough tax rules for Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs).
While the private crypto market remains under heavy pressure, the government is simultaneously accelerating the adoption of its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), specifically through a new “Digital Food Currency” pilot.
This dual-track strategy highlights India's intent to harness blockchain technology exclusively within state-controlled frameworks while discouraging speculative private trading.
Even after strong efforts from local exchanges and the Bharat Web3 Association, the 2026 Budget does not give any relief to crypto investors. The tax rules set in 2022 still make it very hard to enter the market:
BREAKING: 🇮🇳 India's Crypto stance, straight from Parliament:
A common belief is:“Crypto isn't regulated in India, so it's basically invisible.”
Parliament says otherwise 👇
What the government has made clear:
➡️ Crypto, VDAs & NFTs are not regulated➡️ But they are very… pic.twitter.com/xtt0SPFFO3
— Sapna Singh (@earnwithsapna) February 7, 2026
The impact of these policies is visible in the data. Recent reports suggest that over 72% of India's crypto trading volume has migrated to offshore platforms.
This flight of capital has resulted in an estimated loss of billions in potential domestic tax revenue, as traders seek jurisdictions with more favorable tax environments.
The Finance Bill 2026 adds new enforcement rules, focusing more on strict reporting than just collecting revenue. From April 1, 2026, anyone who does not report VDA transactions correctly will face serious financial penalties:
Interestingly, the government has balanced these fines with a slight easing of criminal liability. The maximum jail term for TDS defaulters has been reduced from seven years to two years, suggesting a shift toward proportional punishment while maintaining high financial deterrents.
As private crypto faces more limits, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is focusing more on the “e-Rupee.” This month, a new pilot for CBDC-based food coupons will start in Chandigarh and Puducherry.
This program shows the government's position: it supports blockchain for social welfare and government use, but not for decentralized finance (DeFi) or investment speculation.
India's strategy is still a “walled garden” approach. By keeping taxes and penalties high for private crypto, the government is limiting retail speculation. At the same time, by using CBDC in the Public Distribution System (PDS), India aims to lead in state-run digital currency.
Oops, something went wrong
Crypto analyst Alex Krüger says most tokens have failed by design, arguing that outdated regulation pushes projects to launch assets stripped of enforceable rights.
His comments coincide with a period of elevated token failures in the crypto market. Since 2021, over 13.4 million tokens have "died."
According to CoinGecko research, 53.2% of all cryptocurrencies listed on GeckoTerminal had failed as of the end of 2025. 11.6 million tokens collapsed in 2025, representing 86.3% of all failures recorded since 2021, signaling an unprecedented acceleration.
The number of crypto projects listed rose from about 428,000 in 2021 to 20.2 million by 2025. This surge was met with escalating failures: just 2,584 dead coins in 2021, rising to 213,075 in 2022, 245,049 in 2023, and 1.38 million in 2024. Yet, 2025's collapse dwarfed all previous years.
Certain niches experienced even higher failure rates. Music and video tokens failed at rates close to 75%. Crypto analyst Krüger argued that outdated regulations and token structures fueled the crisis.
“Most tokens ever created are worthless by design because of outdated regulations,” he wrote.
In a detailed post, Krüger argued that the SEC's use of the Howey Test and enforcement-led oversight pushed crypto projects into a corner. For context, US regulators use the Howey Test to determine whether a transaction qualifies as an “investment contract” and therefore a security under federal securities laws.
A transaction is a security if it involves:
an investment of money,
in a common enterprise,
with an expectation of profit,
based on the efforts of others.
If all four are met, US securities laws apply. To avoid being classified as securities, teams systematically stripped tokens of all rights. The result, he said, was an asset class defined by speculation rather than ownership.
This design choice had far-reaching consequences. When token holders have no contractual rights, they also have no legal recourse. At the same time, founders face no enforceable fiduciary duties toward the people funding their projects.
In practice, this created an accountability vacuum. Teams could control large treasuries with or abandon projects entirely, often without facing legal or financial consequences.
“In any other market, a project offering zero rights and total treasury opacity wouldn't raise a dime. In crypto, it was the only compliant way to launch. The result is a decade of tokens designed to soft rug,” he added.
Disillusioned by VC-backed utility tokens, retail traders turned to meme coins, which offered a transparent lack of utility. As Krüger highlighted, this trend increased speculation and intense market behaviors.
“And this only made the rot worse: memecoins are even more speculative and less transparent, accelerating a shift toward predatory PVP trading and zero-sum gambling,” he remarked.
https://twitter.com/DGMD22/status/2020584661421035962?s=20
Krüger believes the solution is a new generation of tokens governed by a stronger regulatory framework.
Read original story 13.4 Million Altcoins Dead: How SEC Regulation Turned Crypto Into a Graveyard by Kamina Bashir at beincrypto.com
Share:
In this interview, Ilya Tarutov, founder of Tramplin.io, looks back on a decade in crypto and pinpoints the moment the industry shifted from building long-term value to chasing attention. He unpacks how NFTs, meme coins, and high-leverage trading reshaped user behaviour, often at retail's expense.
Tarutov also explains why he returned to product building after years as an investor, outlines Tramplin.io's premium staking model on Solana, and shares his view on what crypto must change to rebuild trust and re-engage everyday users.
Invezz: You've been in crypto since 2015. If you had to name one turning point when the industry shifted from building value to extracting attention, what was it, and what did that shift do to everyday users?
The big shift happened around 2020–2021, with the NFT boom, followed by meme coins and perp trading on exchanges.
Before that, most projects focused on technology and building: new protocols, trustless systems, and providing long-term utility. People genuinely believed they were changing the world.
Then the industry turned into a money-making machine for both the faster, bigger, earlier players, newcomers and small holders.
Projects have started focusing on liquidity instead of creating value. Memes have become the primary way people get into crypto, expecting 50–100x leverage.
Back then, you could believe in a project and hold it long-term.
Now, most people just end up becoming exit liquidity for someone quicker.
I saw this play out cycle after cycle from 2021 to 2025, and that's exactly why I wanted to build something that gives a real chance to any user without putting their hard-earned capital at risk.
Invezz: After years of avoiding building products, what made this idea, to create Tramplin.io, impossible to ignore, and why launch now?
I kept telling myself I wouldn't go back to building my own products again. Investing has become my full-time job, and I was watching startups sort of from the outside. But this idea just kept coming back to me.
So we built it, and during testing, we received great feedback reaffirming our belief that this product is what the market needs.
Then we realised we'd accidentally recreated the model of the UK's Premium Bonds, which is a popular product with millions of users and billions invested in it in the UK alone.
We'd found a way to give people a meaningful chance for a reward with no risk to their capital, and crypto really didn't have anything like it.
People are tired of constant losses, tired of feeling used. Just look at what's going on in the community right now.
There's a huge demand for something honest and safe, but with the thrill of possibility. Our team came together around the idea and built it. That's why we're doing this now: the timing feels perfect with the disappointments the latest cycles have brought.
Invezz: What is Tramplin.io, and how does it differ from standard native staking on Solana?
Tramplin.io is a premium staking on Solana. We take native Solana staking and add a layer that redistributes rewards in a different way.
Usually, staking provides a predictable 5–7% APY (shared proportionally), which is basically “coffee money” for small amounts.
At Tramplin.io, all the staking rewards from Solana's inflation go into pools and get randomly redistributed: every 10 minutes into a small pool and monthly into a big pool.
Users don't receive a fixed percentage, but they get a shot at a much bigger win without extra risk to their capital. Their funds stay in their account; we never touch them. There's no custody, no leverage, no DeFi risks.
Invezz: You describe the model as “premium staking.” What does “premium” actually mean in this context, especially for someone staking a small amount?
Premium staking means we add an extra layer on top of standard native staking. This layer introduces an additional opportunity, but it does not work as a VIP service.
Users still delegate SOL via regular staking and do not put their capital at risk. The only thing that changes is how the already-earned yield is distributed.
In traditional staking, rewards are paid proportionally to stake size, which can feel very insignificant for small accounts with balances.
With Tramplin.io, a portion of the yield is redistributed as random, larger payouts. This gives even small users a genuine opportunity for a meaningful increase.
But this is a chance, not a guarantee. We make no promises of extra yield or fixed returns. The distribution happens under transparent, verifiable on-chain rules, and every user has access to this data.
The approach does follow the same principle as UK Premium Bonds: there might be some time without any yield, but if there's a reward, it can be significantly higher than standard APY. And I think it's important to mention that the original capital is always preserved.
Invezz: DeFi often promises high APYs without clarity. What does “honest yield” mean in practice for Tramplin.io?
“Honest yield” means the source is clear, transparent, and doesn't rely on endless new money or hidden risks.
In Tramplin.io, rewards only come from Solana's native rewards system, which means no additional token emissions, no risky strategies, and no redistribution from newbies to pros.
No fake 300% APY promises that collapse later. Just a real chance to get more than standard staking without illusions of fixed returns and without risking users' money.
Invezz: Who controls the stake account, and what happens if the Tramplin.io interface goes down or disappears entirely?
The staking account is 100% under the user's control; it's a standard native Solana staking account. We never have access to the funds; there's no custody.
If, for any reason, the Tramplin.io interface disappears or shuts down, nothing changes for the user. They can open any compatible wallet like Phantom or Backpack, check their stake, and withdraw it, following regular Solana rules. Everything is built so that even in the worst-case scenario, users keep their funds.
Invezz: You ran a Dune analysis on “sleeping wallets.” What does it say about how retail behaves on Solana today?
We looked at wallets holding 1–100 SOL (that's typical retail size): our data showed about 2 million wallets holding SOL without staking. Only around 560,000 wallets in that range actually stake.
The reason? Regular staking gives tiny rewards of $2-5 a month that don't (usually) motivate people. After what the industry has experienced through 2021-2025, folks are scared of risky alternatives, so they just sit on their SOL.
That's a huge amount of idle capital: millions of people believe in Solana but aren't actually participating in the network.
Give them a safe, engaging way to join, and they'll start participating.
What we're seeing with Tramplin.io: users start with 1 SOL, try our model, like the experience, and start adding more.
Invezz: From your perspective, what's the most realistic way to bring new users into the Solana ecosystem, and how can products like Tramplin.io help make that onboarding stick?
The most realistic way to attract new people to Solana isn't hype or quick “get-rich” schemes; it's making crypto feel like traditional finance, but faster, easier, more accessible, and more meaningful.
Newcomers need to have the ability to start with a small amount, test things out without risks, and then they need a reason to stay and continue.
Solana is already leading here: it provides instant transactions, low fees, and user-friendly wallets like Phantom or Backpack, even for total beginners. But to keep people engaged after their first try, you need products with a familiar TradFi-like experience, not casino vibes.
And long-term holders and users are what really support the network.
Invezz: What do you think the crypto industry is missing right now, and what kind of crypto culture are you trying to bring back?
The industry is missing responsibility and real respect for users.
We started with open systems, equal access, and tech that could change the world and improve people's lives. Then crypto became a place where most products either don't solve any real problems or are built to make money quickly and leave.
The culture I want to bring back is to build things that genuinely make everyday lives better.
The one where the market's decline doesn't mean total losses, where security is built into the architecture of the product and is not just a marketing buzzword.
The culture where small users don't feel left out and have a real shot to participate. That's what I want to see and build.
The post Native staking that finally makes sense: Ilya Tarutov on Tramplin.io Premium Staking appeared first on Invezz
Coins
Bitcoin
$ 70.66K
Solana
$ 87.81
AINFT
$ 0.00...321
SOL (Wormhole)
$ 88.11
Funds
100X
Backpack
Dune
Invested
Phantom
Share:
Coins
Bitcoin
$ 70.66K
Solana
$ 87.81
AINFT
$ 0.00...321
SOL (Wormhole)
$ 88.11
Funds
100X
Backpack
Dune
Invested
Phantom
Share:
Share:
In this interview, Ilya Tarutov, founder of Tramplin.io, looks back on a decade in crypto and pinpoints the moment the industry shifted from building long-term value to chasing attention. He unpacks how NFTs, meme coins, and high-leverage trading reshaped user behaviour, often at retail's expense.
Tarutov also explains why he returned to product building after years as an investor, outlines Tramplin.io's premium staking model on Solana, and shares his view on what crypto must change to rebuild trust and re-engage everyday users.
Invezz: You've been in crypto since 2015. If you had to name one turning point when the industry shifted from building value to extracting attention, what was it, and what did that shift do to everyday users?
The big shift happened around 2020–2021, with the NFT boom, followed by meme coins and perp trading on exchanges.
Before that, most projects focused on technology and building: new protocols, trustless systems, and providing long-term utility. People genuinely believed they were changing the world.
Then the industry turned into a money-making machine for both the faster, bigger, earlier players, newcomers and small holders.
Projects have started focusing on liquidity instead of creating value. Memes have become the primary way people get into crypto, expecting 50–100x leverage.
Back then, you could believe in a project and hold it long-term.
Now, most people just end up becoming exit liquidity for someone quicker.
I saw this play out cycle after cycle from 2021 to 2025, and that's exactly why I wanted to build something that gives a real chance to any user without putting their hard-earned capital at risk.
Invezz: After years of avoiding building products, what made this idea, to create Tramplin.io, impossible to ignore, and why launch now?
I kept telling myself I wouldn't go back to building my own products again. Investing has become my full-time job, and I was watching startups sort of from the outside. But this idea just kept coming back to me.
So we built it, and during testing, we received great feedback reaffirming our belief that this product is what the market needs.
Then we realised we'd accidentally recreated the model of the UK's Premium Bonds, which is a popular product with millions of users and billions invested in it in the UK alone.
We'd found a way to give people a meaningful chance for a reward with no risk to their capital, and crypto really didn't have anything like it.
People are tired of constant losses, tired of feeling used. Just look at what's going on in the community right now.
There's a huge demand for something honest and safe, but with the thrill of possibility. Our team came together around the idea and built it. That's why we're doing this now: the timing feels perfect with the disappointments the latest cycles have brought.
Invezz: What is Tramplin.io, and how does it differ from standard native staking on Solana?
Tramplin.io is a premium staking on Solana. We take native Solana staking and add a layer that redistributes rewards in a different way.
Usually, staking provides a predictable 5–7% APY (shared proportionally), which is basically “coffee money” for small amounts.
At Tramplin.io, all the staking rewards from Solana's inflation go into pools and get randomly redistributed: every 10 minutes into a small pool and monthly into a big pool.
Users don't receive a fixed percentage, but they get a shot at a much bigger win without extra risk to their capital. Their funds stay in their account; we never touch them. There's no custody, no leverage, no DeFi risks.
Invezz: You describe the model as “premium staking.” What does “premium” actually mean in this context, especially for someone staking a small amount?
Premium staking means we add an extra layer on top of standard native staking. This layer introduces an additional opportunity, but it does not work as a VIP service.
Users still delegate SOL via regular staking and do not put their capital at risk. The only thing that changes is how the already-earned yield is distributed.
In traditional staking, rewards are paid proportionally to stake size, which can feel very insignificant for small accounts with balances.
With Tramplin.io, a portion of the yield is redistributed as random, larger payouts. This gives even small users a genuine opportunity for a meaningful increase.
But this is a chance, not a guarantee. We make no promises of extra yield or fixed returns. The distribution happens under transparent, verifiable on-chain rules, and every user has access to this data.
The approach does follow the same principle as UK Premium Bonds: there might be some time without any yield, but if there's a reward, it can be significantly higher than standard APY. And I think it's important to mention that the original capital is always preserved.
Invezz: DeFi often promises high APYs without clarity. What does “honest yield” mean in practice for Tramplin.io?
“Honest yield” means the source is clear, transparent, and doesn't rely on endless new money or hidden risks.
In Tramplin.io, rewards only come from Solana's native rewards system, which means no additional token emissions, no risky strategies, and no redistribution from newbies to pros.
No fake 300% APY promises that collapse later. Just a real chance to get more than standard staking without illusions of fixed returns and without risking users' money.
Invezz: Who controls the stake account, and what happens if the Tramplin.io interface goes down or disappears entirely?
The staking account is 100% under the user's control; it's a standard native Solana staking account. We never have access to the funds; there's no custody.
If, for any reason, the Tramplin.io interface disappears or shuts down, nothing changes for the user. They can open any compatible wallet like Phantom or Backpack, check their stake, and withdraw it, following regular Solana rules. Everything is built so that even in the worst-case scenario, users keep their funds.
Invezz: You ran a Dune analysis on “sleeping wallets.” What does it say about how retail behaves on Solana today?
We looked at wallets holding 1–100 SOL (that's typical retail size): our data showed about 2 million wallets holding SOL without staking. Only around 560,000 wallets in that range actually stake.
The reason? Regular staking gives tiny rewards of $2-5 a month that don't (usually) motivate people. After what the industry has experienced through 2021-2025, folks are scared of risky alternatives, so they just sit on their SOL.
That's a huge amount of idle capital: millions of people believe in Solana but aren't actually participating in the network.
Give them a safe, engaging way to join, and they'll start participating.
What we're seeing with Tramplin.io: users start with 1 SOL, try our model, like the experience, and start adding more.
Invezz: From your perspective, what's the most realistic way to bring new users into the Solana ecosystem, and how can products like Tramplin.io help make that onboarding stick?
The most realistic way to attract new people to Solana isn't hype or quick “get-rich” schemes; it's making crypto feel like traditional finance, but faster, easier, more accessible, and more meaningful.
Newcomers need to have the ability to start with a small amount, test things out without risks, and then they need a reason to stay and continue.
Solana is already leading here: it provides instant transactions, low fees, and user-friendly wallets like Phantom or Backpack, even for total beginners. But to keep people engaged after their first try, you need products with a familiar TradFi-like experience, not casino vibes.
And long-term holders and users are what really support the network.
Invezz: What do you think the crypto industry is missing right now, and what kind of crypto culture are you trying to bring back?
The industry is missing responsibility and real respect for users.
We started with open systems, equal access, and tech that could change the world and improve people's lives. Then crypto became a place where most products either don't solve any real problems or are built to make money quickly and leave.
The culture I want to bring back is to build things that genuinely make everyday lives better.
The one where the market's decline doesn't mean total losses, where security is built into the architecture of the product and is not just a marketing buzzword.
The culture where small users don't feel left out and have a real shot to participate. That's what I want to see and build.
The post Native staking that finally makes sense: Ilya Tarutov on Tramplin.io Premium Staking appeared first on Invezz
Coins
Bitcoin
$ 70.66K
Solana
$ 87.81
AINFT
$ 0.00...321
SOL (Wormhole)
$ 88.11
Funds
100X
Backpack
Dune
Invested
Phantom
Share:
Coins
Bitcoin
$ 70.66K
Solana
$ 87.81
AINFT
$ 0.00...321
SOL (Wormhole)
$ 88.11
Funds
100X
Backpack
Dune
Invested
Phantom
Share:
Ethereum is leading the development of a new set of standards for the use of AI in crypto.
Ethereum (ETH +1.76%) might be on the verge of making major inroads into being a provider of artificial intelligence (AI) agent infrastructure in crypto. If it succeeds, it would likely see a lot more demand for its coin, and a lot more automated activity on its chain, both of which would boost its price.
But what exactly is in the works here, and does it actually count as a reason to buy the coin as aggressively as some of the evangelists are saying?
Image source: Getty Images.
In the tech world, if an organization can define certain coding practices as the standard for implementing a feature on one of its platforms, it's effectively able to shape the entire ecosystem. Aside from training developers to work on your platform, thereby expanding your talent pool, setting a standard is a prime way to demonstrate technical leadership and build prestige. And that's exactly what Ethereum is angling to do with its new ERC-8004 standard, which is intended to guide the development of AI agents that operate on its chain and others.
Technically speaking, ERC-8004 is a draft Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC) that defines three new data registries for AI agents: one for identity, one for reputation, and one for validation. It also specifies an off-chain file where an agent can report its metadata, as well as a way for third parties to submit feedback that smart contracts can then read.
Basically, ERC-8004 is a new standard that defines an ID system and review framework for AI agents. That framework calls for gathering data on each AI agent's name, skills, and track record for completing its assigned tasks. The strategic vision here is that once AI agents can discover each other on the blockchain and prove their identity and competence to each other, it will open the door to a flourishing market for AI services that settle in Ethereum.
If ERC-8004 becomes widely adopted, it could bring a lot more traffic to Ethereum, as it will be the network with the clearest framework for AI agents to operate within. More sustained traffic can translate into more transaction fees burned, which can support Ethereum's price, as agents will need to be supplied with Ether (or work to generate it themselves) before they can perform any independent tasks.
But there are two caveats that may mean the rollout of this new standard isn't a slam dunk for holders. First, developers abiding by the practices described in an ERC is optional. Adoption of a new set of standards can take a long time.
Second, Ethereum keeps pushing down its gas fees with each successive upgrade it performs. So Ethereum can get tons more usage while generating lower fees and thus constraining the returns for holders.
So the new ERC-8004 standard is promising, but it's not exactly a reason to run and buy Ethereum hand over fist. Wait for people to actually start using the standard in a way that demonstrably generates more demand for the coin before getting more aggressive with your purchasing.
Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
Invest better with The Motley Fool. Get stock recommendations, portfolio guidance, and more from The Motley Fool's premium services.
Making the world smarter, happier, and richer.
© 1995 - 2026 The Motley Fool. All rights reserved.
Market data powered by Xignite and Polygon.io.
About The Motley Fool
Our Services
Around the Globe
Free Tools
Affiliates & Friends
The Digital Rupee, designated as e₹, represents a pivotal advancement in India's monetary system, embodying the nation's transition toward a comprehensive Central Bank Digital Currency framework. As a digital manifestation of the traditional Indian Rupee, the e₹ operates under the direct authority and issuance of the Reserve Bank of India, maintaining equivalency with physical currency while leveraging technological innovations to enhance transactional efficiency.
The implementation of the e₹ constitutes a strategic response to the evolving global financial landscape, wherein central banks worldwide are exploring digital alternatives to conventional monetary systems. This initiative reflects India's commitment to maintaining monetary sovereignty while embracing technological modernization in financial services.
The Digital Rupee derives its legal authority from Section 26 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, establishing its status as legal tender throughout the territorial jurisdiction of India. This statutory foundation ensures that e₹ carries the same legal weight and acceptance obligations as traditional currency, creating binding obligations for acceptance by all entities within the Indian financial ecosystem.
The regulatory framework governing e₹ operations establishes comprehensive oversight mechanisms ensuring compliance with existing monetary laws while accommodating the unique characteristics of digital currency systems. The Reserve Bank of India maintains exclusive authority over issuance, distribution, and regulatory supervision of the Digital Rupee, preserving the integrity of India's monetary policy framework.
The Digital Rupee operates through a sophisticated technological infrastructure designed to facilitate seamless integration with existing banking systems while maintaining operational independence. Users access e₹ through dedicated applications provided by authorized financial institutions, creating a secure digital environment for currency storage and transaction processing.
The system architecture ensures continuous availability, enabling users to conduct transactions, load funds, and manage their digital wallets beyond conventional banking hours. This twenty-four-hour operational capacity represents a significant advancement over traditional banking limitations, enhancing user convenience and financial accessibility.
The technological framework incorporates advanced security protocols to protect user data and financial assets against cyber threats. These security measures include encrypted transaction processing, secure wallet management, and comprehensive fraud prevention systems that maintain the integrity of the digital currency ecosystem.
The Digital Rupee incorporates several distinctive features that differentiate it from existing payment systems and digital financial instruments. Unlike traditional payment interfaces that merely facilitate fund transfers between bank accounts, e₹ functions as both a payment mechanism and a store of value, providing users with enhanced financial flexibility.
The system supports fractional denomination transactions, mirroring the divisibility characteristics of physical currency while enabling precise value transfers. This capability ensures that e₹ maintains the practical utility of cash transactions while providing the convenience and efficiency of digital processing.
A particularly innovative feature of the Digital Rupee involves its programmable characteristics, enabling the implementation of conditional spending parameters. This functionality allows for the establishment of usage restrictions based on temporal, geographical, or purpose-specific criteria, creating opportunities for targeted financial policy implementation and enhanced transaction control.
The Digital Rupee platform prioritises user experience through intuitive interface design and comprehensive accessibility features. The system supports multiple device platforms, ensuring broad compatibility across various technological environments and user preferences.
Transaction processing incorporates familiar payment methodologies, including QR code scanning and point-of-sale integration, facilitating smooth adoption by both merchants and consumers. The elimination of minimum balance requirements for e₹ wallets removes traditional banking barriers, promoting financial inclusion across diverse economic segments.
The platform's design philosophy emphasises simplicity and efficiency, enabling users to perform complex financial operations through straightforward digital interfaces. This approach reduces the learning curve associated with digital currency adoption while maintaining sophisticated underlying functionality.
The Digital Rupee occupies a unique position within India's financial ecosystem, distinguishing itself from existing payment. While traditional digital payment platforms facilitate transactions between existing bank accounts, e₹ represents actual digital currency holdings that can be stored, transferred, and utilized independently of conventional banking relationships.
This fundamental distinction creates new possibilities for financial interaction, enabling direct peer-to-peer value transfer without intermediary banking infrastructure. The implications of this capability extend beyond mere transactional convenience, potentially transforming the underlying structure of financial relationships and monetary circulation.
The Digital Rupee incorporates comprehensive security measures designed to protect user assets and maintain system integrity. Advanced encryption protocols secure all transaction data and wallet information, ensuring that financial activities remain confidential and protected from unauthorized access.
The security architecture includes provisions for device loss or theft scenarios, maintaining wallet security through multi-factor authentication and remote access controls. These protective measures ensure that user funds remain secure, building confidence in digital currency adoption.
Regular security audits and continuous monitoring systems identify and address potential vulnerabilities, maintaining the highest standards of digital security throughout the e₹ ecosystem. This proactive approach to security management reflects the critical importance of user trust in digital currency success.
The implementation of the Digital Rupee carries significant implications for India's monetary policy framework and economic structure. The ability to track digital currency circulation provides enhanced visibility into monetary flows, potentially improving the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy interventions.
The programmable nature of e₹ creates opportunities for targeted economic stimulus measures and conditional spending programs, enabling more precise policy implementation than traditional monetary tools. These capabilities may prove particularly valuable in addressing specific economic challenges or promoting particular policy objectives.
The current pilot phase of the Digital Rupee serves as a foundation for broader implementation and feature development. Ongoing evaluation of user adoption patterns, technological performance, and operational efficiency will inform future expansion decisions and system enhancements.
The scalability of the underlying technology platform positions the e₹ for potential integration with international digital currency systems, creating possibilities for enhanced cross-border payment efficiency and reduced transaction costs in international trade.
For further details wrote to contact@indialaw.in
Banking & Finance
By entering the email address you agree to our Privacy Policy.
Apeejay Chambers, GroundFloor, Wallace Street, Fort,Mumbai – 400 001.
Expertise | People | Insights | UpdatesAbout Us | Locations | Contact Us | Careers
Privacy Policy – Terms of Use
Managed By – Konan & Spade
For career/ internship related queries, strictly use the Career page. Any such queries made through this page or contact details provided here will not be considered.
By entering the email address you agree to our Privacy Policy.
Delayed from 19 December 2025 due to the festive season, commencement order number 6 for the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA) crept onto the statute books with little fanfare. In case you missed it, 5 February 2026, is the day when most of the remaining provisions of DUAA entered into force.
A swathe of provisions got the green light, including the new approach to ADM, which unless special category data is involved, moves to a permission but with safeguards regime, meaning certain decisions may no longer be subject to the more severe restrictions on automated decision-making. (For more information see the ADM section of our article here).
The new UK test for data bridges (formerly known as "adequacy", pre-Brexit) also enters into force, meaning the test is now whether the standards of data protection will be "materially lower" than those applicable in the UK. (Previously the test was whether the standards were "essentially equivalent"). You may want to take advantage of the new test when completing your Transfer Risk Assessments (TRAs) for transfers from the UK but there is no urgency to review existing TRAs as they will remain fit for purpose. (For more information see the Data Transfers section in our article here).
Also in force are the remaining amendments to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), including the headline grabbing UK GDPR level fines (i.e. maximum £17.5 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher), the extension of the cookie consent rules to anyone who "instigates" the storage or access to stored data, wider enforcement powers for PECR breaches, soft opt-in for charities, the relaxation of exemptions for cookie consent where they pose a low risk to user privacy and the ICO's task of encouraging industry to produce codes of conduct. (For more information see our e-Privacy section in our article here). We know the ICO is very active when it comes to PECR breaches so anyone taking a risk based view on PECR requirements particularly in respect of marketing campaigns should be reconsidering their risk profile given the stakes have become significantly higher for non-compliance!
The remaining data rights, bar one, are also commenced, clarifying time limits for responding to data subjects' requests, the information to be provided to data subjects and fees and reasons for responses to data subjects' requests about law enforcement processing. The remaining right, yet to be commenced, is the new "right to complain" to controllers regarding general UK GDPR compliance. (For more information see the Data Rights section of our article here). This right will come into force on 19 June 2026 so if you haven't already reviewed your complaints process, worked out how to resource it given the likely increase in direct complaints and revised your privacy notices, the clock is ticking with little over 4 months to get your house in order. Keep an eye out for the ICO's final guidance too, which is still expected Winter 2025/2026 (even if we are now, thank goodness, through the 2025 part of Winter!) .
All the new wide-ranging ICO powers are in force, bringing the ICO into line with other UK regulators. (For more information see the IC's new powers section of our article here). Again, if you haven't already familiarised yourself with the powers, it would be prudent to do so as these will change how the ICO currently conducts its investigations.
Finally, both the new "recognised legitimate interests" lawful basis and the purpose limitation clarification are also brought into force. (For more information see the relevant sections of our article here). We don't think either provision will have a huge impact on organisations, rather they provide welcome clarity and for most of us the legitimate interests assessment (LIA) will still be necessary, unless you fall within the narrow scope of the new "recognised legitimate interests". If this is the case and you seek to rely on this new lawful basis you will need to update your privacy notices and ROPAs to reflect this.
We still await the changes to the ICO's structure. (For more information see the IC section of our article here). It remains to be seen when the Information Commission will come into being but with appointments to the new Board well underway it might be sooner, rather than later.
So what?
As it was third time lucky before data reform was enacted in the UK, many compliance teams preferred to wait until DUAA received Royal Assent and there was certainty about the road ahead. Now with the majority of provisions in force the direction of travel is clear, so if you haven't already refreshed your policies and privacy notices, considered your TRAs for transfers from the UK, discussed what the ADM changes mean for your organisation, what the new PECR reforms mean for your marketing strategy, how the new ICO powers will impact your approach to regulatory investigations etc. etc., now is the time to do so. If you have any questions about these changes, how to implement them for your business or would like training/a workshop for your team please do reach out to your usual LS contact.
For more than a decade, cryptocurrency wrestled with a contradiction. Once a platform that emerged as the darling of shadow banking, it is now the front-facing system in the economic global reset.
Gone are the days of digital currency via a blockchain network being propagated by dark web aficionados. Rather than banner-waving crypto-bros lauded as economic oracles of an underground powerhouse, cryptocurrency has become quite the complicated it girl in market restructuring.
Under the Trump Administration, crypto has been positioned as the future currency of choice. Yet, it currently struggles to coexist with regulatory systems designed for traditional finance. As Congress works to fold in a less volatile digital currency market, it also disrupts a subaltern commerce culture.
Given its original promise of decentralization—which means monetary activities freed from the clutches of centralized banking systems—crypto sits in a political quandary. Because of its salience in the market, the tension in how to shift from an unregulated to regulated monetary system was a theoretical possibility. Today, it is a legislative, cultural, and economic practice.
At the center of crypto's existential crisis is Coinbase. Initially, Coinbase served as a simple, consumer on-ramp for buying, selling and converting Bitcoin. In the transition to a more regulated cryptocurrency, Coinbase has evolved into something far more consequential: a corporate political actor, a financial infrastructure provider, and increasingly, a cultural platform.
The corporate political actor. Coinbase's recent public break with the passage of the Clarity Act, demonstrated how deep the platform's influence is in the political sphere. If passed, the bill to establish “a regulatory framework for digital commodities,” would be landmark legislation.
While the proposed law passed in the House, hours before the Senate Banking Committee planned to move it forward for a congressional vote, Coinbase pulled its support. The company cited that it disagreed with the amendments made to the Clarity Act when it was sent to the Senate.
“We'd rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said, explaining the company's position. After reviewing the draft text, Armstrong added that “Coinbase unfortunately can't support the bill as written.”
One major issue in the Senate's version of the Clarity Act is the limitations placed on Stablecoins. A cryptocurrency backed by Coinbase, Stablecoins aim to reduce the volatility by offering price stability with a digital token backed by the same equivalent in cash or equivalent reserves.
The company's objection was not to oversight itself, but to provisions it argued would lock crypto into a restrictive framework. Armstrong warned that the legislation could be “materially worse than the status quo,” citing limits on tokenized assets, privacy-preserving finance, and especially stablecoin rewards.
Subsequently, Coinbase's withdrawal of its support for the Clarity Act halted the Senate Banking Committee. It also sent a clear message to Washington. As one of the foremost leaders in fintech, its stance said that regulatory clarity alone is insufficient when it comes at the cost of future innovation.
The rise of Base
“A global economy built for all of us” is the motto of Coinbase's software program, Base. Whereas the parent entity deals with fiscal transactions, the tech progeny serves as a social financial layer. By using Base, its cultural arm of digital currency, Coinbase is no longer reacting to regulation and adoption, it actively shapes them with a powerful triumvirate—policy, coded programs and a belief system.
By taking that stance publicly, Coinbase reframed its role. Instead of quietly lobbying for incremental changes, it positioned itself as a long-term steward of the crypto economy, willing to absorb short-term uncertainty to avoid long-term damage.
Nowhere is Coinbase's philosophy clearer than in its defense of stablecoins.
Stablecoins are often treated as background infrastructure, useful but unremarkable. Coinbase sees them differently. In its view, stablecoins are the connective tissue between crypto and everyday economic life, powering payments, savings, payroll, remittances, and on-chain commerce.
One of the company's major concerns with the Clarity Act was what multiple reports described as provisions that could effectively “kill rewards on stablecoins.” For Coinbase, that was not a minor detail. It struck at the heart of how digital dollars can compete with, and improve upon, traditional banking products.
Armstrong has previously argued that consumers deserve better outcomes from financial innovation. “Consumers deserve a bigger piece of the pie,” he said in earlier commentary on stablecoin interest, noting that on-chain yields could “force us all to up our game for the ultimate benefit of consumers.”
In that light, Coinbase's resistance to restrictive stablecoin rules is less about corporate profit and more about defining who benefits from the next financial system, big boy institutions or common folk?
If regulation is the institutional battlefront, Coinbase positions itself to be the cultural frontline.
Technically, Base is a Layer 2 network. That means it is a secondary framework or protocol built on top of an existing blockchain (Layer 1) to significantly increase transaction speed, scalability, and reduce fees. Yet, in practice, it is becoming a social financial layer where identity, content, and capital intersect. On Base, profiles double as wallets, and posts become assets. Ultimately for users, engagement is no longer measured solely in likes or followers, but in economic participation.
Because it touts itself as the “everything app” much like WeChat, supporting a creator early on Base—including collecting a post, or backing a community—can carry financial meaning. Value no longer flows only upward to platforms. It can accrue sideways, and sometimes directly, to individuals.
This shift introduces a powerful idea: personal market cap.
In crypto-native social environments, a person's reputation, consistency, and community can translate into on-chain demand. Identity itself becomes investable. People are no longer just users generating data for platforms. They are markets with quantifiable value.
Taken together, Coinbase's regulatory posture, its stablecoin advocacy, and its investment in Base suggest a company redefining its mission. Coinbase is not trying to be just another bank with 4 plus percent yield nor simply another instagramish social network. It is building the infrastructure where banking, markets, and social identity converge.
That ambition explains why its decisions now ripple far beyond its own balance sheet. As the Clarity Act is in limbo, now industry persons know when Coinbase enters the regulation area, lawmakers acknowledge how it builds; how it engages developers; and the ways in which Base creators experiment. Then when it draws a line in the sand, the industry recalibrates.
The question is no longer whether crypto will be regulated or adopted. That outcome is inevitable. The real question is who sculpts and formulates the rules, and who captures the value.
As crypto moves from assets to identities, from platforms to people, a new metric begins to matter.
Moving forward, the question will be, “what's your market cap?” And not just the market capitalization (market cap or value) of a company or a token, but your personal valuation in the crypto economy. Whether it involves the Base blockchain or other emerging currencies, your involvement is crucial, whether it pertains to the Base blockchain or other emerging cryptocurrencies.
Duane Reed researches currency and market investments; and dibble dabbles in news, textiles, lifestyle and travel.
Your email address will not be published.
Stay connected! Sign up for Ark Republic's Weekly Check in
Δ
New Jersey's hookah king took a risk by diving into cannabis. As a returning citizen, he
President Trump doubled up on the presence of the National Guard, but local officials say they
On Sunday night, Puerto Ricans rallied in San Juan in an anti-Trump and anti-corruption rally. It
High Priest of the Nana Akonnedi Mother Shrine and beloved spiritual visionary and healer who brought
Ark Republic's journalistic integrity questioned following series highlighting racial injustice accusations from Colorado ranchers.
Email: buildwithus@arkrepublic.com Phone: 973-988-5881 Location: Newark, New Jersey
All rights reserved. Designed with love and power. Ark Republic crew © 2017
Streamline delivers efficient, clear, and reliable news content. Stay informed with our content-focused platform designed for optimal readability and user experience.
© 2026 Streamline. All rights reserved.
We're loading the full news article for you. This includes the article content, images, author information, and related articles.
We specialize in crypto fraud investigation and asset recovery solutions.
We are a team of expert cryptographers, cybersecurity specialists, and financial analysts dedicated to helping individuals and institutions recover from crypto fraud and asset theft.
By hiring META TECH RECOVERY PRO, you engage professionals committed to restoring assets that are rightfully yours. Initiate action promptly before recovery opportunities diminish. for help via:Telegram:@metatechrecoveryproteamW/S https://wa.link/5ay4fvMetatech@Writeme.Comhttps://metatechrecoverypro.comsupport@metatechrecoverypro.com
The rapid expansion of the cryptocurrency sector has drawn both legitimate investors and highly organized fraudsters. Fraudulent investment sites that promise implausible returns have misappropriated millions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT from unsuspecting individuals. These scams frequently present a professional façade—complete with fabricated endorsements and polished websites—and disappear after investors transfer funds. If you have been targeted by such a scheme, META TECH RECOVERY PRO offers specialized recovery services to assist in reclaiming stolen digital assets such as Bitcoin, USDT, Ethereum, Doge, NFTs, USDC, BNB, Tether, and more.
Mechanics of Fraudulent Crypto Investment Schemes Scammers construct sophisticated plots intended to mimic authentic investment offerings. Typical methods include:
Unrealistic Return Promises — Claims of guaranteed, substantial profits with negligible risk.
Fabricated Endorsements — Invented testimonials portraying “satisfied investors.”
High-Pressure Solicitation — Insistence on immediate deposits to capture “limited-time” opportunities.
Platform Deception — Displaying falsified account growth while preventing withdrawals.
After amassing significant deposits, these operations commonly vanish, leaving victims unable to retrieve their funds.
Why Professional Recovery Is Essential Although blockchain transactions are inherently irreversible, misappropriated cryptocurrency can often be tracked via the public ledger. META TECH RECOVERY PRO focuses on:
Blockchain Forensics — Following stolen funds through numerous wallets and transactions.
Collaboration with Exchanges — Partnering with compliant exchanges to freeze and recover assets.
Legal Remedies — Pursuing judicial and regulatory measures when appropriate to improve recovery prospects.
Their staff of certified blockchain analysts employs advanced investigative tools to trace the digital footprint left by fraudsters, uncovering recovery opportunities that individual victims are unlikely to identify.
META TECH RECOVERY PRO's Recovery Procedure Free Case Evaluation — Prompt review of the reported scam.
Transaction Tracing — In-depth examination of fund flows.
Recovery Plan — Tailored strategy based on the destination of the funds.
Asset Retrieval — Direct engagement with exchanges and legal mechanisms.
Act Quickly — Time Is of the Essence Fraudsters rapidly attempt to launder stolen proceeds through methods such as:Mixing servicesDecentralized exchangesPrivacy-focused coinsForeign exchanges
Immediately, you notice any foul play or if you are being scammed, don't hesitate to reach out to META TECH RECOVERY PRO. A quick report of fraudulent cases maximizes the chances of successful recovery. META TECH RECOVERY PRO gives priority to urgent matters to enhance success rates.
Reasons to Select META TECH RECOVERY PRO Proven Results — Demonstrated recoveries across multiple scam types.
No Upfront Charges — Fees are due only upon successful recovery.
Certified Personnel — Team comprises blockchain forensic experts.
International Reach — Established relationships with exchanges around the world.
Do Not Allow Fraudsters to Prevail. If you have been defrauded by a counterfeit investment platform, engaging professional assistance provides the greatest likelihood of restitution. META TECH RECOVERY PRO offers a complimentary consultation to evaluate your situation and outline available options.
Keep the conversation in one place—threads here stay linked to the story and in the forums.
Other hot threads
E-sports and Gaming Community in Kenya
Active 8 months ago
The Role of Technology in Modern Agriculture (AgriTech)
Active 8 months ago
Popular Recreational Activities Across Counties
Active 8 months ago
Investing in Youth Sports Development Programs
Active 8 months ago
Feb 9, 2026
Feb 9, 2026
Feb 9, 2026
Watch CBS News
February 8, 2026 / 11:03 PM CST
/ CBS Chicago
Patricia Martin, a lawyer turned judge who spent 24 years on the bench, rising to become the top judge in Cook County's Juvenile Court, seemed to have the credentials to be trusted handling the finances of Oscar Lawton Wilkerson as he reached his mid-90s.
She had been related to the former Tuskegee Airman and agreed to help. Instead of helping Wilkerson, court records show Martin instead helped herself to his cash, moving money from his accounts and buying bitcoin.
Eric Puryear has known Wilkerson his entire life, as his grandfather was Wilkerson's best friend. They trusted Martin to manage the money, considering her an adopted family member.
"Every box for trustworthiness seemed to be checked there, and so she seemed to be the perfect person," said Puryear. "She seemed like the perfect person on paper. In hindsight, she was not."
The first sign of trouble came in August 2020, when the nursing home where Wilkerson was living called to say they had not been paid in months, and $41,000 was owed immediately. Puryear started looking into what happened with Wilkerson's finances.
"Account balances weren't right, checks were being dishonored," said Puryear. "Serious financial problem."
This didn't make sense to Puryear. Wilkerson had saved plenty and now was facing a new battle after all he sacrificed.
"He's a Tuskegee Airmen, World War II veteran, just an all-around wonderful person," said Puryear. "Dealing with segregation, dealing with all of that while still also flying, it is amazing."
Wilkerson made history as one of America's first Black military pilots. Tuskegee Airmen took frontline risks and then took heat as boundary breakers that many didn't like. After the military, Wilkerson flew for fun and became a Chicago-based radio technician. He married, never had kids, and saved for his golden years.
"It was clear Lawton should have had hundreds of thousands of dollars, certainly enough to take care of him for the rest of his life, because he'd worked so hard and saved so hard," said Puryear.
Puryear reached out to Martin about the missing funds, but wasn't getting an answer from her.
"She attempted to dodge and evade, like apparently she'd been doing for some number of months at that point, and she didn't seem to have the time to return a phone call over such an important thing," said Puryear. "You'd think, if she was innocent, that would have caused her to want to communicate right away, but she didn't."
It was a critical time for Wilkerson since, without paying what he owed the nursing home, he was told he was going to have to move out of the place he called home if things weren't settled.
"She stole the money, we can see from some of the documents we've gotten," said Puryear. "All of her actions, they shock the conscience."
Court documents show 11 withdrawals over 18 months, with Martin shutting down accounts and pocketing more than $245,000, moving most of her new wealth into hard-to-track bitcoin. She was arrested and faced various charges, including money laundering and financial exploitation of an elderly person. She pleaded guilty to one felony theft count and was sentenced to four years of probation.
"Probation and a felony conviction for that sort of theft from that sort of a victim just is not quite enough," said Puryear. "It's hard to think of something more evil for her to have done, but she did."
Puryear, an attorney, filed a lawsuit on Wilkerson's behalf to get his money back, accusing Martin of stealing more than $380,000. During that case, Martin repeatedly failed to show up for court hearings. The judge ordered her to halt all transactions, but court documents show she ignored that, too, and moved more money. In the end, the judge ordered Martin to pay up nearly $1.2 million in damages – triple the amount she stole.
"It makes me wonder what is wrong in Patricia's heart that she would do that to somebody," said Puryear.
Martin appealed the lawsuit judgment and had it overturned, in part because Wilkerson died. Wilkerson's loved ones are planning to file another lawsuit, continuing their fight to get back the money Martin took.
She lost her law license because of all this, admitting: "… the evidence would clearly and convincingly establish the facts and conclusions of misconduct."
Wilkerson's care never suffered due to Martin's theft, but for a man whose legacy is etched in history, the moves of Martin are etched in the minds of those who loved him most.
"Lawton was such a fine man; one of the finest people I have ever met in my life," said Puryear. "And Patricia Martin is one of the absolute worst humans, and to see that contrast between them is breathtaking."
Martin declined to speak with CBS News Chicago for this story. The former judge continues to draw her government pension.
© 2026 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(05:37)
©2026 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek's goal with ai.com is to build “a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”
Cointelegraph in your social feed
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek has officially launched his new website, ai.com, to the public, allowing users to create personal AI agents that can perform everyday tasks on their behalf.
The ai.com commercial aired during Super Bowl 60 on NBC on Monday, leveraging the sporting event's massive audience — over 100 million viewers in previous years — to promote the beta launch of the AI platform.
For now, users can register their ai.com username handles, but must then wait in a queue to have their private, personalized AI agents spun out for them.
Marszalek said the AI agents can perform anything from managing emails and scheduling meetings to canceling subscriptions, carrying out shopping tasks and planning trips.
Marszalek said his mission with ai.com is to accelerate artificial general intelligence “by building a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.”
ChatGPT creator OpenAI launched an enterprise-focused AI agent platform, Frontier, last week, while software engineer Peter Steinberger released AI agent OpenClaw in November 2025, which gained popularity in January.
Marszalek said he bought the AI-themed domain in April for $70 million — the largest publicly disclosed domain sale in history — and has since built a team to bring the product to market.
Pseudonymous crypto and AI researcher 0xSammy said the move resembles how Marszalek scaled Crypto.com to over 150 million customers by buying a popular domain and investing heavily in marketing:
Marszalek said ai.com had “insane traffic” in the first few hours after launch, which briefly caused the website to crash before it came back online.
Google ran a 60-second Gemini AI advertisement during Super Bowl 60, while Anthropic also ran a commercial promoting its Claude chatbot.
Related: Crypto PACs secure massive war chests ahead of US midterms
Amazon also ran a commercial showcasing its Alexa AI product, while Meta advertised Oakley-branded AI glasses.
These tech companies reportedly paid around $8 million to run 30-second advertisements during the Super Bowl.
Magazine: The critical reason you should never ask ChatGPT for legal advice
FOLLOW US
MOBILE APPS
COINTELEGRAPH NEWSLETTER
Cointelegraph covers fintech, blockchain and Bitcoin bringing you the latest crypto news and analyses on the future of money.
© Cointelegraph 2013 - 2026
Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries. To support open access to our website and sustain editorial operations, certain commercial or partner references may appear on our site. These arrangements help maintain an accessible platform and do not result in additional costs to readers.
Editorial decisions are never influenced by commercial relationships. All news, reviews, and analysis are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.
All sponsored and commercial content, including press releases, is clearly labeled and reviewed for accuracy, disclosure and compliance. All partners are reviewed prior to entering any paid partnership.
All sponsored and commercial content, including press releases, is clearly labeled and reviewed for accuracy, disclosure and compliance. All partners are reviewed prior to entering any paid partnership.
All sponsored and commercial content, including press releases, is clearly labeled and reviewed for accuracy, disclosure and compliance. All partners are reviewed prior to entering any paid partnership.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Nature Ecology & Evolution
(2026)Cite this article
Analysis of marine fish populations reveals that nonlinear dynamics are widespread and that the degree of nonlinearity is elevated by high temperature variation and for species with fast life histories. These findings support the nonlinear amplification hypothesis and challenge assumptions of stable equilibrium dynamics commonly used in ecology studies and in fisheries management.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Clark, T. J. & Luis, A. D. Nonlinear population dynamics are ubiquitous in animals. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 75–81 (2020). A broad analysis that reveals widespread nonlinear dynamics in animal populations.
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Rogers, T. L., Johnson, B. J. & Munch, S. B. Chaos is not rare in natural ecosystems. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 6, 1105–1111 (2022). This article reveals chaos, a type of nonlinear and unstable behaviour, to be readily displayed in animals.
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Anderson, C. N. K. et al. Why fishing magnifies fluctuations in fish abundance. Nature 452, 835–839 (2008). This article identifies elevated nonlinearity as the cause of more variable fluctuations in exploited compared to unexploited fishes.
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Munch, S. B., Rogers, T. L. & Sugihara, G. Recent developments in empirical dynamic modelling. Methods Ecol. Evol. 14, 732–745 (2023). This review presents an accessible introduction to nonlinear dynamics and the empirical dynamic modelling framework.
Article
Google Scholar
Ye, H. et al. Equation-free mechanistic ecosystem forecasting using empirical dynamic modeling. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, E1569–E1576 (2015). This article demonstrates improved prediction skill of empirical dynamic models compared with conventional fisheries models, for sockeye salmon.
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Download references
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This is a summary of: Hechler, R. M. & Krkosek, M. Temperature variation and life history mediate nonlinearity in fluctuations of marine fish populations worldwide. Nat. Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02968-1 (2026).
Reprints and permissions
Nonlinearity in marine fish populations is amplified by temperature variation and fast life histories.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02962-7
Download citation
Published: 09 February 2026
Version of record: 09 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02962-7
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Nature Ecology & Evolution
(Nat Ecol Evol)
ISSN 2397-334X (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.
For years researchers have tried to unlock the impressive underwater abilities of the diving bell spider, and new study details their best attempt yet.
Here's what you'll learn when reading this story:
The natural world is humanity's greatest inspiration, and its influence can be seen all throughout our modern society. The nose of a bullet train slopes just like the beak of a kingfisher. Honeycomb-inspired architecture maximizes storage while minimizing building materials. Velcro closely mimics the hooked barbs of the common burdock plant. So, it comes as no surprise that in the pursuit of creating an unsinkable ship, scientists have once again ripped a page from nature's playbook.
This time, the engineering inspiration was drawn from one of the most fascinating arachnids in the animal kingdom: the diving bell spider (Argyroneta aquatica). This spider is the only member of the genus Argyronetidae and the only species of spider to live almost entirely underwater. However, it still does have to breathe air, so it creates a dome-shaped web known as a “diving bell.” Then, using its superhydrophobic (SH) arms and abdomen, it fills those webs with breathable air bubbles carried in from elsewhere in the environment.
“That was a very interesting inspiration,” Chunlei Guo said in a press statement back in 2019. For more than a decade, Guo has investigated ways to leverage the superhydrophobic abilities of the diving bell spider to create a material that's essentially unsinkable. In a new paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, Guo and his team from the University of Rochester have created the most advanced prototype yet by simplifying and improving the technology in multiple ways.
In 2019, the team outlined a technique that etched complicated nano- and microscale patterns into metal so that they trapped air and created a superhydrophobic surface. Two treated parallel plates were then arranged facing inward, trapping enough air to maintain flotation while creating a waterproof compartment. After submerging this material under load for two months, the structure immediately resurfaced when the load was removed. The team published that outline in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
While this design proved promising, it wasn't perfect, as the structures lost buoyancy when turned at extreme angles.
“Importantly, we added a divider to the middle of the tube so that even if you push it vertically into the water, the bubble of air remains trapped inside and the tube retains its floating ability,” Guo said in a press statement about the new 2026 study, referencing improvements made over the 2019 study. “We tested them in some really rough environments for weeks at a time and found no degradation to their buoyancy. You can poke big holes in them, and we showed that even if you severely damage the tubes with as many holes as you can punch, they still float.”
It doesn't take much imagination to understand why “unsinkable” materials could be of significant benefit. Guo said that these superhydrophobic tubes can be rafted together to handle large loads or serve as the flotation bedrock of emerging green energy technologies like wave energy generators.
All thanks to a small, water-dwelling spider.
Get the issue
Get the issue
Get the issue
Get the issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Get the Issue
Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.
This Cave Is Full of Million-Year-Old Fossils
Chernobyl Stewards May Pass Mutations to Children
Volunteer Archaeologist Finds Centuries-Old Ring
Are There More Humans on Earth Than We Thought?
We May Have Been Wrong About the Origin of Life
Stuck Stem Cells Culprit for Gray Hair
Something Is Alive Below Fukushima's Dead Reactors
Scientists Digitally Reconstructed a Lost War Base
A Toddler Accidentally Found a Priceless Historical Artifact
Scientists Found Mummies with Different DNA
Did Scientists Find the Key to Staying Young?
Africa Is Drying Up and Tearing in Two—Literally
A Part of Hearst Digital Media
We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.
©2026 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Nature Communications
, Article number: (2026)
Cite this article
We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its
findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note
there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
As natural hosts of avian influenza viruses, wild birds pose an increasing threat to public health. Here, using surveillance data from wild bird infections across the United States (2022-2025), we show that HPAI-H5 transmission exhibits strong interspecific variation, seasonality, and spatial heterogeneity linked to migratory flyways. Phylogeographic analysis reveals that viral genotypes evolve from early, limited transmission along single migratory routes to a nationwide dispersal pattern spanning multiple migratory flyways. Anseriformes exhibits the highest number of infections but the lowest transmission risk, whereas Strigiformes demonstrates the greatest transmission risk. The HPAI-H5 transmission in wild birds along migratory flyways exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity and is associated with bird migration. Meteorological conditions are correlated with outbreak timing and may inform early warning efforts; however, these relationships are nonlinear. These findings provide a foundation for risk assessment, early warning systems, and integrated management of avian influenza in wild bird populations.
The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available in the paper and the Supplementary Information file. The raw data and code have been uploaded to GitHub (https://github.com/kfang0/wild-bird-analysis-and-risk-assessment). Details on how to access the previously reported H5 sequencing data analyzed in this study (including GISAID accession numbers) are provided in the Source Data file accompanying this manuscript. For further information, please contact the corresponding author. Source data are provided with this paper.
Xiong, W. & Zhang, Z. Influenza Virus Genomic Mutations, Host Barrier and Cross-species Transmission. Curr Genomics 26, 161–174 (2025).
Klim, H. et al. Serological analysis in humans in Malaysian Borneo suggests prior exposure to H5 avian influenza near migratory shorebird habitats. Nat. Commun. 15, 8863 (2024).
Google Scholar
Fang, K. et al. Detection and prevalence of avian influenza epidemic in the southwest of Poyang Lake and analysis of the influence of meteorological factors. One Health 20, 101047 (2025).
Google Scholar
Dokter, A. M. et al. Seasonal abundance and survival of North America's migratory avifauna determined by weather radar. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 1603–1609 (2018).
Google Scholar
Nguyen, T.-Q. et al. Emergence and interstate spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) in dairy cattle in the United States. Science 388, eadq0900 (2025).
Google Scholar
Taylor, L. First ever human case of H5N5 avian flu confirmed in the US. BMJ 391, r2453 (2025).
Google Scholar
Xie, R. et al. The episodic resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 virus. Nature 622, 810–817 (2023).
Google Scholar
Tian, H. et al. Avian influenza H5N1 viral and bird migration networks in Asia. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 112, 172–177 (2015).
Google Scholar
Olsen, B. et al. Global patterns of influenza A virus in wild birds. Science 312, 384–388 (2006).
Google Scholar
Leguia, M. et al. Highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) in marine mammals and seabirds in Peru. Nat. Commun. 14, 5489 (2023).
Google Scholar
Youk, S. et al. H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza clade 2.3.4.4b in wild and domestic birds: introductions into the United States and reassortments, December 2021-April 2022. Virology 587, 109860 (2023).
Google Scholar
Alcayna, T., Rao, V. B. & Lowe, R. Identifying the climate sensitivity of infectious diseases: a conceptual framework. Lancet Planet Health 9, 101291 (2025).
Google Scholar
Zhang, L. B., Ma, Z. & Liu, Y. Biological traits and biome features mediate responses of terrestrial bird demography to droughts. J. Anim. Ecol. 93, 1868–1880 (2024).
Google Scholar
Koopmans, M. P. G. et al. The panzootic spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 sublineage 2.3.4.4b: a critical appraisal of One Health preparedness and prevention. Lancet Infect. Dis. 24, e774–e781 (2024).
Google Scholar
Cui, P. et al. Global dissemination of H5N1 influenza viruses bearing the clade 2.3.4.4b HA gene and biologic analysis of the ones detected in China. Emerg. Microbes Infect. 11, 1693–1704 (2022).
Google Scholar
Damodaran, L., Jaeger, A. S. & Moncla, L. H. Ecology and spread of the North American H5N1 epizootic. Nature 649, 432–441 (2026).
Google Scholar
Islam, A. et al. Potential risk zones and climatic factors influencing the occurrence and persistence of avian influenza viruses in the environment of live bird markets in Bangladesh. One Health 17, 100644 (2023).
Google Scholar
Fujimoto, Y. & Haga, T. Association between highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks and weather conditions in Japan. J. Vet. Med. Sci. 86, 1045–1051 (2024).
Google Scholar
Fourment, M., Darling, A. E. & Holmes, E. C. The impact of migratory flyways on the spread of avian influenza virus in North America. BMC Evol Biol 17, 118 (2017).
Vidaña, B. et al. The role of birds of prey in West Nile virus epidemiology. Vaccines 8, 550 (2020).
Google Scholar
Grear, D. A., Hall, J. S., Dusek, R. J. & Ip, H. S. Inferring epidemiologic dynamics from viral evolution: 2014–2015 Eurasian/North American highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses exceed transmission threshold, R0 = 1, in wild birds and poultry in North America. Evolut. Appl. 11, 547–557 (2018).
Google Scholar
McKenna, O. P., Mushet, D. M., Kucia, S. R. & McCulloch-Huseby, E. C. Limited shifts in the distribution of migratory bird breeding habitat density in response to future changes in climate. Ecol. Appl. 31, e02428 (2021).
Google Scholar
Prosser, D. J., Teitelbaum, C. S., Yin, S., Hill, N. J. & Xiao, X. Climate change impacts on bird migration and highly pathogenic avian influenza. Nat. Microbiol. 8, 2223–2225 (2023).
Google Scholar
Khare, S. et al. GISAID's Role in Pandemic Response. China CDC Wkly 3, 1049–1051 (2021).
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. https://www.aphis.usda.gov (2025).
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access (2025).
Birds of the World - Comprehensive life histories for all bird species and families. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/home (2025).
Migratory Bird Program Administrative Flyways | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. https://www.fws.gov/partner/migratory-bird-program-administrative-flyways (2025).
Kim, W.-H. & Cho, S. Estimation of the basic reproduction numbers of the subtypes H5N1, H5N8, and H5N6 during the highly pathogenic avian influenza epidemic spread between farms. Front. Vet. Sci. 8, 597630 (2021).
Google Scholar
Wallinga, J. & Lipsitch, M. How generation intervals shape the relationship between growth rates and reproductive numbers. Proc. Biol. Sci. 274, 599–604 (2007).
Google Scholar
Wand, H., Dassaye, R., Reddy, T., Yssel, J. & Ramjee, G. Geographical-level contributions of risk factors for HIV infections using generalized additive models: results from a cohort of South African women. AIDS Care 31, 714–722 (2019).
Google Scholar
Zimbalist, A. et al. Utilization of locally estimated scatterplot smoothing (LOESS) regression to estimate missing weights in a longitudinal cohort of breast cancer patients. Ann. Epidemiol. 104, 55–60 (2025).
Google Scholar
Lin, L. et al. Spatiotemporal distribution of migraine in China: analyses based on Baidu index. BMC Public Health 23, 1958 (2023).
Google Scholar
Zhang, C., Luo, L., Xu, W. & Ledwith, V. Use of local Moran's I and GIS to identify pollution hotspots of Pb in urban soils of Galway, Ireland. Sci. Total Environ. 398, 212–221 (2008).
Google Scholar
Download references
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) for providing open-access data. We thank Dr. Song Chao's team from the West China School of Public Health, Sichuan University, for their assistance with model development in the early stages. We also thank Edward Hill from the University of Liverpool for offering crucial insights into the manuscript. This research was financially supported by the Self-supporting Program of Guangzhou Laboratory (GZNL2024A01004 and SRPG22-007), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFC2311404), the Fujian Guiding Science and Technology Plan Project (2023Y0004), the Science and Technology Project of Jiangxi Provincial Health Commission (202410978), the Major Science and Technological Project of Jiangxi Province (20201BBG71010), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (K2825002) and the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF (GZC20250516).
These authors jointly supervised this work: Zeyu Zhao, Wentao Song, Tianmu Chen.
State Key Laboratory of Vaccines for Infectious Diseases, Xiang An Biomedicine Laboratory, National Innovation Platform for Industry-Education Integration in Vaccine Research, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China
Kang Fang, Jiahui Li, Hongfeng Zhao, Jiangshaya Bahati, Zeyu Zhao & Tianmu Chen
Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Jiangxi Medical Center for Critical Public Health Events, the First Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
Wentao Song
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
K.F.: conceptualization, data analysis, visualization, writing—original draft; J.H.L.: data analysis, visualization, and writing—review; H.F.Z. and J.B.: visualization and data analysis; Z.Y.Z., W.T.S., and T.M.C.: conceptualization, project administration, writing—review and editing. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to
Zeyu Zhao, Wentao Song or Tianmu Chen.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Communications thanks Dae-Sung Yoo, and the other, anonymous, reviewer for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
Fang, K., Li, J., Zhao, H. et al. Assessing HPAI-H5 transmission risk across wild bird migratory flyways in the United States.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69344-w
Download citation
Received: 10 June 2025
Accepted: 27 January 2026
Published: 09 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69344-w
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Nature Communications
(Nat Commun)
ISSN 2041-1723 (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Nature Communications
, Article number: (2026)
Cite this article
We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its
findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note
there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
Vaccines to prevent herpes zoster have been associated with reduced dementia risk. We conducted a retrospective matched cohort study of Kaiser Permanente Southern California members aged ≥65 years who received two doses of RZV 4 weeks–6 months apart between 01 April 2018 and 31 December 2020, with no dementia diagnoses or dementia medications prior to or within 6 months of their second RZV dose. Cox regression with inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs). The study included 65,800 RZV-vaccinated individuals and 263,200 unvaccinated matches. Vaccination with two doses of RZV was associated with a 51% lower risk of dementia (aHR: 0.49 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.46–0.51]); aHRs were comparable across age, and racial and ethnic groups, but the risk reduction was stronger in females compared to males. In an evaluation of potential healthy vaccinee bias, the aHR of dementia for RZV compared to Tdap was 0.73 (95% CI: 0.67–0.79). Vaccination with two doses of RZV is associated with a statistically significant reduction in the risk of dementia in adults aged ≥65 years. After accounting for healthy vaccinee bias, RZV vaccination remains associated with a statistically significant lower risk of dementia.
Individual-level data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns and protection of patient identities. Requests for aggregate-level data may be submitted to KPSC and are subject to review. De-identified aggregate-level data that support the findings of this study may be shared upon approval of a proposal and a signed data access agreement.
Epidemiological analyses were conducted using standard commands in SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute; Cary, North Carolina, USA).
World Health Organization. Dementia (WHO, 2025).
2024 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures. Alzheimers Dement 20, 3708–3821 (2024).
GBD 2019 Dementia Forecasting Collaborators. Estimation of the global prevalence of dementia in 2019 and forecasted prevalence in 2050: an analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Lancet Public Health 7, e105–e125 (2022).
Gao, J. et al. The association between varicella zoster virus and dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Neurol. Sci. 45, 27–36 (2024).
Google Scholar
Wainberg, M. et al. The viral hypothesis: how herpesviruses may contribute to Alzheimer's disease. Mol. Psychiatry 26, 5476–5480 (2021).
Google Scholar
Devanand, D. P. Viral hypothesis and antiviral treatment in Alzheimer's disease. Curr. Neurol. Neurosci. Rep. 18, 55 (2018).
Google Scholar
Moir, R. D., Lathe, R. & Tanzi, R. E. The antimicrobial protection hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Dement 14, 1602–1614 (2018).
Google Scholar
Itzhaki, R. F. et al. Microbes and Alzheimer's disease. J. Alzheimers Dis. 51, 979–984 (2016).
Google Scholar
Hyde, V. R. et al. Anti-herpetic tau preserves neurons via the cGAS-STING-TBK1 pathway in Alzheimer's disease. Cell Rep. 44, 115109 (2025).
Google Scholar
Gershon, A. A. et al. Varicella zoster virus infection. Nat. Rev. Dis. Prim. 1, 15016 (2015).
Google Scholar
Steiner, I., Kennedy, P. G. & Pachner, A. R. The neurotropic herpes viruses: herpes simplex and varicella-zoster. Lancet Neurol. 6, 1015–1028 (2007).
Google Scholar
Thapa, S. et al. Risk of dementia following herpes zoster infection among patients undertreatment versus those not: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Health Sci. Rep. 7, e1941 (2024).
Google Scholar
Chen, V. C. et al. Herpes zoster and dementia: a nationwide population-based cohort study. J. Clin. Psychiatry 79, 16m11312 (2018).
Bae, S. et al. Association of herpes zoster with dementia and effect of antiviral therapy on dementia: a population-based cohort study. Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 271, 987–997 (2021).
Google Scholar
Zhang, Y., Liu, W. & Xu, Y. Association between herpes zoster and Parkinson's disease and dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front. Neurol. 15, 1471736 (2024).
Google Scholar
Levine, K. S. et al. Virus exposure and neurodegenerative disease risk across national biobanks. Neuron 111, 1086–1093.e1082 (2023).
Google Scholar
Cairns, D. M., Itzhaki, R. F. & Kaplan, D. L. Potential involvement of varicella zoster virus in Alzheimer's disease via reactivation of quiescent herpes simplex virus type 1. J. Alzheimers Dis. 88, 1189–1200 (2022).
Google Scholar
Anwar, M. M. The emerging mechanism behind viral infections and extracellular vesicles hypotheses leading to neuroinflammation and Alzheimer's disease pathology. Ibrain 9, 63–71 (2023).
Google Scholar
Bronzuoli, M. R., Iacomino, A., Steardo, L. & Scuderi, C. Targeting neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's disease. J. Inflamm. Res. 9, 199–208 (2016).
Google Scholar
Gilden, D., Cohrs, R. J., Mahalingam, R. & Nagel, M. A. Varicella zoster virus vasculopathies: diverse clinical manifestations, laboratory features, pathogenesis, and treatment. Lancet Neurol. 8, 731–740 (2009).
Google Scholar
Lehrer, S. & Rheinstein, P. H. Herpes zoster vaccination reduces risk of dementia. Vivo 35, 3271–3275 (2021).
Google Scholar
Lophatananon, A. et al. Shingles, Zostavax vaccination and risk of developing dementia: a nested case-control study-results from the UK Biobank cohort. BMJ Open 11, e045871 (2021).
Google Scholar
Scherrer, J. F. et al. Impact of herpes zoster vaccination on incident dementia: a retrospective study in two patient cohorts. PLoS ONE 16, e0257405 (2021).
Google Scholar
Schnier, C., Janbek, J., Lathe, R. & Haas, J. Reduced dementia incidence after varicella zoster vaccination in Wales 2013-2020. Alzheimers Dement 8, e12293 (2022).
Google Scholar
Remschmidt, C., Wichmann, O. & Harder, T. Frequency and impact of confounding by indication and healthy vaccinee bias in observational studies assessing influenza vaccine effectiveness: a systematic review. BMC Infect. Dis. 15, 429 (2015).
Google Scholar
Ford, D. V. et al. The SAIL Databank: building a national architecture for e-health research and evaluation. BMC Health Serv. Res. 9, 157 (2009).
Google Scholar
Eyting, M. et al. A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia. Nature 641, 438–446 (2025).
The Medical Letter. Herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax). Med. Lett. Drugs Ther. 48, 73–74 (2006).
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What Everyone Should Know about Zostavax (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020).
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Approval letter - SHINGRIX. Vol. 2025. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/shingrix (2017).
Lal, H. et al. Efficacy of an adjuvanted herpes zoster subunit vaccine in older adults. N. Engl. J. Med. 372, 2087–2096 (2015).
Google Scholar
Cunningham, A. L. et al. Efficacy of the herpes zoster subunit vaccine in adults 70 years of age or older. N. Engl. J. Med. 375, 1019–1032 (2016).
Google Scholar
Dooling, K. L. et al. Recommendations of the advisory committee on immunization practices for use of herpes zoster vaccines. MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly Rep. 67, 103–108 (2018).
Google Scholar
Taquet, M., Dercon, Q., Todd, J. A. & Harrison, P. J. The recombinant shingles vaccine is associated with lower risk of dementia. Nat. Med. 30, 2777–2781 (2024).
Google Scholar
Tang, E., Ray, I., Arnold, B. F. & Acharya, N. R. Recombinant zoster vaccine and the risk of dementia. Vaccine 46, 126673 (2025).
Google Scholar
Liu, Y., Jun, H., Becker, A., Wallick, C. & Mattke, S. Detection rates of mild cognitive impairment in primary care for the United States Medicare population. J. Prev. Alzheimers Dis. 11, 7–12 (2024).
Google Scholar
Mattke, S. et al. Expected and diagnosed rates of mild cognitive impairment and dementia in the U.S. Medicare population: observational analysis. Alzheimers Res Ther. 15, 128 (2023).
Google Scholar
Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation. Fast Facts. https://www.kp-scalresearch.org/aboutus/fast-facts/ (2024).
Chen, W. et al. Research data warehouse: using electronic health records to conduct population-based observational studies. JAMIA Open 6, ooad039 (2023).
Google Scholar
Koebnick, C. et al. Sociodemographic characteristics of members of a large, integrated health care system: comparison with US Census Bureau data. Perm. J. 16, 37–41 (2012).
Google Scholar
International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. Guidelines for Good Pharmacoepidemiology Practices (GPP) (Revision 3). https://www.pharmacoepi.org/resources/policies/guidelines-08027/Vol. 2025 (2015).
Austin, P. C. An introduction to propensity score methods for reducing the effects of confounding in observational studies. Multivar. Behav. Res. 46, 399–424 (2011).
Google Scholar
Tartof, S. Y. et al. Safety of seasonal influenza vaccination in hospitalized surgical patients: a cohort study. Ann. Intern Med. 164, 593–599 (2016).
Google Scholar
Salmon, D. A., Black, S., Didierlaurent, A. M. & Moulton, L. H. Commentary on “common vaccines and the risk of dementia: a population-based cohort study”: science can be messy but eventually leads to truths. J. Infect. Dis. 227, 1224–1226 (2023).
Google Scholar
VanderWeele, T. J. & Ding, P. Sensitivity analysis in observational research: introducing the E-value. Ann. Intern Med. 167, 268–274 (2017).
Google Scholar
Quan, H. et al. Updating and validating the Charlson comorbidity index and score for risk adjustment in hospital discharge abstracts using data from 6 countries. Am. J. Epidemiol. 173, 676–682 (2011).
Google Scholar
Kim, D. H. et al. Measuring frailty in medicare data: development and validation of a claims-based frailty index. J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 73, 980–987 (2018).
Google Scholar
Download references
This work was supported and funded by GSK. Medical writing assistance for the manuscript and coordination were provided by Akkodis Belgium c/o GSK. The authors would like to thank the patients of Kaiser Permanente for their partnership. Their information, collected through our electronic health record system, leads to findings that help us improve care for our patients and can be shared with the larger community.
Department of Research & Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA, USA
Emily Rayens, Lina S. Sy, Lei Qian, Bradley K. Ackerson, Julia Tubert, Yi Luo, Punam P. Modha, Raul O. Calderon & Hung Fu Tseng
GSK, Rockville, MD, USA
Elizabeth Chmielewski-Yee, Driss Oraichi & Huifeng Yun
GSK, Collegeville, PA, USA
Carol Koro
Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, School of Pharmacy, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA
Carol Koro
Department of Health Systems Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA, USA
Hung Fu Tseng
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
E.R. is the guarantor of the work and accepts full responsibility for the integrity of the study and the decision to publish. E.R., L.S.S., L.Q., B.K.A., J.T., Y.L., E.C-Y., D.O., H.Y., C.K., and H.F.T. designed and conducted this study, including interpretation of data. L.Q., J.T., and Y.L. performed statistical analysis. P.P.M. and R.O.C. provided administrative, technical, and material support. E.R. drafted the manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript and contributed to the final drafting. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.
Correspondence to
Emily Rayens.
The authors declare the following competing interests: E.R., L.S.S., L.Q., B.K.A., Y.L., P.P.M., and H.F.T. received research funding from AstraZeneca. E.R., L.S.S., L.Q., B.K.A., J.T., Y.L., P.P.M., and H.F.T. received research funding from Moderna. ER and BKA received research funding from F2G, Inc. L.S.S., L.Q., and B.K.A. received research funding from Dynavax. B.K.A., J.T., and R.O.C. received research funding from Pfizer. B.K.A. received research funding from Genentech. E.R., L.S.S., L.Q., B.K.A., Y.L., P.P.M., and H.F.T. received research funding from GSK (unrelated to this study). E.C-Y., D.O., H.Y., and C.K. are employed by GSK and hold financial equities in GSK. The authors declare no other financial or non-financial interests.
Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Findings from this study were presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2025.
Shingrix is a trademark owned by or licensed to GSK. Zostavax is a trademark of Merck.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
Rayens, E., Sy, L.S., Qian, L. et al. Recombinant zoster vaccine is associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69289-0
Download citation
Received: 15 July 2025
Accepted: 28 January 2026
Published: 09 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69289-0
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Nature Communications
(Nat Commun)
ISSN 2041-1723 (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.
February 9, 2026
7 min read
How the ‘Quad God' lands impossible jumps
How do figure skaters like Ilia Malinin keep landing harder and harder jumps?
By Allison Parshall edited by Andrea Thompson
Ilia Malinin competes in the Championship Men Free Skating during the 2026 United States Figure Skating Championships at Enterprise Center on January 10, 2026, in St Louis, Mo.
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
From skating to curling, the thrilling sports of the Winter Olympics have plenty of science behind them. Follow our coverage here to learn more.
For at least a decade, the quadruple axel jump was figure skating's white whale. “It's been this unreachable thing, like the four-minute mile” once was, says Matthew Lind, a technical specialist for U.S. Figure Skating. Throughout the 2010s male skaters kept landing new jumps that rotate four times in the air: the lutz, the loop, the flip. But at 4.5 rotations, the quad axel is a special case, and it remained incredibly risky to attempt, let alone to perfect.
Then came Ilia Malinin. In a video on the U.S. skater's Instagram, he lands two in a row with only a split second between them, like it's nothing. He became the first—and still, the only—skater to land the quad axel in competition in 2022. He calls himself the Quad God, and it's hard to disagree with him.
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
“He's a phenom,” says figure skating coach and former Olympian Karen Preston. His jumps “are pretty darn close to perfect.”
Malinin represents the direction in which figure skating has been moving for at least 20 years, rewarding harder and flashier jumps. I spoke with figure skating coaches and biomechanics researchers to learn how these jumps became possible, what makes Malinin special, and whether we're headed toward the era of quintuples.
From a physics perspective, the six main jumps of figure skating are variations on the same theme. Skaters glide along the ice to build momentum, then twist themselves up like springs and push off with explosive muscle movements. They have two goals: to jump high to maximize their time in the air and to rotate fast to complete the turns before their foot comes slamming back to the ice. During takeoff, skaters push off the ice at an angle, which lets them maximize angular momentum, or the ability to rotate quickly.
Each jump accomplishes this differently. The axel is the only jump in which skaters take off while facing forward, which is part of what makes it so difficult—because it is landed backward, skaters must rotate an extra half turn before they land. The five other jumps take off backward and can be launched from the figure skate blade's distinctive toe pick or from either of its two edges.
Amanda Montañez
Though the jumps may be similar physics-wise, for the human body, every jump is different. And they only get harder with more rotations, requiring skaters to propel higher and rotate faster. The margin for error becomes slim. “You're really putting your body at risk,” Lind says. For elite skaters, landing these harder jumps requires strength and conditioning, innate talent, mental focus, great coaches—and a slight body, explains biomechanics researcher Lee Cabell, who coaches figure skating at IceWorks Skating Club in Pennsylvania.
The importance of a narrow body comes down to physics. Because angular momentum must be conserved, skaters can't change their rotation potential once they're in the air. But they can change their spinning speed by pulling their arms close to their body. This movement brings more of the skater's mass closer to their axis of rotation, decreasing what's called their moment of inertia and increasing the speed of their rotation by making it require less force.
Narrower bodies, then, have the capacity to spin faster. “These very slight but muscular athletes really have the advantage for rotating,” says Sarah T. Ridge, a biomechanics researcher at the University of Hartford, who studies figure skating. With his slight body, immense talent, and parents who are former Olympians and double as his coaches, Malinin is a rare skater with the whole package, Cabell says. Another outlier is Nathan Chen, who landed five quads in one program at the 2022 Olympics and took home the gold. Both have dominated the sport, with scores far above the rest of the pack.
Amanda Montañez; Source: skakingscores.com (data)
For a while, it seemed like quads were taking over women's skating, too. In the early 2020s the field was dominated by young, predominantly Russian teenagers who could land quads, a feat that is easier in narrower, prepubescent bodies. But after one of these young skaters was caught up in a doping scandal at the 2022 Olympics, the International Skating Union (ISU) raised the minimum age to compete to 17. Now the quad's relevance in women's skating has faded. All eyes there are on the triple axel, an element that was once very risky but which skaters are now landing with apparent ease, says Deborah King, who studies biomechanics at Ithaca College. This development is less likely to grab headlines, but it's another example of figure skating moving toward harder and harder jumps.
In some ways, the quad race was born from a massive judging scandal at the 2002 Olympics. At the time, judges awarded skaters a maximum of six points for both artistry and technique. During the Games, a French judge was pressured to inflate the scores for a Russian pairs team. In response to “skategate,” the ISU created a new scoring system that capped artistry scores at 10 points per judge but had no ceiling for technical scores, which are awarded for the difficulty of jumps, spins, and more. This means that, theoretically, skaters can always do more and harder jumps to surpass their competition, Lind says.
That's precisely what has happened. To be competitive, skaters have kept learning harder skills, and both they and their coaches have accumulated expertise along the way.
And like athletes in most sports, skaters have gotten a boost from advances in nutrition science, strength and conditioning practices, physical therapy, and injury prevention. “I think just small increments in all of those things can add up” to a skater that has enough strength and skill to land a quad comfortably, King says.
Technology has also given coaches more resources to teach harder jumps. Pole harnesses, for example, attach around skaters' torsos and connect to a rod their coach holds like a fishing pole. This allows coaches to support some of their students' weight in midair so they can try jumps they couldn't yet land on their own. These harnesses allow skaters to develop muscle memory and also protect them from injury. “We didn't have this when I was a skater. I look at these and I'm like, ‘Oh, that would have been nice,'” says Lind, who progressed to a triple axel before retiring in 2004.
But perhaps the most important technology is video analysis. About 20 years ago coaches started using a software called Dartfish that allows them to play back and overlay videos of their students' jumps in real time, Lind explains. “We're getting more people from different places doing harder skills, just because the information is more readily available and analyzable” for coaches, he says.
Preston specializes in Dartfish video analysis at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club. “This is where the science also eliminates the frustration,” she says. “Before, when we were learning how to do a jump, we were told, ‘Do it again, again, again.' Now we can break [the jump] down into extremely tangible moments.” The Skating Club of Boston, where Lind coaches, is also experimenting with three-dimensional cameras to give coaches even more valuable information about their skaters' technique.
Amanda Montañez
Scrutinizing every moment of a jump has also allowed coaches to re-think and sometimes change how they teach jump technique. For example, skaters were once told to look in the direction of their jump. “Nowadays, that is forbidden,” Preston says—it throws the head off axis, which decreases rotation speed. Coaches have also learned that higher jumps aren't necessarily better; higher jumps are harder to control.
“There's a lot of variables” in any given jump, Preston says. “Nobody's jumps look the same as anybody else's. And perfection doesn't really exist—unless you're looking at Ilia Malinin.”
Every expert I spoke with gushed about Malinin's technique. Not only does he land seemingly impossible jumps but he also does it with “astounding” ease, Ridge says. “When I'm watching his quads, I'm like, is that a triple or a quad—because it looks so easy.”
To Lind's expert eye, what makes Malinin's technique unique is his patience. He doesn't immediately rush to rotate his quad axel upon takeoff. Instead he waits, allowing him to climb a little higher than he would if he started rotating immediately. This takes a lot of guts, Lind says. “His personality is kind of a daredevil. He likes taking these risks.”
At this point, it seems inevitable that Malinin will land a quintuple jump. “I'm sure that kid has done quints. You cannot tell me that he has not tried it in practice,” Ridge says. “It's freaking amazing how his body works. And I go back and forth: Are there going to be more people like this?”
If history is any clue, we'll see other skaters catch up soon enough, as they eventually did with quadruple jumps. But so long as skate boots and blades do not change, we'll eventually reach a point where more rotations are impossible. “There will be a physical limit,” Cabell says. “And I think that quintuple is the limit.”
Whether this movement toward harder jumps is the right direction for skating's future is fiercely debated, both among the figure skating community and fans. “I do think that quads are here to stay, permanently, in all levels,” Preston says. Yet as jumps get more difficult, it becomes more challenging for skaters to balance technique with artistry.
One of Preston's students, Jason Brown, exemplifies the kind of figure skating that the quad era threatens to squash. Brown, a 31-year-old U.S. skater, is renowned for his artistry but has struggled to land quads. “Having been on Jason Brown's coaching team and knowing the magic that he has brought to the sport, I would hate to lose that,” she says.
Allison Parshall is associate editor for mind and brain at Scientific American and she writes the weekly online Science Quizzes. As a multimedia journalist, she contributes to Scientific American's podcast Science Quickly. Parshall's work has also appeared in Quanta Magazine and Inverse. She graduated from New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with a master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Georgetown University.
If you enjoyed this article, I'd like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I've been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you'll support us in that mission.
Thank you,
David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
Subscribe to Scientific American to learn and share the most exciting discoveries, innovations and ideas shaping our world today.
Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.
© 2025 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Nature Biotechnology
(2026)Cite this article
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-bound tumor peptides can be routinely isolated from cancer samples and identified using mass spectrometry (MS). However, MS approaches can be stochastic or rely on spectral libraries, which are not customarily available for individual-specific peptides, thus limiting the ability to discover novel peptides. Here, we introduce Pepyrus, which generates user-defined, individual-specific or disease-specific peptide libraries in Escherichia coli to improve the sensitivity and confidence of MS peptide identification, including lowly abundant neoantigens. Using Pepyrus-generated peptide libraries paired with an HLA-specific data-independent acquisition strategy, we recover >75% of the expected sequences per single injection for libraries of >10,000 peptides and identify 0.1 fmol of spiked-in peptides in a complex background. We apply Pepyrus to create personalized libraries, facilitating identification of clinically relevant HLA peptides, including several novel peptides from cell lines derived from persons with melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. Pepyrus enables identification of rare HLA-bound peptides and provides the ability to generate large training datasets to improve spectra, retention time and ion mobility prediction tools.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Plasmids generated in this study are available upon reasonable request and are subject to a Materials Transfer Agreement. Raw data pertaining to primary participant samples were deposited to the Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes under the following accession numbers: Ribo-seq data for MEL2 (Pt-A) and MEL11 (Pt-C) and matching RNA-seq data for MEL11, phs001451.v5.p1; melanoma RNA-seq data from previous study4, phs001451.v1.p1; raw DNA RNA sequencing files for RCC-102 tumor sample from previous study, phs003710.v1.p1. The mass spectra, PSM results and the protein sequence databases used for searches were deposited to the public proteomics repository MassIVE (http://massive.ucsd.edu) under accession number MSV000096555. Transcript and protein sequences for nuORFdb version 1.0 (hg19) and version 1.2 (hg38) can be obtained online (https://proteomics.broadinstitute.org/nuORFdb/). Generated plasmid sequencing data were deposited to the Gene Expression Omnibus under accession number GSE309497. All other data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.
Haen, S. P., Löffler, M. W., Rammensee, H.-G. & Brossart, P. Towards new horizons: characterization, classification and implications of the tumour antigenic repertoire. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 17, 595–610 (2020).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Sensi, M. & Anichini, A. Unique tumor antigens: evidence for immune control of genome integrity and immunogenic targets for T cell-mediated patient-specific immunotherapy. Clin. Cancer Res. 12, 5023–5032 (2006).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Sellars, M. C., Wu, C. J. & Fritsch, E. F. Cancer vaccines: building a bridge over troubled waters. Cell 185, 2770–2788 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Ott, P. A. et al. An immunogenic personal neoantigen vaccine for patients with melanoma. Nature 547, 217–221 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Sahin, U. et al. Personalized RNA mutanome vaccines mobilize poly-specific therapeutic immunity against cancer. Nature 547, 222–226 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Keskin, D. B. et al. Neoantigen vaccine generates intratumoral T cell responses in phase Ib glioblastoma trial. Nature 565, 234–239 (2019).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Rojas, L. A. et al. Personalized RNA neoantigen vaccines stimulate T cells in pancreatic cancer. Nature 618, 144–150 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Hong, D. S. et al. Autologous T cell therapy for MAGE-A4+ solid cancers in HLA-A*02+ patients: a phase 1 trial. Nat. Med. 29, 104–114 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Parkhurst, M. et al. Adoptive transfer of personalized neoantigen-reactive TCR-transduced T cells in metastatic colorectal cancer: phase 2 trial interim results. Nat. Med. 30, 2586–2595 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Chong, C., Coukos, G. & Bassani-Sternberg, M. Identification of tumor antigens with immunopeptidomics. Nat. Biotechnol. 40, 175–188 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Sarkizova, S. et al. A large peptidome dataset improves HLA class I epitope prediction across most of the human population. Nat. Biotechnol. 38, 199–209 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Michalski, A., Cox, J. & Mann, M. More than 100,000 detectable peptide species elute in single shotgun proteomics runs but the majority is inaccessible to data-dependent LC–MS/MS. J. Proteome Res. 10, 1785–1793 (2011).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Granados, D. P. et al. Impact of genomic polymorphisms on the repertoire of human MHC class I-associated peptides. Nat. Commun. 5, 3600 (2014).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
van der Lee, D. I. et al. Mutated nucleophosmin 1 as immunotherapy target in acute myeloid leukemia. J. Clin. Invest. 129, 774–785 (2019).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Pak, H. et al. Sensitive immunopeptidomics by leveraging available large-scale multi-HLA spectral libraries, data-independent acquisition, and MS/MS prediction. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 20, 100080 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Gabriel, W., Picciani, M., The, M. & Wilhelm, M. Deep learning-assisted analysis of immunopeptidomics data. Methods Mol. Biol. 2758, 457–483 (2024).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Adams, C. et al. Fragment ion intensity prediction improves the identification rate of non-tryptic peptides in timsTOF. Nat. Commun. 15, 3956 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Oliinyk, D. et al. diaPASEF analysis for HLA-I peptides enables quantification of common cancer neoantigens. Mol. Cell Proteomics 24, 100938 (2025).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Gessulat, S. et al. Prosit: proteome-wide prediction of peptide tandem mass spectra by deep learning. Nat. Methods 16, 509–518 (2019).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Bouwmeester, R., Gabriels, R., Hulstaert, N., Martens, L. & Degroeve, S. DeepLC can predict retention times for peptides that carry as-yet unseen modifications. Nat. Methods 18, 1363–1369 (2021).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Zeng, W.-F. et al. AlphaPeptDeep: a modular deep learning framework to predict peptide properties for proteomics. Nat. Commun. 13, 7238 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
C Silva, A. S., Bouwmeester, R., Martens, L. & Degroeve, S. Accurate peptide fragmentation predictions allow data driven approaches to replace and improve upon proteomics search engine scoring functions. Bioinformatics 35, 5243–5248 (2019).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Degroeve, S. & Martens, L. MS2PIP: a tool for MS/MS peak intensity prediction. Bioinformatics 29, 3199–3203 (2013).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Wilhelm, M. et al. Deep learning boosts sensitivity of mass spectrometry-based immunopeptidomics. Nat. Commun. 12, 3346 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Declercq, A. et al. TIMS2Rescore: a data dependent acquisition-parallel accumulation and serial fragmentation-optimized data-driven rescoring pipeline based on MS2Rescore. J. Proteome Res. 24, 1067–1076 (2025).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Strauss, M. T. et al. AlphaPept: a modern and open framework for MS-based proteomics. Nat. Commun. 15, 2168 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Lee, C.-D. et al. An improved SUMO fusion protein system for effective production of native proteins. Protein Sci. 17, 1241–1248 (2008).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Aebersold, R. & Mann, M. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Nature 422, 198–207 (2003).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Roepstorff, P. & Fohlman, J. Proposal for a common nomenclature for sequence ions in mass spectra of peptides. Biomed. Mass Spectrom. 11, 601 (1984).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Zubarev, R. A. & Makarov, A. Orbitrap mass spectrometry. Anal. Chem. 85, 5288–5296 (2013).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Prensner, J. R. et al. What can Ribo-Seq, immunopeptidomics, and proteomics tell us about the noncanonical proteome? Mol. Cell. Proteomics 22, 100631 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Skiadopoulou, D. et al. Retention time and fragmentation predictors increase confidence in identification of common variant peptides. J. Proteome Res. 22, 3190–3199 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Frewen, B. E., Merrihew, G. E., Wu, C. C., Noble, W. S. & MacCoss, M. J. Analysis of peptide MS/MS spectra from large-scale proteomics experiments using spectrum libraries. Anal. Chem. 78, 5678–5684 (2006).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Lam, H. et al. Development and validation of a spectral library searching method for peptide identification from MS/MS. Proteomics 7, 655–667 (2007).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Yang, X. et al. Autoimmunity-associated T cell receptors recognize HLA-B*27-bound peptides. Nature 612, 771–777 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Phulphagar, K. M. et al. Sensitive, high-throughput HLA-I and HLA-II immunopeptidomics using parallel accumulation–serial fragmentation mass spectrometry. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 22, 100563 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Malakhov, M. P. et al. SUMO fusions and SUMO-specific protease for efficient expression and purification of proteins. J. Struct. Funct. Genomics 5, 75–86 (2004).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Kapust, R. B., Tözsér, J., Copeland, T. D. & Waugh, D. S. The P1′ specificity of tobacco etch virus protease. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 294, 949–955 (2002).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Chang, J. Y. Thrombin specificity. Requirement for apolar amino acids adjacent to the thrombin cleavage site of polypeptide substrate. Eur. J. Biochem. 151, 217–224 (1985).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Gomez-Zepeda, D. et al. Thunder-DDA-PASEF enables high-coverage immunopeptidomics and is boosted by MS2Rescore with MS2PIP timsTOF fragmentation prediction model. Nat. Commun. 15, 2288 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Käll, L., Storey, J. D., MacCoss, M. J. & Noble, W. S. Posterior error probabilities and false discovery rates: two sides of the same coin. J. Proteome Res. 7, 40–44 (2008).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Oliveira, G. et al. Phenotype, specificity and avidity of antitumour CD8+ T cells in melanoma. Nature 596, 119–125 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Oliveira, G. et al. Landscape of helper and regulatory antitumour CD4+ T cells in melanoma. Nature 605, 532–538 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Klaeger, S. et al. Optimized liquid and gas phase fractionation increases HLA-peptidome coverage for primary cell and tissue samples. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 20, 100133 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Hodis, E. et al. A landscape of driver mutations in melanoma. Cell 150, 251–263 (2012).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Ouspenskaia, T. et al. Unannotated proteins expand the MHC-I-restricted immunopeptidome in cancer. Nat. Biotechnol. 40, 209–217 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Eisenberg, G. et al. Transcutaneous immunization with hydrophilic recombinant gp100 protein induces antigen-specific cellular immune response. Cell. Immunol. 266, 98–103 (2010).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Kawakami, Y. et al. Recognition of multiple epitopes in the human melanoma antigen gp100 by tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes associated with in vivo tumor regression. J. Immunol. 154, 3961–3968 (1995).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Salgaller, M. L. et al. Recognition of multiple epitopes in the human melanoma antigen gp100 by peripheral blood lymphocytes stimulated in vitro with synthetic peptides. Cancer Res. 55, 4972–4979 (1995).
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Bruderer, R. et al. Extending the limits of quantitative proteome profiling with data-independent acquisition and application to acetaminophen-treated three-dimensional liver microtissues. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 14, 1400–1410 (2015).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Kawakami, Y. et al. Identification of the immunodominant peptides of the MART-1 human melanoma antigen recognized by the majority of HLA-A2-restricted tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. J. Exp. Med. 180, 347–352 (1994).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Braun, D. A. et al. A neoantigen vaccine generates antitumour immunity in renal cell carcinoma. Nature 639, 474–482 (2025).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Jiang, Q. et al. HIF regulates multiple translated endogenous retroviruses: implications for cancer immunotherapy. Cell 188, 1807–1827 (2025).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Takahashi, Y. et al. Regression of human kidney cancer following allogeneic stem cell transplantation is associated with recognition of an HERV-E antigen by T cells. J. Clin. Invest. 118, 1099–1109 (2008).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Bonaventura, P. et al. Identification of shared tumor epitopes from endogenous retroviruses inducing high-avidity cytotoxic T cells for cancer immunotherapy. Sci. Adv. 8, eabj3671 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Saini, S. K. et al. Human endogenous retroviruses form a reservoir of T cell targets in hematological cancers. Nat. Commun. 11, 5660 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Smith, C. C. et al. Endogenous retroviral signatures predict immunotherapy response in clear cell renal cell carcinoma. J. Clin. Invest. 128, 4804–4820 (2018).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Bassani-Sternberg, M. et al. Direct identification of clinically relevant neoepitopes presented on native human melanoma tissue by mass spectrometry. Nat. Commun. 7, 13404 (2016).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Yi, X. et al. caAtlas: an immunopeptidome atlas of human cancer. iScience 24, 103107 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Kraemer, A. I. et al. The immunopeptidome landscape associated with T cell infiltration, inflammation and immune editing in lung cancer. Nat. Cancer 4, 608–628 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Ferreira, H. J. et al. Immunopeptidomics-based identification of naturally presented non-canonical circRNA-derived peptides. Nat. Commun. 15, 2357 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Liao, H. et al. MARS an improved de novo peptide candidate selection method for non-canonical antigen target discovery in cancer. Nat. Commun. 15, 661 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Minegishi, Y. et al. Differential ion mobility mass spectrometry in immunopeptidomics identifies neoantigens carrying colorectal cancer driver mutations. Commun. Biol. 5, 831 (2022).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Hoenisch Gravel, N. et al. TOFIMS mass spectrometry-based immunopeptidomics refines tumor antigen identification. Nat. Commun. 14, 7472 (2023).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Wahle, M. et al. IMBAS-MS discovers organ-specific HLA peptide patterns in plasma. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 23, 100689 (2024).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Sahin, U. & Türeci, Ö Personalized vaccines for cancer immunotherapy. Science 359, 1355–1360 (2018).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Huber, F. et al. A comprehensive proteogenomic pipeline for neoantigen discovery to advance personalized cancer immunotherapy. Nat. Biotechnol. 43, 1360–1372 (2025).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Bruno, P. M. et al. High-throughput, targeted MHC class I immunopeptidomics using a functional genetics screening platform. Nat. Biotechnol. 41, 980–992 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Chong, C. et al. Integrated proteogenomic deep sequencing and analytics accurately identify non-canonical peptides in tumor immunopeptidomes. Nat. Commun. 11, 1293 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Cormican, J. A., Soh, W. T., Mishto, M. & Liepe, J. iBench: a ground truth approach for advanced validation of mass spectrometry identification method. Proteomics 23, e2200271 (2023).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Parker, R. et al. The choice of search engine affects sequencing depth and HLA class I allele-specific peptide repertoires. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 20, 100124 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Harper, S. & Speicher, D. W. Purification of proteins fused to glutathione S-transferase. Methods Mol. Biol. 681, 259–280 (2011).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Zhu, K. et al. Cleavage of fusion proteins on the affinity resins using the TEV protease variant. Protein Expr. Purif. 131, 27–33 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Lau, Y.-T. K. et al. Discovery and engineering of enhanced SUMO protease enzymes. J. Biol. Chem. 293, 13224–13233 (2018).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Alspach, E. et al. MHC-II neoantigens shape tumour immunity and response to immunotherapy. Nature 574, 696–701 (2019).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Abelin, J. G. et al. Mass spectrometry profiling of HLA-associated peptidomes in mono-allelic cells enables more accurate epitope prediction. Immunity 46, 315–326 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Chen, B. et al. Predicting HLA class II antigen presentation through integrated deep learning. Nat. Biotechnol. 37, 1332–1343 (2019).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Deutsch, E. W. et al. High-quality peptide evidence for annotating non-canonical open reading frames as human proteins. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.09.612016 (2024).
Soufi, B. & Macek, B. Stable isotope labeling by amino acids applied to bacterial cell culture. Methods Mol. Biol. 1188, 9–22 (2014).
Article
PubMed
Google Scholar
Park, H.-S. et al. Expanding the genetic code of Escherichia coli with phosphoserine. Science 333, 1151–1154 (2011).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Fan, C., Ip, K. & Söll, D. Expanding the genetic code of Escherichia coli with phosphotyrosine. FEBS Lett. 590, 3040–3047 (2016).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Ojima-Kato, T., Nagai, S. & Nakano, H. N-terminal SKIK peptide tag markedly improves expression of difficult-to-express proteins in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Biosci. Bioeng. 123, 540–546 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Berman, H. M. The Protein Data Bank. Nucleic Acids Res. 28, 235–242 (2000).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Yu, F. et al. Fast quantitative analysis of timsTOF PASEF data with MSFragger and IonQuant. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 19, 1575–1585 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
da Veiga Leprevost, F. et al. Philosopher: a versatile toolkit for shotgun proteomics data analysis. Nat. Methods 17, 869–870 (2020).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Yang, K. L. et al. MSBooster: improving peptide identification rates using deep learning-based features. Nat. Commun. 14, 4539 (2023).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Yu, F., Haynes, S. E. & Nesvizhskii, A. I. IonQuant enables accurate and sensitive label-free quantification with FDR-controlled match-between-runs. Mol. Cell. Proteomics 20, 100077 (2021).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Demichev, V., Messner, C. B., Vernardis, S. I., Lilley, K. S. & Ralser, M. DIA-NN: neural networks and interference correction enable deep proteome coverage in high throughput. Nat. Methods 17, 41–44 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Kong, A. T., Leprevost, F. V., Avtonomov, D. M., Mellacheruvu, D. & Nesvizhskii, A. I. MSFragger: ultrafast and comprehensive peptide identification in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Nat. Methods 14, 513–520 (2017).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Li, K., Teo, G. C., Yang, K. L., Yu, F. & Nesvizhskii, A. I. diaTracer enables spectrum-centric analysis of diaPASEF proteomics data. Nat. Commun. 16, 95 (2025).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Tareen, A. & Kinney, J. B. Logomaker: beautiful sequence logos in Python. Bioinformatics 36, 2272–2274 (2020).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Henikoff, S. & Henikoff, J. G. Amino acid substitution matrices from protein blocks. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 89, 10915–10919 (1992).
Article
CAS
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Bremel, R. D. & Homan, E. J. An integrated approach to epitope analysis I: dimensional reduction, visualization and prediction of MHC binding using amino acid principal components and regression approaches. Immunome Res. 6, 7 (2010).
Article
PubMed
PubMed Central
Google Scholar
McInnes, L., Healy, J. & Melville, J. UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection. J. Open Source Softw. 3, 861 (2018).
Article
Google Scholar
Ester, M. Density-based clustering. In Data Clustering (eds Aggarwal, C. C. & Reddy, C. K.) (Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2018).
Kyte, J. & Doolittle, R. F. A simple method for displaying the hydropathic character of a protein. J. Mol. Biol. 157, 105–132 (1982).
Article
CAS
PubMed
Google Scholar
Download references
We thank M. Wilhelm and B. Kuster for access to HLA chemically synthesized HLA peptide libraries24. We also thank D. Braun and Q. Jiang for help in designing ERV and RCC TAA peptide libraries. This work was supported in part by grants P01CA206978 to C.J.W. and S.A.C., U24CA270823 and U01CA271402 to S.A.C. and U24CA224331 and R01CA155010 to C.J.W. and N.H., and from the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation to S.A.C. and N.H. G.O. acknowledges support from the Claudia Adams Barr Program for Innovative Cancer Research. K.M. was supported by Harvard Medical School's Landry Cancer Biology Research Fellowship and Fujifilm Fellowship Program. C.J.W. and N.H. acknowledge support from the Mark Foundation Endeavor Award. N.H. is the David P. Ryan, MD Endowed Chair in Cancer Research MGH, and C.J.W. is the Lavine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), is a member of, and her work is supported in part by, the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy at DFCI. P.A.O. is supported by R01CA229261. A.I.N. is supported by U24CA271037. D.B.K. is supported by U54CA272688, R01HL157174, R01CA285308, R01CA279391 and R01NS140967. This project was supported in part by the Emerson Collective.
These authors contributed equally: Kasidet Manakongtreecheep, Claudia Ctortecka.
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
Kasidet Manakongtreecheep, Claudia Ctortecka, Luis O. Correa-Medero, Timothy Zhu, Isabelle Lippincott, Griffin M. Lawrence, Gabrielle M. Hernandez, Emma C. Duggan, Marta A. Wilbrink, Eva K. Verzani, Derin B. Keskin, Patrick A. Ott, Karl R. Clauser, Matthew Bakalar, Siranush Sarkizova, Nir Hacohen, Steven A. Carr, Jennifer G. Abelin & Catherine J. Wu
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Kasidet Manakongtreecheep, Alexander B. Afeyan, Derin B. Keskin, Patrick A. Ott, Nir Hacohen & Catherine J. Wu
Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Kasidet Manakongtreecheep, Timothy Zhu, Alexis Howard, Cleo Forman, Alexander B. Afeyan, Jiaxun Li, Giacomo Oliveira, Derin B. Keskin, Patrick A. Ott, Jennifer G. Abelin & Catherine J. Wu
Department of Pathology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Alexey I. Nesvizhskii
Department of Computer Science, Metropolitan College, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Derin B. Keskin
Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
Derin B. Keskin
Massachusetts General Hospital, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, Boston, MA, USA
Nir Hacohen
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
C.J.W., J.G.A., S.A.C. and N.H. conceptualized the project. K.M., C.C., M.B. and S.S. developed the methodology. K.M., C.C., J.G.A., K.R.C., A.I.N., L.O.C.-M. and C.F., participated in the analysis. K.M., T.Z., L.O.C.-M., I.L., G.M.L., A.H., G.M.H., E.C.D., M.A.W. and E.K.V. participated in the sample preparation. K.M., C.C., J.G.A., C.J.W., A.B.A., J.L., G.O., D.B.K. and P.A.O. participated in the investigation of the results. K.M., C.C. and C.F. participated in visualization of the figures. The original draft was written by K.M., C.C., J.G.A. and C.J.W. All authors participated in writing, review and editing. The work was supervised by C.J.W., J.G.A., S.A.C. and N.H.
Correspondence to
Nir Hacohen, Steven A. Carr, Jennifer G. Abelin or Catherine J. Wu.
P.A.O. has received research funding from and/or has advised Agenus, Arcturus, Amgen, Armo BioSciences, Array, AstraZeneca/MedImmune, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Celldex, CytomX, Evaxion, Immunetune, Imunon, LGChem, Merck, Neon Therapeutics (now BioNTechUS), Novartis, Pharmajet, Phio, Pfizer, Oncorus, Roche/Genentech, Servier and Xencor. J.G.A. is a paid consultant for Moderna. S.A.C. is a member of the scientific advisory boards of Kymera, PTM BioLabs, Seer, PrognomIQ and Mobilion. C.J.W. is an equity holder of BioNtech, is a member of the scientific advisory board of Adventris, Aethon Therapeutics, Nature's Toolbox and Repertoire and receives research funding from Pharmacyclics. D.B.K. is a scientific advisor for Immunitrack, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company and Breakbio. D.B.K. owns equity in Affimed, Agenus, Armata Pharmaceuticals, Beam Therapeutics, Breakbio, BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Celldex Therapeutics, Editas Medicine, Immunitybio, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Moderna, Prime Medicine, Sana Biotechnology and Summit Therapeutics. N.H. holds equity in and advises Danger Bio/Related Sciences, Repertoire Immune Medicines and CytoReason, owns equity and has licensed patents to BioNtech and receives research funding from Bristol Myers Squibb, Moderna, ResolveM/JJDC, Takeda and Calico Life Sciences. A.I.N. is the founder of Fragmatics, serves on the scientific advisory boards of Protai Bio, Infinitopes and Mobilion Systems and has financial interest because of the licensing of MSFragger to commercial entities. G.O. is a consultant for Bicycle Therapeutics. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Biotechnology thanks Stefan Tenzer and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
(a) Workflow of Golden Gate cloning. (b) Detected peptides from each Pepyrus peptide library's MS injections, based on three biological replicates, with one to three MS injections done per replicate. (c) Detected peptides for each MS injections of the matched synthetic peptide pool, based on 3 replicates with varying library concentration and two MS injections done per replicate. (d) Log10 MS1 intensity ranking of peptides from A375 cell line HLA-IP (1×107 cells) (Left/red) and from 10 K Pepyrus library-generated peptides (right/blue) in DDA. The density distribution of HLA-I peptide intensities is overlaid on the right.
Source data
(a) Data filtering for Pepyrus libraries and Pepyrus-enabled DIA datasets. (b) Unique Pepyrus peptide elution times are binned per minute across the 100 min active gradient, comparing the number of peptides eluting per minute or (b) summarized to 10 min intervals, directly comparing the unique peptide counts per unit time across each of the seven Pepyrus complexity libraries (100-20 K). Pepyrus DDA and Pepyrus DIA include sample preparation specific modifications and truncations.
Source data
(a) Unique peptide count and (b) log10 intensity of Pepyrus library peptides across all complexities. Colors indicate the occurrence of a N-term K or RP or an oxidized methionine. Peptides are split by their charge state and respective peptide counts are displayed on top. The box represents the IQR, the line marks the median, and the whiskers extend to the most extreme data points within 1.5×IQR. n = 2 technical per 3 biological replicates for all Pepyrus library complexities (total n = 42) (c) Peptide Logo plot showing motifs of detected and missed peptides in each NMDS cluster. NMDS clustering is performed on the 10 K Pepyrus library.
Source data
Peptide logo plot showing motifs of detected and missed peptides in each Pepyrus library and the synthetic peptide pool20, broken into different peptide amino acid lengths. N represents unique peptides contributing to the respective motif.
Source data
(a) MiSeq read count of the peptide-encoding oligo sequences, ranked from peptide with the highest read count to peptide with the zero read count (top), or (b) as frequency distribution (bottom) of the peptide-encoding oligo sequences in the 10 K (left) and 20 K (right) Pepyrus plasmid libraries. The red dotted lines and red bars denote peptide-encoding oligos with zero read count. (c) Representation of codons in Pepyrus peptides split by LC-MS/MS recovery grouped by individual amino acids. (d) Log10 MS1 intensity of peptides identified in 10 K Pepyrus library and their log(CPM + 1) read count for cloning batches 1 (left) and 2 (right). log(CPM + 1) = 0 denotes peptide sequences that were not identified by MiSeq in the cloning library. (e) Percent DDA Pepyrus peptide recovery for each read counts decile for 10 K Pepyrus library cloning batches 1 (left) and 2 (right). (f) Probability of Pepyrus 10 K peptides ionizing using electrospray ionization (denoted here as ‘flyer') predicted using pfly and categorized by their DDA detection.
Source data
(a) top: percent recovery of peptides by their first position amino acids (P1' site for Ulp1 protease cleavage), from 10 K (left) and 20 K (right) Pepyrus library; bottom: total count of detected peptides (dark blue) by their first position amino acids, from 10 K (left) and 20 K (right) Pepyrus library. (b) Percent recovery of peptides by their second position amino acids, from 10 K (left) and 20 K (right) Pepyrus library. Grey denotes the number of undetected peptides that were encoded in the library. (c) Percent detection of P1' glycine (right) and glycine-truncated peptides among the P1' glycine (left) in Pt-C NeoAg nuORF library. (d) Kernel density distribution of hydrophobicity scores of peptides detected (blue) and missed (orange) in the synthetic-matched Pepyrus library (top), synthetic peptide pool (middle), and the 10 K Pepyrus library (bottom), using Kyte-Doolittle hydrophobicity scale96. (e) Kernel density distribution of isoelectric points of peptides detected (blue) and missed (orange) in the synthetic-matched Pepyrus library (top), synthetic peptide pool (middle), and the 10 K Pepyrus library (bottom)3. (f) Subclustering and two-dimensional projection (left) of peptide sequences in cluster 0 of the 10 K Pepyrus peptide library shown in Fig. 2e, highlighting three submotifs with the lowest rate of detection on MS (bottom) and counts (right) of MS-detected and missed peptides. (g) Subclustering and two-dimensional projection (left) of peptide sequences in cluster 1 of the 10 K Pepyrus peptide library shown in Fig. 2e, highlighting three submotifs with the lowest rate of detection on MS (bottom) and counts (right) of MS-detected and missed peptides.
Source data
(a) Upset plot of all unique HLA-I peptide sequences from 1e7 A375 cell input acquired with standard HLA-I DDA or HLA-DIA method iterations shown in Fig. 3a. (b) HLAthena predictions for HLA-I peptides identified with standard DDA or HLA-DIA method iterations. Colors indicate rank cutoffs < 0.5 strong binder; 0.5-1 binder; 1-2 weak binder; >2 unknown binding. For individual datapoints please refer to Fig. 3b.
Source data
(a) Percent peptide recovery per single injection of Pepyrus libraries at increasing complexities (that is 100-20,000 peptides per library) colored by injection replicate and separated by DDA or DIA. (b) Unique peptide counts of Pepyrus complexity DIA searches using the experimental-specific Pepyrus-DDA spectral libraries generated with MSFragger (Pepyrus; purple), in silico predicted spectral library using APD (APD; pastel) or Prosit (Prosit; pink) with instrument specific calibrations according to the developers recommendations. Bar height indicates median and error bars the MAD across 3 biological replicates for all Pepyrus library complexities (total n = 42) (c) Spike-in HLA-DIA analyzed library free directDIATM within Spectronaut or (d) diaTracer-based workflow in FragPipe. (e) Log10 peptide spike-in abundances across the titration curve illustrated in Fig. 3d acquired in DIA or (f) DDA analyzed within FragPipe. Peptide abundances are normalized to 1 fmol level, every point represents one peptide. Horizontal lines indicate expected ratios relative to the 1 fmol spike-in level.
(a) PEP score and (b) S/N distribution of target (forward - green), decoy (red) and alternative decoy (rank2 - blue) peptides. (c) Detailed peptide elution of forward (blue) versus decoy peptides (red) with their (d) respective delta. In c, the box represents the IQR, the line marks the median, and the whiskers extend to the most extreme data points within 1.5×IQR. Duplicate injections from biological triplicates are shown. (e) Delta IM of forward versus their respective decoy peptides. (f) Unique peptide identifications colored according to their peptide status (Peptide target - red; Peptide decoy - green; alternative peptide decoy - blue) across the spike-in titration. Identifications are separated by standard spectral library search within Spectronaut using the FragPipe generated spectral library pre- (left) and post-filtering using experimentally generated Pepyrus peptide libraries (right).
(a) Allele assignment via HLAthena predictions (rank cutoff <2) to TAA peptides displayed in Fig. 4d separated by cell input and previously identified or novel DIA peptides. (b) Schematic overview of a low mutation burden RCC participant selected for this study and acquired with HLA-I DDA or DIA methods at 1e6, 5e6 and 1e7 cell input. Data analysis overview of Pepyrus libraries based on WES, previously published MS and RNAseq data4, and recent ERV evaluation for RCC in immunotherapy5 and prioritization using HLAthena-based binding prediction (Methods). HLA-DDA data was analyzed with SM as described in the Methods section. (c) Unique HLA peptide sequences and (d) HLAthena based binding predictions for 1×106, 5×106, 1×107 RCC participant-derived cells analyzed with SM for DDA (left) or directDIA for DIA (right). Bar height represents median and error bars MAD from duplicates. (e) Log10 MS2 Intensity of TAA peptides identified from 1×106, 5×106, 1×107 RCC cell input using DDA, Pepyrus-DIA or directDIA with their respective NetMHC-based binding prediction. Colors indicate respective source protein and light background represents strong binders, while darker reflects weak binders. (f) Extracted ion chromatogram for the Pepyrus-enabled DIA identified neoantigen peptide IYVPITGRL at 1×106 cell input.
Supplementary Tables 1, 2, 3 and 8.
Pepyrus complexity library oligo specifications.
Pepyrus complexity library spectra versus synthetic-matched and predicted spectra.
Method optimization identifiers and HLAthena filter.
Pepyrus complexity library DIA-MS.
Spike-In identifiers DDA-MS.
Pepyrus library composition and oligo specifications related to cell lines derived from person with melanoma.
Pt-A TAA peptide identifiers from DIA-MS and DDA-MS.
Pt-A neoantigen and nuORF peptide identifiers.
Pepyrus library composition and oligo specifications related to RCC cell line.
Pt-102 TAAs, participant-specific neoantigens and ERV peptide identifiers.
Statistical source data.
Unprocessed western blots.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Statistical source data.
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
Reprints and permissions
Manakongtreecheep, K., Ctortecka, C., Correa-Medero, L.O. et al. Sensitive detection of cancer antigens enabled by user-defined peptide libraries.
Nat Biotechnol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-026-03003-9
Download citation
Received: 29 January 2025
Accepted: 17 December 2025
Published: 09 February 2026
Version of record: 09 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-026-03003-9
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Nature Biotechnology
(Nat Biotechnol)
ISSN 1546-1696 (online)
ISSN 1087-0156 (print)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Cancer newsletter — what matters in cancer research, free to your inbox weekly.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Nature Communications
, Article number: (2026)
Cite this article
We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its
findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note
there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
HDAC inhibition shows promise in cancer treatment but pan-HDAC inhibitors cause gastrointestinal issues in 48% of patients. Understanding HDAC activation mechanisms is crucial to treating diverse diseases beyond cancer. Our study reveals that inositol polyphosphate multikinase (IPMK) and inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6 or phytic acid), enriched in vegan diets, play essential roles in activating the HDAC3 epigenetic axis and maintaining intestinal barrier integrity. IPMK binds to HDAC3 and drives InsP6 synthesis, which selectively activates HDAC3 at a 10 nM concentration by recruiting the DAD domain of its corepressor protein. IPMK deletion diminishes HDAC3 activation, leading to histone hyperacetylation and MMP gene transcription that compromise intestinal barrier integrity. InsP6 treatment is sufficient to rescue these effects. In inflammatory bowel disease, diminished IPMK levels exacerbate intestinal permeability, while oral InsP6 treatment mitigates leaky gut effects by restoring the HDAC3 epigenetic axis, highlighting the clinical significance of the IPMK-HDAC3 pathway and the therapeutic potential of phytic acid.
The RNA-sequencing data generated in this study have been deposited in the SRA database under accession code PRJNA1354901. Source data are provided with this paper.
Watson, P. J., Fairall, L., Santos, G. M. & Schwabe, J. W. R. Structure of HDAC3 bound to co-repressor and inositol tetraphosphate. Nature 481, 335–340 (2012).
Google Scholar
Li, Y. & Seto, E. HDACs and HDAC inhibitors in cancer development and therapy. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Med. 6, a026831 (2016).
Google Scholar
Subramanian, S., Bates, S. E., Wright, J. J., Espinoza-Delgado, I. & Piekarz, R. L. Clinical toxicities of histone deacetylase inhibitors. Pharmaceuticals 3, 2751–2767 (2010).
Google Scholar
Feng, D. et al. A circadian rhythm orchestrated by histone deacetylase 3 controls hepatic lipid metabolism. Science 331, 1315–1319 (2011).
Google Scholar
Alenghat, T. et al. Histone deacetylase 3 coordinates commensal-bacteria-dependent intestinal homeostasis. Nature 504, 153–157 (2013).
Google Scholar
Watson, P. J. et al. Insights into the activation mechanism of class I HDAC complexes by inositol phosphates. Nat. Commun. 7, 11262 (2016).
Google Scholar
Guha, P. et al. IPMK mediates activation of ULK signaling and transcriptional regulation of autophagy linked to liver inflammation and regeneration. Cell Rep. 26, 2692–2703.e7 (2019).
Google Scholar
Kim, S., Bhandari, R., Brearley, C. A. & Saiardi, A. The inositol phosphate signalling network in physiology and disease. Trends Biochem. Sci. 49, 969–985 (2024).
Google Scholar
Millard, C. J. et al. Class I HDACs share a common mechanism of regulation by inositol phosphates. Mol. Cell 51, 57–67 (2013).
Google Scholar
He, R., Liu, B., Geng, B., Li, N. & Geng, Q. The role of HDAC3 and its inhibitors in regulation of oxidative stress and chronic diseases. Cell Death Discov. 9, 131–13 (2023).
Google Scholar
Kumar, A. et al. Phytic acid: blessing in disguise, a prime compound required for both plant and human nutrition. Food Res. Int. 142, 110193 (2021).
Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, S., Gilmer, J. F. & Medina, C. Matrix metalloproteinases in inflammatory bowel disease: an update. Mediators Inflamm. 2015, 964131 (2015).
Google Scholar
Reilly, L. et al. Loss of PI3k activity of inositol polyphosphate multikinase impairs PDK1-mediated AKT activation, cell migration, and intestinal homeostasis. iScience 26, 106623 (2023).
Google Scholar
Naito, Y. & Yoshikawa, T. Role of matrix metalloproteinases in inflammatory bowel disease. Mol. Asp. Med. 26, 379–390 (2005).
Google Scholar
Rumbaugh, G. et al. Pharmacological selectivity within class I histone deacetylases predicts effects on synaptic function and memory rescue. Neuropsychopharmacology 40, 2307–2316 (2015).
Google Scholar
Nguyen, H. C. B., Adlanmerini, M., Hauck, A. K. & Lazar, M. A. Dichotomous engagement of HDAC3 activity governs inflammatory responses. Nature 584, 286–290 (2020).
Google Scholar
Pavlovic, I. et al. Prometabolites of 5-diphospho-myo-inositol pentakisphosphate. Angew. Chem. Int Ed. Engl. 54, 9622–9626 (2015).
Google Scholar
Ning, L., Rui, X., Bo, W. & Qing, G. The critical roles of histone deacetylase 3 in the pathogenesis of solid organ injury. Cell Death Dis. 12, 734–736 (2021).
Google Scholar
Massimino, L. et al. The inflammatory bowel disease transcriptome and metatranscriptome meta-analysis (IBD TaMMA) framework. Nat. Comput. Sci. 1, 511–515 (2021).
Google Scholar
Barberio, B. et al. Matrix metalloproteinase 3 predicts therapeutic response in inflammatory bowel disease patients treated with infliximab. Inflamm. Bowel Dis. 26, 756–763 (2020).
Google Scholar
Iaia, N. et al. The CaCo-2 cell junction derangement exerted by the single addition of oxysterols commonly detected in foods is markedly quenched when they are in mixture. J. Steroid Biochem. Mol. Biol. 246, 106648 (2025).
Google Scholar
Horowitz, A., Chanez-Paredes, S. D., Haest, X. & Turner, J. R. Paracellular permeability and tight junction regulation in gut health and disease. Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 20, 417–432 (2023).
Google Scholar
Tsai, P. et al. IL-22 upregulates epithelial claudin-2 to drive diarrhea and enteric pathogen clearance. Cell Host Microbe 21, 671–681.e4 (2017).
Google Scholar
Odenwald, M. A. & Turner, J. R. The intestinal epithelial barrier: a therapeutic target?. Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 14, 9–21 (2017).
Google Scholar
Grases, F. et al. Absorption and excretion of orally administered inositol hexaphosphate (IP(6) or phytate) in humans. Biofactors 15, 53–61 (2001).
Google Scholar
Vucenik, I. & Shamsuddin, A. M. 3H]inositol hexaphosphate (phytic acid) is rapidly absorbed and metabolized by murine and human malignant cells in vitro. J. Nutr. 124, 861–868 (1994).
Google Scholar
Grases, F. et al. Effects of exogenous inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP(6)) on the levels of InsP(6) and of inositol trisphosphate (InsP(3)) in malignant cells, tissues and biological fluids. Life Sci. 71, 1535–1546 (2002).
Google Scholar
Badodi, S. et al. Inositol treatment inhibits medulloblastoma through suppression of epigenetic-driven metabolic adaptation. Nat. Commun. 12, 2148–7 (2021).
Google Scholar
Wu, S. et al. Microbiota-derived metabolite promotes HDAC3 activity in the gut. Nature 586, 108–112 (2020).
Google Scholar
Williams, K. L. et al. Enhanced survival and mucosal repair after dextran sodium sulfate-induced colitis in transgenic mice that overexpress growth hormone. Gastroenterology 120, 925–937 (2001).
Google Scholar
Aouameur R., Da Cal S., Bissonnette P., Coady M. J., Lapointe J. Y. SMIT2 mediates all myo-inositol uptake in apical membranes of rat small intestine. Am. J. Physiol. Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 293, G1300-G1307 (2007).
Vucenik, I. & Shamsuddin, A. M. Cancer inhibition by inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) and inositol: From laboratory to clinic. J. Nutr. 133, 3778S–3784S (2003).
Google Scholar
Ge, Y., Zadeh, M. & Mohamadzadeh, M. Dissociation and flow cytometric isolation of murine intestinal epithelial cells for multi-omic profiling. STAR Protoc. 4, 101936 (2023).
Google Scholar
Chetterjee, S. et al. Phytic Acid (InsP6) Activates HDAC3 Epigenetic Axis to Maintain Intestinal Barrier Function. bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.15.613154 (2024).
Wilson M. S., Saiardi A. Inositol phosphates purification using titanium dioxide beads. Bio. Protoc. 8, e2959 (2018).
Harmel R. K. et al. Harnessing 13C-labeled myo-inositol to interrogate inositol phosphate messengers by NMR. Chem. Sci. 10, 5267–5274 (2019).
Yu G., Wang L. G., Han Y. & He Q. Y. clusterProfiler: an R package for comparing biological themes among gene clusters. OMICS. 16, 284–287 (2012).
Liberzon A. et al. Molecular signatures database (MSigDB) 3.0. Bioinformatics. 27, 1739–1740 (2011).
Download references
This work was supported by NIH R16GM154726 and 5P20GM121325 COBRE grant and University of Nevada, Las Vegas start-up funds to Prasun Guha. This work was supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)'s Medical Research Council (MRC) grant MR/T028904/1. The partial publication fee covered by GM103440. We would like to thank NIPM's Genomic Core for assisting with instruments and experiments. The specimen collection and phenotyping were made possible by the Washington University (WU) DDRCC (NIDDK P30 DK052574). Parakkal Deepak was supported by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the IBD Plexus of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation, and the Leo & Carean Goss Crohn's Disease Research Fund. The publication fees for this article were supported by the UNLV University Libraries Open Article Fund. We would like to thank Marc C Jhonson, from University of Missouri-School of Medicine for generously providing IPPK Knock out cells. We would like to thank Mark Donowitz from Johns Hopkins Medicine, Mark Donowitz from Johns Hopkins Subrata H Mishra from NIST and Brian Hedlund from UNLV for reading and editing the paper and giving suggestions.
Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Sujan Chatterjee, Zachary Sin, Nguyen Tran, Loretta Vierra, Tam Tran, George Koshkaryan, Saharat Jolak Ragsac, Qian Liu & Prasun Guha
School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Loretta Vierra, Qian Liu, Richard Van, Mira V. Han & Prasun Guha
Institute of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Anuj Shukla, Kevin Ritter & Henning J. Jessen
Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, London, UK
Xue Bessie Su & Adolfo Saiardi
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Seungman Park
Division of Gastroenterology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
Katherine Huang, Kayci Huff-Hardy, Richard Rood, Anas Gremida, Martin Gregory, Chien-Huan Chen & Parakkal Deepak
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
P.G. conceived the study. P.G. and S.C. designed the experiments. S.C. performed most experiments. Z.S. and L.V.P. validated major biochemical experiments. S.C. performed wet-lab experiments related to NGS studies. Z.S., R.V. and L.V.P. performed most of the NGS data analysis. K.R. and H.J.J. generated the cell-permeable InsP6. X.B.S. and A.S. analyzed intercellular inositol content. N.T. and S.C. performed animal and microscopy related experiments. T.T. and S.C. performed IHC and microscopy data analysis. S.C. and G.K. performed microscopy and Immunoprecipitation study. K.H., K.H.H., R.R., A.G., M.G., C.H.C., P.D. provided and analyzed Human patient samples. Q.L. and M.V.H. performed NGS data validation. S.J.R., S.C. and N.T. maintained animal colonies and isolated animal samples for genotyping. S.P. performed mathematical analysis of transwell assay. S.C., Z.S. and R.V. designed the Figures. P.G. and S.C. wrote the manuscript takes responsibility of all wet lab data.
Correspondence to
Prasun Guha.
Parakkal Deepak, MBBS MS has received research support under a sponsored research agreement unrelated to the data in the study and/or consulting from Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, AbbVie, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb, CorEvitas LLC, Sandoz, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Direct Biologics, Prometheus Biosciences, Lilly, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Merck, ExeGI Pharmaceuticals, AGMB, Landos Pharmaceuticals, Tr1X, and Boehringer Ingelheim. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.
Nature Communications thanks Chunfang Gu and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
Chatterjee, S., Sin, Z., Tran, N. et al. Phytic acid (InsP6) activates HDAC3 epigenetic axis to maintain intestinal barrier function.
Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68994-0
Download citation
Received: 09 January 2025
Accepted: 22 January 2026
Published: 09 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68994-0
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Nature Communications
(Nat Commun)
ISSN 2041-1723 (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Scientific Reports
, Article number: (2026)
Cite this article
We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its
findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note
there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
In this study, for the first time, Zn nanoparticles were created using the root peel of Beta vulgaris by a green method. Synthesized Zn nanoparticles have been characterized via UV–Vis spectroscopy, Zeta potential analysis, XRD, FTIR, TEM, and FESEM-EDX techniques. The synthesis of zinc-based nanoparticles was confirmed by spectroscopic techniques. UV-Vis analysis presented a broad absorption peak in the UV region, centered around 300 nm. Furthermore, a zeta potential of − 21.6 mV characterized the particles' negative surface charge and suggested moderate colloidal stability. The XRD pattern of Zn nanoparticles revealed crystalline structures, and FESEM and TEM images of Zn nanoparticles displayed a star-shaped morphology. The photocatalytic activity of NPs for the color degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) and Methylene Blue (MB) dyes has been investigated under UV light, and the results show 97% and 98% degradation, respectively. The antibacterial activity of the Zn nanoparticles was evaluated at a concentration of 1 mg/mL against the gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 1112 and clinical isolates), Enterococcus faecalis (ATCC and clinical isolates), and gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli (ATCC and clinical isolates) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1 and S7). The cytotoxic effects of Zn nanoparticles were assessed over a concentration range of 7 to 500 µg/mL on both normal L929 fibroblast cells and MCF-7 breast cancer cells. After 24 h of incubation, the IC₅₀ value for the MCF-7 cell line was determined to be 284 µg/mL, while no significant cytotoxicity was observed on L929 cells. To our understanding, this is the initial report synthesizing star-shaped Zn nanoparticles utilizing B. vulgaris root peel as an eco-friendly reducing and stabilizing agent, highlighting their potential for environmental and biomedical applications.
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the sensitive nature of the data and to protect participant confidentiality, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [Majid Darroudi, Email: majiddarroudi@gmail.com], upon reasonable request.
Ajaz, M., Rasool, W. & Mahmood, A. Comprehensive review of nanotechnology: innovations and multidisciplinary applications: comprehensive review of nanotechnology. Futuristic Biotechnol. 4 (1), 12–18 (2024).
Google Scholar
Poonam, D., Honey, S. & Indu, J. Green and facile approach for the synthesis of ZnO/MgO nanocomposite using Azadirachta indica leaf extract: characterization and photocatalytic activity. Res. J. Chem. Environ. 27, 6 (2023).
Google Scholar
Dwivedi, P., Jatrana, I., Satiya, H. & Lokhande, R. S. Understanding the synergistic effect of bimetallic Cu2O-ZnO nanocomposites for the antimicrobial activity and facile synthesis of phenyl xanthenedione: A comparative study. Res. J. Chem. Environ. 26 (4), 50–60. https://doi.org/10.25303/2604rjce5060 (2022).
Google Scholar
Prakash, M., Kavitha, H. P., Abinaya, S., Vennila, J. P. & Lohita, D. Green synthesis of bismuth based nanoparticles and its applications - A review. Sustainable Chem. Pharm. 25, 100547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2021.100547 (2022).
Google Scholar
Paramesh, C. C. et al. Silver nanoparticles synthesized using saponin extract of Simarouba glauca oil seed meal as effective, recoverable and reusable catalyst for reduction of organic dyes. Results Surf. Interfaces. 3, 100005 (2021).
Google Scholar
Elattar, K. M. et al. Phytogenic synthesis and characterization of silver Metallic/Bimetallic nanoparticles using beta vulgaris L. Extract and assessments of their potential biological activities. Appl. Sci. 13 (18), 10110. https://doi.org/10.3390/app131810110 (2023).
Google Scholar
Mudike, R. et al. Copper zinc Tin sulfide and multi-walled carbon nanotubes nanocomposite for visible-light-driven photocatalytic applications. Mater. Res. Bull. 146, 111606 (2022).
Google Scholar
Gengatharan, A., Dykes, G. A. & Choo, W. S. Betalains: natural plant pigments with potential application in functional foods. LWT-Food Sci. Technol. 64 (2), 645–649 (2015).
Google Scholar
Wybraniec, S. Formation of decarboxylated betacyanins in heated purified betacyanin fractions from red beet root (Beta vulgaris L.) monitored by LC – MS/MS. J. Agric. Food Chem. 53 (9), 3483–3487 (2005).
Google Scholar
Chaari, M. et al. Potentials of beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.) Peel extract for quality enhancement of refrigerated beef meat. Qual. Assur. Saf. Crops Foods. 15 (4), 99–115 (2023).
Google Scholar
Tzanova, M. T. et al. Green solvents for extraction of natural food colorants from plants: selectivity and stability issues. Foods 13 (4), 605 (2024).
Google Scholar
Adeyemi, J. O., Oriola, A. O., Onwudiwe, D. C. & Oyedeji, A. O. Plant extracts mediated metal-based nanoparticles: synthesis and biological applications. Biomolecules 12 (5), 627 (2022).
Google Scholar
Elattar, K. M. et al. Phytogenic synthesis and characterization of silver metallic/bimetallic nanoparticles using beta vulgaris L. extract and assessments of their potential biological activities. Appl. Sci. 13 (18), 10110 (2023).
Google Scholar
Dwivedi, P. et al. Plant-mediated synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of a copper oxide/silicon dioxide nanocomposite by an antimicrobial study. Nanatechnol. Reviews. 13 (1), 20240105 (2024).
Google Scholar
Costa, M. I., Sarmento-Ribeiro, A. B. & Gonçalves, A. C. Zinc: from biological functions to therapeutic potential. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 24 (5), 4822. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24054822 (2023).
Google Scholar
Maret, W. Zinc biochemistry: from a single zinc enzyme to a key element of life. Adv. Nutr. 4 (1), 82–91 (2013).
Google Scholar
Wessels, I., Maywald, M. & Rink, L. Zinc as a gatekeeper of immune function. Nutrients 9 (12), 1286 (2017).
Google Scholar
Haase, H. & Rink, L. Zinc signals and immune function. Biofactors 40 (1), 27–40 (2014).
Google Scholar
Kim, B. & Lee, W. W. Regulatory role of zinc in immune cell signaling. Mol. Cells. 44 (5), 335–341. https://doi.org/10.14348/molcells.2021.0061 (2021).
Google Scholar
Prasad, A. S. Zinc in human health: effect of zinc on immune cells. Mol. Med. 14 (5–6), 353–357 (2008).
Google Scholar
Lebaka, V. R., Ravi, P., Reddy, M. C., Thummala, C. & Mandal, T. K. Zinc oxide nanoparticles in modern science and technology: multifunctional roles in Healthcare, environmental Remediation, and industry. Nanomaterials (Basel Switzerland). 15 (10), 754. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano15100754 (2025).
Google Scholar
Jayakodi, S. et al. Controlling pore size during the synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanoparticles using CTAB by the sol–gel hydrothermal method and their biological activities. Nanatechnol. Reviews. 13 (1), 20240123 (2024).
Google Scholar
AlSalhi, M. S. et al. Therapeutic potential assessment of green synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles derived from fennel seeds extract. Int. J. Nanomed. 15, 8045–8057. https://doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S272734 (2020).
Google Scholar
Riss, T. L. et al. Cell viability assays. In (eds Markossian, S., Grossman, A., Baskir, H., Arkin, M., Auld, D. & Austin, C.) Assay Guidance Manual. Bethesda (MD): Eli Lilly & Company and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. (2004).
Google Scholar
Mehdipour, A. et al. Green synthesis of zinc nanoparticles by hydroalcoholic extract of lavender (Lavandula Stoechas L.), characterization, and cytotoxic effects on human breast and colon cancer. Sci. Rep. 14 (1), 29543 (2024).
Google Scholar
Salari, Z. et al. Microwave-assisted biosynthesis of zinc nanoparticles and their cytotoxic and antioxidant activity. J. Trace Elem. Med Biol. 39, 116–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtemb.2016.09.001 (2017).
Google Scholar
Singh, J., Kaur, S., Kaur, G., Basu, S. & Rawat, M. Biogenic ZnO nps: A study of blueshift of optical band gap and photocatalytic degradation of reactive yellow 186 dye under direct sunlight. Green. Process. Synthesis. https://doi.org/10.1515/gps-2018-0084 (2018).
Google Scholar
Sharma, S., Singh, A. K., Singh, S. P. & Singh, R. K. Synthesis and characterization of ZnO nanoparticles prepared by green routes: controlling morphologies by maintaining pH. Phys. Scr. 99, 1059b1059. https://doi.org/10.1088/1402-4896/ad7ae2 (2024).
Google Scholar
Sharma, S. S., Palaty, S. & John, A. K. Band gap modified zinc oxide nanoparticles: an efficient visible light active catalyst for wastewater treatment. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 18 (9), 2619–2632. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-020-02976-7 (2021).
Google Scholar
Stroyuk, O. L., Dzhagan, V. M., Shvalagin, V. V. & Kuchmiy, S. Y. Size-Dependent optical properties of colloidal ZnO nanoparticles charged by photoexcitation. J. Phys. Chem. C. 114 (1), 220–225. https://doi.org/10.1021/jp908879h (2010).
Google Scholar
Thyr, J., Montero, J., Österlund, L. & Edvinsson, T. Energy alignment of Quantum-Confined ZnO particles with copper oxides for heterojunctions with improved photocatalytic performance. ACS Nanosci. Au. 2 (2), 128–139. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnanoscienceau.1c00040 (2022).
Google Scholar
Vinay, S. P., Nagaraju, G., Chandrappa, C. & Chandrasekhar, N. Novel Gomutra (cow urine) mediated synthesis of silver oxide nanoparticles and their enhanced photocatalytic, photoluminescence and antibacterial studies. J. Science: Adv. Mater. Devices. 4 (3), 392–399 (2019).
Google Scholar
Bisht, G. & Rayamajhi, S. ZnO nanoparticles: A promising anticancer agent. Nanobiomedicine 3, 9. https://doi.org/10.5772/63437 (2016).
Google Scholar
Dwivedi, P., Satiya, H. & Sharma, S. K. Novel green approach for the synthesis of Co3O4/ZnO nanocomposite, characterization and antimicrobial activity. Mater. Today: Proc. 79, 80–86 (2023).
Google Scholar
Ouf, M. S., Duab, M. E., Abdel-Meguid, D. I., El-Sharouny, E. E. & Soliman, N. A. Biogenic zinc nanoparticles: green approach to synthesis, characterization, and antimicrobial applications. Microb. Cell. Fact. 24 (1), 168 (2025).
Google Scholar
Shalini, K. et al. Hydrothermal route alignment of Ag/rGO@ Curcumin nanocomposite: photocatalyst degrading action and antibacterial effectiveness. Journal Indian Chem. Society, 102183. (2025).
Degen, T., Sadki, M., Bron, E., König, U. & Nénert, G. The highscore suite. Powder Diffr. 29 (S2), S13–S18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0885715614000840 (2014).
Google Scholar
Al-Kordy, H. M. H., Sabry, S. A. & Mabrouk, M. E. M. Statistical optimization of experimental parameters for extracellular synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles by a novel haloalaliphilic Alkalibacillus sp.W7. Sci. Rep. 11, 10924. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90408-y (2021).
Google Scholar
Dwivedi, P. et al. Eco-Friendly CuO/Fe3O4 nanocomposite synthesis, characterization, and cytotoxicity study. Heliyon, 10(6). (2024).
Jayakodi, S. & Shanmugam, V. K. Statistical optimization of copper oxide nanoparticles using response surface methodology and Box–Behnken design towards in vitro and in vivo toxicity assessment. Biointerface Res. Appl. Chem. 11 (3), 10027–10039 (2021).
Google Scholar
El Faroudi, L. et al. Facile and sustainable synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles: effect of gelling agents on ZnO shapes and their photocatalytic performance. ACS Omega. 8 (28), 24952–24963. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.3c01491 (2023).
Google Scholar
M, A. M., Ashwin, D. U., Yardily, B. M., Dennison, M. S. & A., & Microwave-assisted green synthesized ZnO nanoparticles: an experimental and computational investigation. Discover Appl. Sci. 7 (3), 177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-025-06563-8 (2025).
Google Scholar
Jatrana, I., Satiya, H. & Dwivedi Novel green synthesis of ZnO/SiO2 nanocomposite: characterization and biocidal activity. Mater. Today: Proc. 79, 148–154 (2023).
Google Scholar
Mohammed, N. & Al Khazraji, A. Synthesis and study of zinc oxide nanoparticles and their nanocomposites. J. Pharm. Negat. Results. 13, 790–797. https://doi.org/10.47750/pnr.2022.13.04.105 (2022).
Google Scholar
Pasieczna-Patkowska, S., Cichy, M. & Flieger, J. Application of fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in characterization of green synthesized nanoparticles. Molecules 30 (3), 684. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30030684 (2025).
Google Scholar
Gomez-Zavaglia, A., Cassani, L., Hebert, E. M. & Gerbino, E. Green synthesis, characterization and applications of iron and zinc nanoparticles by probiotics. Food Res. Int. 155, 111097 (2022).
Google Scholar
Al-Harbi, H. F. et al. Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles: physicochemical Characterization, photocatalytic Performance, and evaluation of their impact on seed germination parameters in crops. Catalysts 15 (10), 924. https://doi.org/10.3390/catal15100924 (2025).
Google Scholar
Ogunyemi, S. O. et al. Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles using different plant extracts and their antibacterial activity against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. Artif. Cells Nanomed. Biotechnol. 47 (1), 341–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/21691401.2018.1557671 (2019).
Google Scholar
Mustapha, S. et al. Comparative study of crystallite size using Williamson-Hall and Debye-Scherrer plots for ZnO nanoparticles. Adv. Nat. Sci. NanoSci. NanoTechnol. 10, 045013. https://doi.org/10.1088/2043-6254/ab52f7 (2019).
Google Scholar
Shaik, K., Cole, S. & K, V., & Comparative study of crystallite size from XRD and TEM results for pure and V2O5 doped CdO-FePO4 composite nanopowders. Phys. Chem. Res. 11 (2), 241–251. https://doi.org/10.22036/pcr.2022.337333.2077 (2023).
Google Scholar
Vinay, S. P., Udayabhanu, Nagaraju, G., Chandrappa, C. & Chandrasekhar, N. A novel, green, rapid, nonchemical route hydrothermal assisted biosynthesis of ag nanomaterial by Blushwood berry extract and evaluation of its diverse applications. Appl. Nanosci. 10 (8), 3341–3351 (2020).
Google Scholar
Paramesh, C. C. et al. Silver nanoparticles anchored TiO2 nanotubes prepared using saponin extract as heterogeneous and recyclable catalysts for reduction of dyes. Ceram. Int. 47 (10), 14750–14759 (2021).
Google Scholar
Porous covalent organic frameworks in photocatalytic ROS-mediated processes. Energy Adv., 3(4), 712–740, https://doi.org/10.1039/d4ya00082j. (2024).
Google Scholar
Hassaan, M. A. et al. Principles of photocatalysts and their different applications: A review. Top. Curr. Chem. 381 (6), 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41061-023-00444-7 (2023).
Google Scholar
Dwivedi, P. et al. Photoremediation of methylene blue by biosynthesized ZnO/Fe3O4 nanocomposites using callistemon viminalis leaves aqueous extract: a comparative study. Nanatechnol. Reviews. 10 (1), 1912–1925 (2021).
Google Scholar
Supin, K. K., Vasundhara, M. & PM, P. N., & Enhanced photocatalytic activity in ZnO nanoparticles developed using novel lepidagathis ananthapuramensis leaf extract. RSC Adv. 13 (3), 1497–1515 (2023).
Google Scholar
Kahsay, M. H., Tadesse, A., RamaDevi, D., Belachew, N. & Basavaiah, K. Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanostructures and investigation of their photocatalytic and bactericidal applications. RSC Adv. 9 (63), 36967–36981 (2019).
Google Scholar
Kumar, M. S., Suprajaa, N. & David, E. Photocatalytic activity of methylene blue using zinc nanoparticles synthesized from Gymnema sylvestre and antimicrobial assay. Adv. Bioequival Bioavailab. 2, 161–167 (2019).
Google Scholar
Ghasemian Yadegari, J. et al. Antileishmanial, cellular mechanisms, and cytotoxic effects of green synthesized zinc nanoparticles alone and in combined with glucantime against Leishmania major infection. Biomed. Pharmacother. 164, 114984. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2023.114984 (2023).
Google Scholar
Zhang, C. et al. Biosynthesis of zinc nanoparticles using allium saralicum RM Fritsch leaf extract; chemical characterization and analysis of their cytotoxicity, antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, and cutaneous wound healing properties. Appl. Organomet. Chem. 36 (12), e5564 (2022).
Google Scholar
Rajeshkumar, S., Jayakodi, S., Tharani, M., Alharbi, N. S. & Thiruvengadam, M. Antimicrobial activity of probiotic bacteria-mediated cadmium oxide nanoparticles against fish pathogens. Microb. Pathog. 189, 106602 (2024).
Google Scholar
Holmes, A. H. et al. Understanding the mechanisms and drivers of antimicrobial resistance. Lancet (London England). 387 (10014), 176–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00473-0 (2016).
Google Scholar
Jayakodi, S. et al. Preparation of novel nanoformulation to enhance efficacy in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Biomimetics 7 (4), 189 (2022).
Google Scholar
Halligudra, G., K, V., Rangappa, M. N. R., Shivaramu, P. D. & D., & Antibacterial and antiproliferative effect of ZnO nanoparticles prepared using Origanum Marjorana plant and garcinia indica fruit extracts. J. Inorg. Organomet. Polym Mater. 35 (2), 1073–1083 (2025).
Google Scholar
Sirelkhatim, A. et al. Review on zinc oxide nanoparticles: antibacterial activity and toxicity mechanism. Nano-Micro Lett. 7 (3), 219–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-015-0040-x (2015).
Google Scholar
Krishnamoorthy, R. et al. Antibacterial mechanisms of zinc oxide nanoparticle against bacterial food pathogens resistant to Beta-Lactam antibiotics. Molecules (Basel Switzerland). 27 (8), 2489. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27082489 (2022).
Google Scholar
Majeed, H., Iftikhar, T., Nadeem, A., Altaf Nazir, M. & M., & Green synthesis of Eucalyptus globulus zinc nanoparticles and its use in antimicrobial insect repellent paint formulation in bulk industrial production. Heliyon 10 (2), e24467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e24467 (2024).
Google Scholar
Download references
This project was financially supported by the Vice-Chancellor for Research (Grant no 4040328), Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. This study is based on the MS thesis of Ms. F. S. Mousavi Khatat.
This project was financially supported by the Vice-Chancellor for Research (Grant no 4040328), Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.
Department of Medical Biotechnology & Nanotechnology, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Faeghe Sadat Mousavi Khatat & Zahra Sabouri
Student Research Committee, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Zahra Sabouri
Nuclear Medicine Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Majid Darroudi
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar
Faeghe Sadat Mousavi Khatat: Data acquisition, Analysis, Software, Investigation, Methodology, writing original draft. Zahra Sabouri: Data curation, Software, Investigation, Methodology, Writing review & editing. Majid Darroudi: Supervision, Project administration, Funding, Methodology, Writing review & editing.
Correspondence to
Majid Darroudi.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
Mousavi Khatat, F.S., Sabouri, Z. & Darroudi, M. Eco-friendly synthesis of star-shaped Zn nanoparticles using Beta vulgaris peel extract and evaluation of their antibacterial, photocatalytic, and cytotoxic activities.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-38842-8
Download citation
Received: 05 November 2025
Accepted: 31 January 2026
Published: 16 February 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-38842-8
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
Advertisement
Scientific Reports
(Sci Rep)
ISSN 2045-2322 (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited
Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.
What happens here matters everywhere
Geek Life: Fun stories, memes, humor and other random items at the intersection of tech, science, business and culture. SEE MORE
by Todd Bishop, Kurt Schlosser & Taylor Soper on Feb 9, 2026 at 9:05 amFebruary 9, 2026 at 9:19 am
This one's for Paul.
We were waiting for Seahawks owner Jody Allen to pay homage to her brother, the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, when accepting the Lombardi Trophy on behalf of the team he saved and she preserved for their hometown. It didn't happen, so we'll say it here.
Jody Allen is getting well-deserved recognition for her role as the franchise leader. As Jerry Brewer wrote in The Athletic, she's been an architect of the team's success, worthy of emulation by other owners in the league.
“Jody's been fantastic,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said after the win last night, pointing in particular to her role in guiding the team through last season.
What a remarkable family legacy, all the way around.
Up for sale? Ahead of the Super Bowl, reports circulated that the Seahawks would seek a buyer after this season. Adding a championship may not immediately increase the team's value, but as Sportico noted, “it certainly doesn't hurt.” We'll be watching any tech execs that might step up for the 12s as part of new ownership.
Seattle's big win in the Valley: Sure, it was a win over New England, but as the blue and green confetti rained down in the heart of Silicon Valley, it was hard not to see a symbolic victory for the Pacific Northwest over the rival tech hub, especially given the Hawks' trouncing of the 49ers in the playoffs.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was among those celebrating the victory and congratulating our hometown champs, which made us remember the time he once told a Seattle crowd, “Every time I go to the Valley, I'm thankful that I'm here.”
Here are details on the victory parade, set for this Wednesday.
Alexa+ will try to kill you? OK, so maybe only in Chris Hemsworth's imagination, but the premise of Amazon's Alexa Super Bowl ad — that its next-gen AI assistant is “scary good” — seemed to emphasize the “scary” part a bit much. If you missed the upbeat resolution while grabbing another beverage from the fridge, you might have been left with the impression that Alexa is truly AI's killer app.
Maybe Ring is the real threat: In its own ad, the Amazon-owned security camera company said it just wants to help find lost pets via its “Search Party” feature that relies on AI to scan whatever's passing by your house, and tap into neighboring doorbell cams.
Some viewers on social media shared that they were “creeped out” by the tech, and at least one privacy expert said tugging at our heart strings over a lost dog is a great way to make us willingly trade our personal data.
The “A.I. Bowl”? That's what some are calling Super Bowl LX after nearly a quarter of the commercials featured artificial intelligence. The New York Times' DealBook drew the historical parallel: the Crypto Bowl of 2022 (FTX went bankrupt by year's end) and the Dot-Com Bowl of 2000 (Pets.com and others shut down months after the tech bubble popped).
The NYT pointed to comments by investment pro George Noble: “When an entire sector floods the most expensive advertising real estate on the planet, it's not a signal to buy.”
See our earlier roundup of Super Bowl tech ads, on the off chance you're not sick of all the AI commercials by now.
Stop the presses: Especially given the high-tech focus of the ads, it was fun to see an old-school newspaper front page held up in the midst of the celebration. Of course, that was a gimmick by The Seattle Times, with the generic headline, “CHAMPS,” and a stock photo, in the spirit of the pre-printed hats and shirts anticipating a possible victory.
The actual front-page headline this morning is “REDEMPTION!” — not exactly inspired — but the Sports section came through with an appropriate pun: ‘D'omination!
GeekWire's Kurt Schlosser and Grants Pass (Ore.) Daily Courier editor Scott Stoddard — both former Page One editors at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer — settled on “D-HAWKS” in a post-game text exchange about their dream headline.
It's such a good feeling to know that the spirit of Mr. Rogers is still alive in the midst of everything going on in our world. Lady Gaga's rendition of “Won't You Be My Neighbor?” for Seattle-based Redfin/Rocket was one example. Later came an NFL ad with current and former players singing the just-as-classic “You Are Special” with kids.
Both stood out as moments of calm in the commercial chaos.
Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline
Have a scoop that you'd like GeekWire to cover? Let us know.
When the Seattle Seahawks sell, will any tech execs step up for the 12s?
Want to own a piece of the Seahawks? Seattle startup presents its private equity idea to fans
Who will buy the Blazers? Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's estate plans to sell NBA franchise
Paul Allen estate to sell Portland Trail Blazers to group led by Carolina NHL team owner
Catch every headline in your inbox
What happens here matters everywhere
GeekWire chronicles the Pacific Northwest startup scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter, and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and VC directory.
by Kurt Schlosser on Feb 9, 2026 at 9:00 amFebruary 9, 2026 at 9:15 am
As millions of users — including large numbers of young people — increasingly turn to AI chatbots as their first-line “counselors” and confidants, Seattle-based startup mpathic is stepping in to ensure those digital agents don't provide dangerous advice when it matters most.
The company, founded in 2021 in a bid to bring more empathy to corporate communication, announced Monday that it is expanding to support foundational model developers and LLM-powered application teams.
The goal is to bring mpathic's software to a broader set of AI developers and enterprise partners as AI becomes more of an interface for mental health and medical support.
“We are essentially producing eval sets or training data sets to make models more safe for vulnerable users, like kids or people with mental health problems, people in crisis,” said mpathic co-founder and CEO Grin Lord, a board-certified psychologist and NLP researcher.
The startup is drawing on its years of work in clinical trials and hospital settings, helping AI teams stress-test model behavior before deployment, evaluate responses, and monitor live interactions with safeguards that can flag, redirect, or intervene when needed.
“It's kind of similar to people that create synthetic data for visual AI,” Lord said. “It's not every day that a child is going to run in front of a Waymo, but we can simulate that 10,000 ways with synthetic data. That's basically what we're doing, but from a psychological angle with language.”
In one early engagement, mpathic said its clinician-led program helped a model builder slash undesired or dangerous responses by more than 70%.
To fuel its expansion, mpathic raised an additional $15 million in 2025, led by Foundry VC. The company says the move toward foundational safety resulted in 5X quarter-over-quarter growth at the end of last year.
While Mpathic got its start building software to analyze conversations happening in corporate texts, emails, audio calls, and more, it has been developing models for high-risk clinical situations since 2021. Today, the scale of the startup's “human-in-the-loop” infrastructure includes a global network of thousands of licensed clinical experts. It is onboarding hundreds more weekly to keep pace with demand.
“It's a lot different company than it was even a few quarters ago,” Lord said.
Lord, a finalist for Startup CEO of the Year at the 2023 GeekWire Awards, calls herself a “techno optimist” and “realist” when it comes to AI, adding that she possesses a “radical acceptance” of the technology's usefulness.
“It doesn't surprise me at all that if there's something that's available 24/7, that acts like a therapist, you're going to talk to it and use it. And that could be better than nothing,” she said. “I think the potential for this technology to have really positive impact is super high. I think we can train both humans and AI to listen accurately and well and not create harm.”
Without naming specific companies or models, Mpathic confirmed it is working with leading foundational AI model developers serving tens of millions of users. The startup also has clinical partners including Panasonic WELL, Seattle Children's Hospital, Transcend and others.
Mpathic, which employs roughly 34 people and is “hiring like wildfire,” according to Lord, has also grown its leadership team with the addition of chief marketing officer Rebekah Bastian (Zillow, OwnTrail, Glowforge); and chief science officer Alison Cerezo (American Psychological Association AI advisory member).
Track all of GeekWire's in-depth startup coverage: Sign up for the weekly startup email newsletter; check out the funding tracker and VC directory; and follow our startup news headlines.
Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline
Have a scoop that you'd like GeekWire to cover? Let us know.
Heads up, startup founders: These red flags spook early stage tech investors
Meet your AI interviewer: Seattle startup Humanly unveils video bot that grills job applicants
Longtime Seattle engineering leaders raise $4.3M for new business automation AI startup Logic
Startup Radar: Seattle founders build AI tools for leadership training, spatial reasoning, vibe coding
Catch every headline in your inbox
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Google
Government & Policy
Hardware
Instagram
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
A hacktivist has scraped more than half-a-million payment records from a provider of consumer-grade “stalkerware” phone surveillance apps, exposing the email addresses and partial payment information of customers who paid to spy on others.
The transactions contain records of payments for phone-tracking services like Geofinder and uMobix, as well as services like Peekviewer (formerly Glassagram), which purport to allow access to private Instagram accounts, among several other monitoring and tracking apps provided by the same vendor, a Ukrainian company called Struktura.
The customer data also includes transaction records from Xnspy, a known phone surveillance app, which in 2022 spilled the private data from tens of thousands of unsuspecting people's Android devices and iPhones.
This is the latest example of a surveillance vendor exposing the information of its customers due to security flaws. Over the past few years, dozens of stalkerware apps have been hacked, or have managed to lose, spill, or expose people's private data — often the victims themselves — thanks to shoddy cybersecurity by the stalkerware operators.
Contact Us
To contact Zack Whittaker securely, reach out via Signal username zackwhittaker.1337. Contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram, Keybase and Wire @lorenzofb, or email.
Stalkerware apps like uMobix and Xnspy, once planted on someone's phone, upload the victim's private data, including their call records, text messages, photos, browsing history, and precise location data, which is then shared with the person who planted the app.
Apps like uMobix and Xnspy have explicitly marketed their services for people to spy on their spouses and domestic partners, which is illegal.
The data, seen by TechCrunch, included about 536,000 lines of customer email addresses, which app or brand the customer paid for, how much they paid, the payment card type (such as Visa or Mastercard), and the last four digits on the card. The customer records did not include dates of payments.
TechCrunch verified the data was authentic by taking several transaction records containing disposable email addresses with public inboxes, such as Mailinator, and running them through the various password reset portals provided by the various surveillance apps. By resetting the passwords on accounts associated with public email addresses, we determined that these were real accounts.
We also verified the data by matching each transaction's unique invoice number from the leaked dataset with the surveillance vendor's checkout pages. We could do this because the checkout page allowed us to retrieve the same customer and transaction data from the server without needing a password.
The hacktivist, who goes by the moniker “wikkid,” told TechCrunch they scraped the data from the stalkerware vendor thanks to a “trivial” bug in its website. The hacktivist said they “have fun targeting apps that are used to spy on people,” and subsequently published the scraped data on a known hacking forum.
The hacking forum listing lists the surveillance vendor as Ersten Group, which presents itself as a U.K.-presenting software development startup.
TechCrunch found several email addresses in the dataset used for testing and customer support instead reference Struktura, a Ukrainian company that has an identical website to Ersten Group. The earliest record in the dataset contained the email address for Struktura's chief executive, Viktoriia Zosim, for a transaction of $1.
Representatives for Ersten Group did not respond to our requests for comment. Struktura's Zosim did not return a request for comment.
Topics
Security Editor
Zack Whittaker is the security editor at TechCrunch. He also authors the weekly cybersecurity newsletter, this week in security.
He can be reached via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal. You can also contact him by email, or to verify outreach, at zack.whittaker@techcrunch.com.
Senior Reporter, Cybersecurity
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai is a Senior Writer at TechCrunch, where he covers hacking, cybersecurity, surveillance, and privacy.
You can contact or verify outreach from Lorenzo by emailing lorenzo@techcrunch.com, via encrypted message at +1 917 257 1382 on Signal, and @lorenzofb on Keybase/Telegram.
Tickets are live at the lowest rates of the year. Save up to $680 on your pass now.Meet investors. Discover your next portfolio company. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Don't miss these one-time savings.
Senator, who has repeatedly warned about secret US government surveillance, sounds new alarm over ‘CIA activities'
The backlash over OpenAI's decision to retire GPT-4o shows how dangerous AI companions can be
OpenAI launches new agentic coding model only minutes after Anthropic drops its own
Anthropic releases Opus 4.6 with new ‘agent teams'
Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads
Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics
Lotus Health nabs $35M for AI doctor that sees patients for free
© 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC.
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Google
Government & Policy
Hardware
Instagram
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
YouTube on Monday introduced lower-priced YouTube TV plans that will allow subscribers to better tailor their plans to their own interests in areas like sports, news, and entertainment. The company said that it will offer more than 10 different plans to choose from, all priced below the $82.99 per month main YouTube TV plan that has access to more than 100 networks. The new plans will start rolling out this week.
While that main plan will not go away, the new plans will allow customers to pick what matters most and what they could do without in return for cost savings.
Among the new plans are a $64.99 per month Sports plan, a Sports + News plan for $71.99 per month, a less expensive Entertainment plan for $54.99 per month, and a $69.99 per month News + Entertainment + Family plan, which includes kids' content.
The Sports plans include all major broadcasters, plus networks like FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN networks, and ESPN Unlimited. This plan is $18 cheaper per month than the main plan.
YouTube TV's news channels include CNBC, Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, and Bloomberg, along with other national news channels. Combined with Sports, the package is priced $11 lower per month than the main YouTube TV plan.
The entertainment-only plan is $28 cheaper per month than the main plan, and includes major broadcasters as well as FX, Hallmark, Comedy Central, Bravo, Paramount, Food Network, and HGTV. Families with small kids can add other channels like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Cartoon Network, and PBS Kids for a bit more.
The company is also offering discounts for new subscribers, which could lower the price of certain plans further for either the first few months or the first year. Subscribers will continue to have access to YouTube TV's unlimited DVR, support for up to six family members on one account, multiview, and more.
Other add-ons like NFL Sunday Ticket + RedZone, HBO Max, and 4K Plus can also be purchased to customize plans further.
The company says all the new plans will roll out over the next several weeks.
Customized packages are now not a new idea in streaming — à la carte options were a key part of the early streaming pioneer Sling TV's initial offering, for instance. This element of personalization was also one of the factors that was meant to make streaming a better alternative to traditional pay TV, where consumers often ended up paying for channels they didn't want.
But as streamers added more content, networks, and, in particular, sports programming, the cost of streaming inched back up to compete with cable and linear television. Live TV streamers like YouTube TV may have offered convenience and some savings over still more expensive cable, but it wasn't exactly affordable anymore.
These new packages hit the market at a time when consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than 11 years, due to fears about the labor market and higher prices, which have made consumers more cautious about their spending.
Topics
Consumer News Editor
Tickets are live at the lowest rates of the year. Save up to $680 on your pass now.Meet investors. Discover your next portfolio company. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Don't miss these one-time savings.
Senator, who has repeatedly warned about secret US government surveillance, sounds new alarm over ‘CIA activities'
The backlash over OpenAI's decision to retire GPT-4o shows how dangerous AI companions can be
OpenAI launches new agentic coding model only minutes after Anthropic drops its own
Anthropic releases Opus 4.6 with new ‘agent teams'
Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads
Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics
Lotus Health nabs $35M for AI doctor that sees patients for free
© 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC.
Firm's CEO insists he had 'prepared for scale, but not for THIS.'
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
AI.com bought its way onto the biggest advertising stage in the world on Sunday night, running a fourth-quarter Super Bowl ad spot that told tens of millions of sports fans worldwide to head to the site and create a handle. Hyped-up viewers arrived in droves, and then the site crashed.
Within minutes of the ad airing, users across social platforms reported that AI.com was either unreachable or stuck in failed sign-up loops, turning what was meant to be the site's big launch moment into an unexpected stress test that failed right before the eyes of millions. The company soon restored its service, but first impressions count.
In a post on X.com, co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek, best known as the CEO of Crypto.com, said that the company had “prepared for scale, but not for THIS,” later attributing the disruption to external factors outside the company's control. Marszalek later wrote that the website was “hitting Google rate limits (which are at their absolute global maximum).”
domain: $70M1 minute superbowl ad: $15Mforgetting to turn on autoscaling right before launch: priceless pic.twitter.com/pn8Xv6A43tFebruary 9, 2026
That excuse might sound like your typical tech bro attempt to pass the buck to somebody else, but there's some plausibility to his claim given how AI.com's onboarding works. At launch, the site funnels new users through a single “continue with Google” authentication option. Once millions of users suddenly arrived and began attempting to create their AI agents, Google may have begun throttling requests, effectively making the site unusable.
For a company that reportedly spent $70 million to secure the AI.com domain — a level of investment that suggests it's a business that wants to establish itself as a foundational platform — it's arguably inexcusable for its first mass-market test to expose a launch stack that had zero redundancy or meaningful margin for error. When the single point of failure gave way in the form of throttled Google authentication requests, it was lights out.
AI.com is selling itself as a way to create personal AI agents that can execute tasks across apps and operate with verifying levels of access depending on subscription tier. That's an ambitious promise, and that ultimately falls flat when the company behind it can't even get the basics like user authentication squared away right out of the gate.
According to Adweek, AI accounted for 23% of ads shown during this year's Super Bowl — a grim statistic for those of us who are fed up with the force-feeding.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
©
Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,
New York,
NY 10036.
The US Air Force reacts to emerging consumer technologies that can compromise operation security.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
The U.S. Air Force has banned the use of smart glasses for all its personnel, and it also limited the use of earphones and other Bluetooth devices while in uniform for official duties. According to its dress and personal appearance policy announcement, “It is unauthorized to wear mirrored lenses or smart glasses with photo, video, or artificial intelligence capabilities while in uniform.” Furthermore, the use of earbuds — specifically earpieces, headphones, or any Bluetooth wireless technology — is now limited to personnel who have been authorized for official duties.
The announcement did not give the reason why these gadgets were banned from use while in uniform, except saying that it was “designed to uphold military professionalism” and to support “a more effective and mission-ready force.” However, while not specifically mentioned, there's also the fact that smart glasses often record photos and videos automatically, which are then uploaded to the cloud. This is a nightmare situation for operational security, as it could unintentionally reveal sensitive information, especially for those working at or near top secret bases.
Aside from that, it also prohibited uniformed personnel from using earbuds, both wired and wireless, unless authorized to do so for official duties. The ban even extended to using personal electronic media devices, including earpieces, speaker phones, or text messaging, while walking, unless in an emergency or as part of necessary official notifications. Nevertheless, the regulation introduced a couple of exemptions — uniformed personnel can use them while traveling on public transport or while wearing physical training gear during individual or personnel fitness training.
Public tracking technology has long been a problem for military forces. This first came to light in 2018, when exercise apps, like Strava and Polar, started showing where their users were taking their runs. This unintentionally revealed the location and layout of several U.S. bases — even the secret ones. Even though the users remained anonymous, jogging paths that seemingly appeared out of nowhere indicated that there was an installation there. Matching the publicly available exercise data makes it so much easier to confirm open-source intelligence, increasing the base's operational risks.
Smart glasses are seemingly becoming a significant threat, too, especially as they have become more subtle and sophisticated. For example, Tom's Hardware's review of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses show that they look like a perfectly normal pair of glasses, but still have the ability to capture what the user sees and hears. And while the Ray-Bans have a white LED light on the frame to indicate that they are recording, some users were able to deactivate it. This meant that they can be used for secretly recording.
This threat also extends beyond bad actors within the U.S. Air Force. The service currently has over 300,000 active-duty personnel — so, even if just 1% of them use smart glasses, that's 3,000 smart devices that need to be monitored and hardened against cyberattacks. So, to make things simple, it just decided to completely ban the smart devices for those in uniform.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He's been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he's been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
©
Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,
New York,
NY 10036.
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Google
Government & Policy
Hardware
Instagram
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
Early-stage founders, this is your moment!
Are you ready to put your startup to the test on the ultimate global stage? The Startup Battlefield is calling. Nominations for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, the world's most iconic startup pitch competition, are officially open.
Step onto the main stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 and go head-to-head in front of world-class VC judges and the entire TechCrunch audience. This is where breakout companies are forged. Compete for $100,000 in equity-free funding, earn global exposure, and get real, unfiltered feedback from the investors who shape the future of tech.
Startup Battlefield alumni include Dropbox, Discord, Fitbit, Trello and CloudFlare — over 1,700 startups that once stood exactly where you are now.
The next breakout doesn't happen by accident. Nominate now.
Thousands of startups apply each year, and this year's field will be even more competitive. TechCrunch reviews every nomination, but founders who enter early give themselves a strategic edge. If you're serious about winning, don't wait to join the fight.
Explore the full list of perks.
We're looking for bold, early-stage founders with an MVP and a vision that challenges the status quo. If you're bootstrapped, pre-seed, or seed-funded, this battlefield was made for you. Series A startups in capital-intensive industries may also qualify.
Nominations close mid-June, but champions don't wait for the last call. Prepare early. Nominate early. Enter Startup Battlefield 200 and fight for your place on tech's biggest stage.
Topics
© 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC.
Latest
AI
Amazon
Apps
Biotech & Health
Climate
Cloud Computing
Commerce
Crypto
Enterprise
EVs
Fintech
Fundraising
Gadgets
Gaming
Google
Government & Policy
Hardware
Instagram
Layoffs
Media & Entertainment
Meta
Microsoft
Privacy
Robotics
Security
Social
Space
Startups
TikTok
Transportation
Venture
Staff
Events
Startup Battlefield
StrictlyVC
Newsletters
Podcasts
Videos
Partner Content
TechCrunch Brand Studio
Crunchboard
Contact Us
Gather AI, a startup that offers an AI platform for warehouse cameras and drones, has raised a $40 million Series B funding round led by Smith Point Capital. That's the VC firm founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block.
The Gather team first met Smith Point a year ago at a logistics conference, and “it took Keith and his team five minutes to get what we're doing,” co-founder and CEO Sankalp Arora told TechCrunch.
What Gather AI is doing is unusual. The three founders met as PhD students at Carnegie Mellon University, where they built one of the first autonomous helicopters and tested it on the FBI training grounds in Quantico. (Block is a trustee for CMU.)
In 2017, the founders took what they learned about teaching helicopters to fly and land safely and launched Gather AI. Using off-the-shelf cameras placed on strategic moving equipment like forklifts, as well as off-the-shelf drones flying around the warehouse, the cameras watch on-the-floor operations and log what they find into the warehouse management systems.
But the catch is, the AI isn't being random about what it scans. It is being “curious,” as Arora described it.
“My PhD work focused on how to make different kinds of flying robots curious,” he said. “So they're curious about boxes and bar codes and workflows.”
In addition to barcodes, they look for lot codes, text, expiration dates, case counts, damages, occupancy, and other items. The idea is that they will discover and predict issues like low inventory, misplaced stock, and workflows that may cause safety issues.
They also work in environments unfriendly to people, like freezers and cold storage.
Because Gather's underlying tech was built years before the age of large language models, this is not the kind of AI that an LLM uses.
“They're not end-to-end neural networks,” Arora explains. “They are classical Bayesian techniques, combined with neural networks.”
AI vision Bayesian techniques use probability-base methods to teach computers how to interpret visual data. These systems allow the technology to learn by using data and prior knowledge to make decisions — meaning they don't suffer the hallucination problems of LLMs.
Instead they “get curious,” as Arora put it, to gather information (hence the startup's name) and make a decision on the next action based on what they've learned.
As old-school as that sounds, Gather AI is sitting at the edge of the next big thing in AI, sometimes called “embodied AI.” These are robots that interact with the real world, as opposed to an LLM interacting via computer chat or web app.
To that end, in December, the startup won the 2025 Nebius Robotics award for Vision AI and Streaming Video Analytics. (Nebius is a Netherlands company that provides AI infrastructure.)
Gather currently employs about 60 people, Arora said, and customers include Kwik Trip, Axon, GEODIS, and NFI Industries. With this fresh funding, the startup has now raised $74 million total. Other investors include Bain Capital Ventures, XRC Ventures, and Hillman Investments.
Topics
Venture Editor
Tickets are live at the lowest rates of the year. Save up to $680 on your pass now.Meet investors. Discover your next portfolio company. Hear from 250+ tech leaders, dive into 200+ sessions, and explore 300+ startups building what's next. Don't miss these one-time savings.
Senator, who has repeatedly warned about secret US government surveillance, sounds new alarm over ‘CIA activities'
The backlash over OpenAI's decision to retire GPT-4o shows how dangerous AI companions can be
OpenAI launches new agentic coding model only minutes after Anthropic drops its own
Anthropic releases Opus 4.6 with new ‘agent teams'
Sam Altman got exceptionally testy over Claude Super Bowl ads
Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics
Lotus Health nabs $35M for AI doctor that sees patients for free
© 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC.
The bulk of the island's fabs and leading-edge process technologies must remain in Taiwan to form the silicon shield.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Taiwan's government has rejected calls from U.S. officials to shift a large portion of semiconductor manufacturing to America, stating that relocating 40% of the island's chip production is not feasible, reports Reuters. The authorities expect companies like TSMC and UMC to keep expanding their production capacity on the island, even though TSMC is now actively expanding overseas and other countries are looking for the onshoring of chipmaking.
Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said in an interview with Taiwanese television station CTS that she had clearly told the U.S. government that Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem cannot simply be transferred elsewhere. The semiconductor sector will continue expanding domestically, while overseas investments — including those that TSMC makes in its U.S. production capacity — will proceed only alongside continued growth at home.
According to Cheng, Taiwan's overall semiconductor capacity — including existing fabs as well as future projects — is expected to exceed investments made in the United States or any other country.
The comments are a response to the recent statements by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said that concentrating a large portion of global semiconductor production close to China represented a strategic vulnerability. He also indicated that the goal of the U.S. government is to increase the country's share of the market of leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing to 40% in three years, by the end of President Trump's current term.
How that can be possible, given the fact that it takes three years to build a fab in the U.S. and then about a year to ramp it, is something Lutnick did not disclose. Yet he warned that if such goals are not achieved, tariffs on Taiwan-made goods could potentially increase to as much as 100%.
In earlier remarks, Lutnick also described a scenario in which leading-edge semiconductor production could be split roughly evenly between Taiwan and the United States, which indicates that the U.S. government has a fairly flexible position when it comes to actual market share numbers.
By contrast, Taiwanese officials reiterated that there are no plans to relocate the island's science parks, which form the core of its semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, and are indispensable parts of the country's so-called silicon shield. Nonetheless, Taiwan authorities have no problems with TSMC expanding overseas as long as its most advanced technologies remain in Taiwan.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
©
Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,
New York,
NY 10036.
A solid upgrade to the outgoing Core Ultra 5 245K.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Intel is reportedly preparing to launch its Arrow Lake refresh, aka 16th Gen, next month with at least three SKUs present at launch. One of those is the Core Ultra 250K Plus, the successor to the existing Core Ultra 245K, with a bumped-up core config and tuned clock speeds. While we've seen benchmarks leaks for other ARL-R chips before, the 250K Plus has just appeared for the first time on Geekbench.
This processor ended up scoring 3,113 points in the single-core test and walked away with 15,251 points in the multi-core test. Those are some pretty solid numbers and in line with what we expect from a new Core Ultra 5 desktop processor. For some reason, Geekbench's CPU database doesn't include the 245K so we don't have a direct point of comparison, but we can still search for individual runs on the platform.
Most of the 245K results listings show a single-core score under 3,000, but multi-core is almost always between 17,000-18,000, which means the Core Ultra 250K Plus tested here was ahead in one place but trailing in the other. This leaked run was conducted on an Asus Prime Z890-P WIFI motherboard with 32GB of RAM, and the processor boosted up to 5.3 GHz during testing. That lines up with the previous leak from last year.
The Core Ultra 250K Plus is supposed to be an 18-core processor with 6 P-cores and 12 E-cores (up from 6P+8E on 245K). It features a 100 MHz increase in both of those core boost clocks, along with 100 MHz decrease in the E-core base clock speeds. Like other Arrow Lake refresh chips, it has support for native DDR5-7200 and will use the existing LGA 1851 socket, yet there are new motherboards planned.
This will be Intel's last hurrah in the desktop segment until Nova Lake is expected to debut at the end of this year, marking a true next-gen leap similar to what Panther Lake has done on mobile. Recently, prices and embargo dates for these ARL-R chips leaked out and showed a very enticing picture, while confirming that the Core Ultra 9 SKU is dead for this generation.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he's not working, you'll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
©
Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,
New York,
NY 10036.
Despite Ferrari dramatically scaling back its EV plans at the end of 2025, it's no exaggeration to say that the reveal of the Italian automaker's first full electric car is going to be the automotive event of 2026.
While the exterior is still under wraps, Ferrari has unveiled the interior of its upcoming electric vehicle designed by LoveFrom, the creative firm of Apple's former chief designer, Jony Ive. It may not turn out quite like the Project Titan car Apple worked on for a decade then killed in 2024, but it sure does look like it has similar DNA.
“We are entering a new era in Ferrari,” the company's CEO Benedetto Vigna said at the unveiling, which took place last week at San Francisco's pyramid-shaped Transamerica building. Vigna also revealed that Ferrari has changed the EV's name. It is now officially called the Ferrari Luce—the Italian word for “light,” pronounced loo-chay.
“This is a project that will enlighten our future, our road ahead,” Vigna said.
The car previously had the nickname of Elettrica, and the change is apparently an effort to downplay the electrified elements in favor of focusing on more Ferrari-esque features. “There are many other things that are at the core of Ferrari Luce,” Vigna said. “Elettrica would have been a wrong name for our car.”
This interior uncloaking is the second of a three-part reveal process of the Luce. Ferrari shared details about its EV powertrain in October. Ferrari says a full disclosure of the exterior will come in May, but this latest showing was the first look at what Ive and his team at LoveFrom have created for those who sit inside the Luce.
At the event, Ive immediately contrasted the experience of designing the Luce with the 27 years he spent at Apple before leaving in 2019.
“Cars are very complicated,” Ive said. “But I hope that it will be obvious and clear the amount of care that has gone into every little piece.”
Utilizing an office space on an upper floor of the Transamerica pyramid, Ferrari and LoveFrom showed off several of the internal components that will be in the Luce. The team is certainly not ready to show us everything. We didn't see a stereo system, a glovebox, or even floor mats. We saw a front seat (which we weren't allowed to sit in) but not a back seat. We did get assurances from a Ferrari rep that the Luce would indeed have cup holders. Cup holders, after all, are mighty important.
We did get to see and touch the key elements of the cockpit: the steering wheel, the binnacle behind it with speed and odometer dials, a center-dash mounted display, and a center console with a glass gear shifter.
The Luce's steering wheel and binnacle.
The car comes to life when the key fob clicks into the console.
Oddly, none of these pieces were arranged inside an actual vehicle interior but were instead disembodied, separated, and spread out across one big room so people could wander through. One seat over here. A disassembled vent system by the far wall. It was the luxury car equivalent of a Marcel Duchamp exhibition, but instead of a urinal or galvanized-iron snow shovel (which, incidentally, went for $3 million last year), there was a steering wheel.
“Part of my grumpy belligerence now is I'm done working with assholes,” Ive said in his introduction. The line drew a laugh from the audience around him. “I'm so happy that we can just place creative excellence right at the center of what we're doing.”
Ive may wax self-deprecatingly about his salty nature, but when he started explaining the details of all the machined aluminum buttons he had ordered and approved over the course of five years, he was positively chipper. As we wandered through the exhibit, Ive happily responded to WIRED's questions on how things were working with Ferrari.
“It's an important brand,” Ive said. “I like the fact that they weren't lazy, like some other companies I know who just roll around in their success printing money.”
The center console.
If you're hip to Ive's style, the Luce's aesthetics will look familiar. Everything is presented in glass and brushed aluminum. Rounded corners are enforced with ruthless efficiency. The occasional small glass knob on the edge of screens evokes the Apple Watch's crown. The central control panel looks very much like an iPad. Even the sizzle-reel video Ferrari used to unveil the interior was edited like the booming product videos shown at iPhone launches or WWDC.
Ive says that the emphasis on physical buttons, each with a singular purpose, is to let the driver keep their eyes on the road and off the screen. “When you look at this, you are not wondering, ‘How many layers deep am I going to have to go to find something to make my bottom warm?'” he said.
“You don't touch anything but aluminum, glass, or leather,” multiple Ferrari employees said multiple times over the event. (The only bits of plastic they owned up to were a couple of gears in the control panel.)
The result is a truly tactile experience. Everything feels satisfyingly clicky or twisty. The aluminum buttons have, unsurprisingly, an incredible feel. The glass knobs were similarly smooth. We were particularly taken with the air vents, which have aluminum shields that flip around when you twist them open and closed. We fiddled with these over and over until the Ferrari people had to come tell us it was time to leave the room.
Ferrari's glass partner is Corning, the company whose Gorilla Glass has been used on every iPhone model. Corning says there are more than 40 glass parts in the Luce, including buttons, screens, and even the casing of the center console and gear-shift knob.
Ive calls glass a “truthful material.” Compared to a more standard plastic option, glass certainly feels more premium as a knob or gear shifter. But will it shatter in an instant if you get in a wreck? Hopefully not, as Corning says its technicians have done countless crash tests to make sure this version of Gorilla Glass is safe enough.
The steering wheel has the signature three-spoke design Ferrari is famous for. It is almost a circle but has a squished bottom that gives the wheel a shape that evokes a dumpling (or a flat tire). The wheel has a leather grip all the way around, of course, but clicky aluminum buttons right by your fingers let you signal or change music tracks and volume.
Behind the steering wheel is the binnacle, the console where the odometer, speedometer, and other indicators are placed. Taken by itself, the screen looks like a large iPhone in landscape mode with three Apple Watches positioned in the center. Convex lenses with a parallax effect magnify the circular OLED screens supplied by Samsung, which Ferrari has partnered with for the display tech. Additional icons appear in the top-right corner to indicate things like road conditions.
Though the binnacle is dominated by screens, very select bits are entirely analog. Namely, the needles of the speedometer and odometer, which are made of aluminum and polycarbonates. When the car is off, the dials' screens go dark and the needles seem to float in a black void. When the screens come on, they light up the needles as well, making them glow.
Tactile buttons line the bottom of the display, and an aluminum bar serves as a palm rest as well as a handle to reposition the screen.
The dials have digital screens behind analog needles.
To the right of the wheel sits a control panel display, a rectangular screen with smooth curved edges and almost no bezel. In other words, iPad shaped. However, the screen is mounted on a ball-and-socket joint and so can be moved around in a manner that brings to mind another relic of Ive's tenure in Cupertino, the iMac G4.
This screen again is a Samsung OLED, this time a touchscreen. The panel tells you lots of information unique to EVs, such as battery life and which wheels are using the most power.
The idea of the panel being movable is so that the person riding shotgun, instead of the driver, can control the stuff onscreen. Ive pointed out that when the screen is in its neutral position, the driver can rest their palm on the aluminum handle for easier access to the tactile switches and buttons without needing to look directly at the panel.
In the top-right corner of this panel is a cutout for a clock. The background of this clock is digital, so it can be changed to become a stopwatch or compass. The analog hands then move depending on which setting you choose.
Yes, the Luce's key fob looks like a miniature iPhone. It has a glass back, with a Ferrari logo surrounded by yellow E Ink. That digital ink comes into play when you turn the car on.
To demonstrate, Ive fitted the fob into a slot on the center console, where it snapped in magnetically. When Ive pushed it down, the yellow E Ink on the fob dimmed, and the glass knob of the gear shifter beside it lit up with a yellow gleam. The Ferrari logo blinks on, and the dials on the dash spring to attention. It was as if that signature yellow pigment was a serum being injected into the car's body, awakening it from slumber.
“You have this sense that it is really bringing life to the rest of the system,” Ive said.
Corning says the shifter knob has had 13,000 holes, each half the width of a human hair, laser-blasted throughout the glass so that the light can properly diffuse through it for just this purpose.
The front seat. (There is also a back seat, which we didn't see.)
After the main event, our scrum of journalists walked a couple of blocks from the Transamerica building to LoveFrom's headquarters. LoveFrom cofounder Marc Newson and some Ferrari reps were there, but most of the questions over the half hour that followed were directed at Ive. He rumbled out classic Ive-isms in his gentle baritone, such as, “If you can't use something, it's ugly” and “I love learning more than I love being right.”
However, this focus on Ive—plus the multiple echoes to Apple products past and present within the Luce—led to a nagging realization that perhaps this first EV from Ferrari is the closest we will ever get to seeing what the Cupertino company might have produced had its Project Titan ever made it out into the wild.
Ferrari knew exactly what it was buying by bringing in Ive and his team, and he has delivered. The goal of LoveFrom's efforts with the car company is to leave users with a tactile, visceral feeling that they are interacting with something real. Yet this also feels strangely incongruous coming from the man who helped build an empire off the back of beautiful slabs of glass on which everyone now spends all day doomscrolling. (The man is also, of course, designing OpenAI's upcoming physical hardware project that will provide an interface for its chatbot.)
To his credit, Ive seemed to recognize this incongruity and even gestured at some sort of want for atonement for the societal impact of the (very good) designs of his past.
“We've become more and more isolated in our digital worlds,” Ive said. “There is a growing desire to not be isolated, disconnected, whether it's from each other or the real physical world.”
“Every bone in my body tells me some of the things that we've learned, some of the things that I think we've discovered, I'm hoping will have a much broader relevance and implication of value to a broader set of products,” Ive said.
Maybe, someday, connecting with reality will be more easily attainable for everyone and not just those lucky enough to sit inside a Ferrari EV.
In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter
Moltbot is taking over Silicon Valley
Big Story: He leaked a scam compound's secrets—and had to get out alive
Palantir defended its work with ICE to staff
Olympics: From medals to mascots, here's everything you need to know
10% off Exclusive Squarespace Promo Code 2026
LG Promo Code: 20% off Your First Order
10% off Dell Coupon Code for New Customers
30% Samsung Coupon - offer Program 2026
10% off Canon Coupon + Up to 30% off
50% off DoorDash Promo Code For New & Existing Users
© 2026 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
There's been this hand-wave, this assumption, this yada yada at the core of our long-term space programs. If we can return astronauts to the moon, we'll find ice there. And if we find that ice in sufficient quantities, we'll break it down into hydrogen and oxygen, and yada yada, we'll use that fuel to fly deeper into the solar system, maybe even to Mars. And if we get to Mars, we'll find even more ice on the Red Planet. We'll mine that, combine it with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and yada yada, we'll use that to fly the astronauts back.
It's an idea that's been around since the Apollo era and has been touted in recent years by the likes of former NASA administrator Bill Nelson and SpaceX's Elon Musk. But here's the thing: No one has ever successfully turned water into rocket fuel, not for a spaceship of any significant size. A startup called General Galactic, led by a pair of twentysomething engineers, is aiming to be the first.
This fall, General Galactic plans to fly an 1,100-pound satellite, using water to supply its only propellant in-orbit. If it works, it not only could start to solve the yada yada problem, it could make US satellites more maneuverable at a time when there's a growing possibility of a conflict in space.
“Everybody wants to go build a moon base or a Mars base or whatever. Who's going to pay for it? How does it actually work?” asks Halen Mattison, CEO of General Galactic. “Our vision is to go build a gas station on Mars,” he adds, “but also eventually build out the refueling network” in between.
That's the very, very long-term plan, at least. For starters, Mattison, a former SpaceX engineer, and his CTO, Luke Neise, a veteran of Varda Space, have purchased a spot on a Falcon 9 rocket launch. Scheduled liftoff is October or later in the fall.
There are, to broadly oversimplify, two main kinds of engines that you can use in your spacecraft. You can take a fuel like liquid methane, maybe combine it with an oxidizer, and burn it. That's called chemical propulsion, and every big rocket you've ever seen take off uses some variation of that method, because it provides a lot of thrust, even if it's not terribly efficient.
Or you can take a gas like xenon, zap it with electricity, and shoot it out of the spacecraft, either as an ionized gas or a plasma. That's called electric propulsion—again, I'm way oversimplifying. And “it's very, very low thrust. People jokingly like to call it a burp in space,” Mattison says. “But it lasts forever. The efficiency is crazy.” Enough burps over time can actually be quite effective. Electric propulsion is used to keep satellites in their proper orbit and to power space probes like Dawn, which NASA sent to explore the asteroid belt.
Water isn't ideal for either electrical or chemical propulsion. But it might be just good enough for both. Unlike, say, liquid methane, you don't need to worry about water accidentally blowing up your spacecraft or keeping it cooled at -260 degrees Fahrenheit or having it boil off when your satellite faces the sun.
General Galactic plans to demonstrate the two methods during its Trinity mission. For chemical propulsion, it'll use electrolysis to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, then burn the hydrogen, with oxygen as the oxidizer. For the electrical propulsion system—this one's called a “Hall thruster”—it'll split the water, then apply enough electrical energy that the oxygen becomes a plasma. From there, you use a magnetic field to shape the plasma and shoot it out.
The idea is to show “we can provide both the long-efficiency maneuver but also sometimes folks need to get somewhere fast or respond really quickly to a dramatic event in the orbital environment,” says Neise, General Galactic's CTO. “Sometimes you need more than a burp in space.”
For example, Chinese and Russian satellites increasingly have been flying in close proximity to American ones. Finding a method for maneuvering away from those rivals in a hurry is something the US Space Force and others are extremely interested in.
The hope, Mattison says, is that “we can give you five or 10 times the mission Delta-V,” using the jargon for the total change in velocity and direction a spacecraft can make over time.
Mattison and Neise met in grad school at Stanford and began riffing on this water-based propellant idea. They started geeking out on the idea—and started their company—even as they worked day jobs for folks like Musk. They hoovered up research papers and called anyone they could who'd worked on similar systems. “We then take it to modeling software. We'll run the equations. We did a lot of Python scripts just looking at different mission cases,” Mattison says. Eventually, they got to a place “where we're like, ‘This is pretty different. This is kind of exciting.' And that's how we knew we had something that was worth putting real money behind.”
So far, Mattison and Neise have raised $10 million in venture capital, a relative pittance in the aerospace sector but more than enough for this mission.
Of course, there are reasons this has never been done before. Ionized oxygen interacts with everything, potentially corroding the electrical propulsion system. “It's not an easy element to work with,” says Ryan Conversano, a former Jet Propulsion Laboratory technologist who is serving as a consultant to General Galactic. “It makes material selection and design of the device or devices very, very challenging.”
As for the chemical propulsion system, it's not clear whether General Galactic's will be competitive enough with more traditional ones, once the added mass for the electrolysis system is added in.
“It could be a pretty, pretty clever way to provide thrust to a small satellite,” says Mark Lewis, CEO of the Purdue Applied Research Institute and the former chief scientist of the US Air Force. “But there are a lot of what-ifs.”
Lewis believes it's very much worth trying, though. If General Galactic can meet or top its expectations for this introductory effort, it could begin to be an answer to that yada yada at the core of tomorrow's missions to the moon and beyond.
In your inbox: Sign up for our new Tracker: ICE newsletter
TikTok now collects even more of your data
Big Story: ICE pretends it's a military force, but it would get soldiers killed
Microdosing for depression works about as well as drinking coffee
Watch: We raced in exoskeletons to see if they actually help
© 2026 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
We go into all the details at https://alltheviews.worldAnd there's an interactive map with over 1 billion longest lines, covering the whole world at https://map.alltheviews.world Just click on any point and it'll load its longest line of sight.Some of you may remember Tom's post[1] from a few months ago about how to efficiently pack visibility tiles for computing the entire planet. Well now it's done. The compute run itself took 100s of AMD Turin cores, 100s of GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk and 2 days of constant runtime on multiple machines.If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here:* Tom's blog post: https://tombh.co.uk/longest-line-of-sight* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
And there's an interactive map with over 1 billion longest lines, covering the whole world at https://map.alltheviews.world Just click on any point and it'll load its longest line of sight.Some of you may remember Tom's post[1] from a few months ago about how to efficiently pack visibility tiles for computing the entire planet. Well now it's done. The compute run itself took 100s of AMD Turin cores, 100s of GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk and 2 days of constant runtime on multiple machines.If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here:* Tom's blog post: https://tombh.co.uk/longest-line-of-sight* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
Some of you may remember Tom's post[1] from a few months ago about how to efficiently pack visibility tiles for computing the entire planet. Well now it's done. The compute run itself took 100s of AMD Turin cores, 100s of GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk and 2 days of constant runtime on multiple machines.If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here:* Tom's blog post: https://tombh.co.uk/longest-line-of-sight* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here:* Tom's blog post: https://tombh.co.uk/longest-line-of-sight* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
* Tom's blog post: https://tombh.co.uk/longest-line-of-sight* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
* Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ryan.berge.rs/posts/total-viewshed-algorithmThis was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
This was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves!1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45485227
But... I want to see a photo! Or at least what it looks like in Google Earth, with a red arrow marking the furthest point.It feels like the site is setting you up for the big suspense of the longest line of sight... and then it's just a line on a 2D map.I think it would also really help if the maps themselves were at an angle in 3D with an exaggerated relief, with the line drawn in 3D, so you can get a sense of how it travels between two peaks.It seems like you've put a ton of effort into this project. I think with just a tiny bit more work on the page, you could really put the "cherry on top".And with those visualizations, get it picked up by a lot of major news outlets. This is a really fun story, the kind of stuff newspapers and magazines love to run. It's easily understandable, it's a cool new "record", it's a story of someone's perseverance paying off, and then you show a Google Earth image simulating the view as the payoff. (And from slightly above, if necessary, to take account for refraction.)EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
It feels like the site is setting you up for the big suspense of the longest line of sight... and then it's just a line on a 2D map.I think it would also really help if the maps themselves were at an angle in 3D with an exaggerated relief, with the line drawn in 3D, so you can get a sense of how it travels between two peaks.It seems like you've put a ton of effort into this project. I think with just a tiny bit more work on the page, you could really put the "cherry on top".And with those visualizations, get it picked up by a lot of major news outlets. This is a really fun story, the kind of stuff newspapers and magazines love to run. It's easily understandable, it's a cool new "record", it's a story of someone's perseverance paying off, and then you show a Google Earth image simulating the view as the payoff. (And from slightly above, if necessary, to take account for refraction.)EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
I think it would also really help if the maps themselves were at an angle in 3D with an exaggerated relief, with the line drawn in 3D, so you can get a sense of how it travels between two peaks.It seems like you've put a ton of effort into this project. I think with just a tiny bit more work on the page, you could really put the "cherry on top".And with those visualizations, get it picked up by a lot of major news outlets. This is a really fun story, the kind of stuff newspapers and magazines love to run. It's easily understandable, it's a cool new "record", it's a story of someone's perseverance paying off, and then you show a Google Earth image simulating the view as the payoff. (And from slightly above, if necessary, to take account for refraction.)EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
It seems like you've put a ton of effort into this project. I think with just a tiny bit more work on the page, you could really put the "cherry on top".And with those visualizations, get it picked up by a lot of major news outlets. This is a really fun story, the kind of stuff newspapers and magazines love to run. It's easily understandable, it's a cool new "record", it's a story of someone's perseverance paying off, and then you show a Google Earth image simulating the view as the payoff. (And from slightly above, if necessary, to take account for refraction.)EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
And with those visualizations, get it picked up by a lot of major news outlets. This is a really fun story, the kind of stuff newspapers and magazines love to run. It's easily understandable, it's a cool new "record", it's a story of someone's perseverance paying off, and then you show a Google Earth image simulating the view as the payoff. (And from slightly above, if necessary, to take account for refraction.)EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
EDIT: Here, I used Google Earth to show the two points. Unfortunately it's from high above, since otherwise Earth wouldn't show the pin for Pik Dankova, but it at least gives a general idea of the area:https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
https://imgur.com/hindu-kush-to-pik-dankova-530km-adbVFwbAnd here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
And here is the Google Earth link for the view, but it doesn't contain the pins:https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
https://earth.google.com/web/search/41.0181,77.6708/@36.6644...
reply
Note that technically my link is a slightly longer sightline (longer by 7 km).
reply
That imgur link is great, I totally see what you mean. So surely there is a way to at least automate linking to these views? I don't know about embedding them cos Google will want money. We're very open to suggestions, and PRs of course! https://github.com/AllTheLines/viewview
reply
reply
reply
Additionally, the GPS coordinates might need adjustment, as there are several prominent peaks near both Liborina and Pico Cristóbal Colón (the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains).[1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/6%2e75514,-75%2e7222/@6....[2] https://earth.google.com/web/search/10%2e8467,-73%2e7029/@10...
[1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/6%2e75514,-75%2e7222/@6....[2] https://earth.google.com/web/search/10%2e8467,-73%2e7029/@10...
[2] https://earth.google.com/web/search/10%2e8467,-73%2e7029/@10...
reply
So you're saying a better title for the Colombian line of sight could be "Pico Lagos del Congo to Pico Cristóbal Colón"? We can definitely change that.Thought I'm not sure what you mean about the coordinates being wrong? Are you saying that you should be able to see further from Pico Lagos del Congo?
Thought I'm not sure what you mean about the coordinates being wrong? Are you saying that you should be able to see further from Pico Lagos del Congo?
reply
reply
Well the record for the longest photographed line of sight is in the same region as our #3 longest line, at 483km https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66661-lon... So not far off. And I think that even takes advantage of some favourable refraction. So not only might it be possible to see the longest view. But there may even be longer lines if we were to take into account extreme cases of refraction. Which is certainly something we'd love to try.
reply
> He monitored weather conditions closely to find the right window and right location. After a lot of travelling he arrived at Aksu village. The village wasn't accessible by car due to snow and ice so he hiked to the summit. After 10 hours of climbing, he stood on the summit with moonlight providing enough light to set up his equipment. At midnight, he recalls that the temperature was around -12°C with winds around 8 m/s. He remained there all night capturing panoramic photos. Before sunrise, the wind picked up to roughly 20-25 m/s and the battle of capturing his world record image began. He planned to capture the image at sunrise to improve contrast and whilst he is pleased with the final result, he is already making plans for his next record-breaking image.But still, that kinda confirms my observation about the pesky atmosphere: even with optimal weather conditions, he still needed the sun lighting up the sky behind the mountains just before sunrise, otherwise they would have blended in with the sky at the horizon...This also applies for much shorter distances: despite what the publicity photos suggest, you can't see the Alps from Munich most of the time (or only as slightly darker shapes on the horizon), although they're "only" ~ 75 km away. You need really good weather to see them clearly...
But still, that kinda confirms my observation about the pesky atmosphere: even with optimal weather conditions, he still needed the sun lighting up the sky behind the mountains just before sunrise, otherwise they would have blended in with the sky at the horizon...This also applies for much shorter distances: despite what the publicity photos suggest, you can't see the Alps from Munich most of the time (or only as slightly darker shapes on the horizon), although they're "only" ~ 75 km away. You need really good weather to see them clearly...
This also applies for much shorter distances: despite what the publicity photos suggest, you can't see the Alps from Munich most of the time (or only as slightly darker shapes on the horizon), although they're "only" ~ 75 km away. You need really good weather to see them clearly...
reply
You won't usually see them from the ground of course but from a couple floors up with a clear line of sight you do see them quite often.
reply
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%B6hn#Optischer_Vergr%C3%B...Sure, you can see the mountains only as "slightly darker shapes" as the parent put it but you could identify individual summits I think.
Sure, you can see the mountains only as "slightly darker shapes" as the parent put it but you could identify individual summits I think.
reply
Or is this just an elaborate silhouette?Is that a difference? I don't know.
Is that a difference? I don't know.
reply
But if we instead quibble over the term "photograph," I'd argue that a photograph of a silhouette of a mountain is absolutely a photograph of a mountain. Similarly, I'd argue that X-ray photography is indeed photography.
reply
Lets take it to its farthest extent: can you take a picture of a black hole?
reply
reply
Dedication, mmm, dedication. Dedication, that's what you need. If you want to be the best, and if you want to beat the rest. Dedication way you need.Hopefully that means something to Brits of a certain age ;-)
Hopefully that means something to Brits of a certain age ;-)
reply
reply
reply
[1] https://uchile.cl/noticias/205455/astrofotografo-logra-nuevo...
[2] https://dalekiewidoki.pl/2025/07/world-record-andes.html
[3] https://api.flickr.com/photos/robertoantezana/4994301227/
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
One advantage in NZ is that on a nice day you actually have a good chance of seeing it.Oh ... clicking on Mt Owen doesn't return the favour ... or the other nearest peaks. But Culliford Hill does show a return back to Ruapehu, 355.4 km. Clicking on Tapuae-o-Uenuku also, as expected, gives a line to Ruapehu: 342.3km.Mt Cook is high, but has too many other high peaks near it.Mt Taranaki is isolated, but doesn't turn up any very long distances.I don't expect any other candidates in NZ.Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
Oh ... clicking on Mt Owen doesn't return the favour ... or the other nearest peaks. But Culliford Hill does show a return back to Ruapehu, 355.4 km. Clicking on Tapuae-o-Uenuku also, as expected, gives a line to Ruapehu: 342.3km.Mt Cook is high, but has too many other high peaks near it.Mt Taranaki is isolated, but doesn't turn up any very long distances.I don't expect any other candidates in NZ.Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
Mt Cook is high, but has too many other high peaks near it.Mt Taranaki is isolated, but doesn't turn up any very long distances.I don't expect any other candidates in NZ.Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
Mt Taranaki is isolated, but doesn't turn up any very long distances.I don't expect any other candidates in NZ.Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
I don't expect any other candidates in NZ.Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
Update: actual and accidental photo of Tapuae-o-Uenuku from Ruapehu (342 km), seven months ago.https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1m9p0bh/tapuaeo...And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
And, as pointed out in a comment, also Mount Alarm 2.5 km further.What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
What is the longest in North America? Or Europe proper -- not Elbrus (which I've not been to but have been close enough to see, from several places e.g. from a house in Lermontov (~94 km only), summit of Beshtau (93 km), Dombai ski field (~63 km), somewhere on A157 (~50km).
reply
So using that, I would say that the longest line of sight in North America is from Mount Rainier, at 390km, looking North West into Canada: https://map.alltheviews.world/longest/-121.76853942871094_46...
reply
That gives a longest in NZ of 365.3 km from Ruapehu, skirting past close by Tapuae-o-Uenuku (in the Inland Kaikoura Range) to a point on the Seaward Kaikoura Range near the peak of Manakau. Clicking on the actual Manakau peak also gives 365.3 km back to Ruapehu.I can't seem to find a peak to get a reverse path back to Mt Ranier. Everything I try gets stuck in the Olympic Peninsular. (I was there once ... 1998 or so ... a place called Hurricane Ridge IIRC)
I can't seem to find a peak to get a reverse path back to Mt Ranier. Everything I try gets stuck in the Olympic Peninsular. (I was there once ... 1998 or so ... a place called Hurricane Ridge IIRC)
reply
So this is the NZ longest line right https://map.alltheviews.world/longest/173.61386108398438_-42...One thing to note about finding reverse lines, is that they're not truly mathematically identical because the observer always has a height of 1.65m and the destination is always some point at the surface, therefore 0.0m. It doesn't always make a difference, but it sometimes can.
One thing to note about finding reverse lines, is that they're not truly mathematically identical because the observer always has a height of 1.65m and the destination is always some point at the surface, therefore 0.0m. It doesn't always make a difference, but it sometimes can.
reply
Anyone with expertise want to comment?
reply
Mountains can rise higher near equator because you have the least gravity there. The whole Earth bulges along the equator. But I don't think it's measurable.
reply
reply
reply
So that large lines of sight are near the equator on a north south axis (or symmetrically south north) is crazy because the high rates of curvature in that direction at those latitudes should give the shortest distance to the horizon on earth, making those lines of sight even that much more impressive!
reply
reply
reply
It is not about highest point from centre of Earth. That's is related to equatorial bulge but irrelevant to the discussion.
reply
Edit: to be clear the difference stems from our coordinates. Our starting points are:41.059167,77.683333 (me)41.0181,77.6708 (you)And our end points are:36.295364,78.755593 (me)36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
41.059167,77.683333 (me)41.0181,77.6708 (you)And our end points are:36.295364,78.755593 (me)36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
41.0181,77.6708 (you)And our end points are:36.295364,78.755593 (me)36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
And our end points are:36.295364,78.755593 (me)36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
36.295364,78.755593 (me)36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
36.314,78.7654 (you)Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
Also I calculate the distance assuming the Earth is spherical (which gives 538 km) not the standard geodesic (which would give 537 km).And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
And in the DEM data I measure the distance from the center of a cell to another (not the edge), while measuring from edge to edge may explain a difference of at most 0.1 km as the DEM resolution is 3 arcseconds.So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
So clearly we disagree on the coordinates of the exact actual sightline as we have a 7 km difference :-)Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
Edit #2: clearly the error is on your side. I should have checked this first, but the coordinates you give for the "To" point (41.0181,77.6708) land in a valley with the south view completely blocked so it's impossible to view 500+ km south as you claim. Look at where the marker lands on this Google Maps Terrain: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PgBWxi31WZC6vk3V9
reply
There's two forms of interpolation going on here that I'm not sure you or Dr Dueschle are using. We interpolate a "band of sight" of single a degree for our azithmual projection, but uniquely we also rotate the DEM elevations around all the observers rather than the observer around to see all the elevations.The effects of the first can be lessened by lowering the band of sight such that we only process half a degree at a time so that we make sure we get more coverage further away. We plan on running some more experiments by rotating to cover more points.The algorithm is already fairly expensive to run against the whole world so we weren't particularly interested in that level of coverage for the full earth.For total viewshed area, our algorithm comes in at roughly a percent or so difference which was what we used as our benchmark for correctness.All this to say, no, we don't think you both are wrong, we've been looking at making ours more accurate. At a world scale that's quite computationally expensive, so we didn't use that methodology for our initial launch. We see our results as validation of yours, not as something we've disproved.Edit: grammar
The effects of the first can be lessened by lowering the band of sight such that we only process half a degree at a time so that we make sure we get more coverage further away. We plan on running some more experiments by rotating to cover more points.The algorithm is already fairly expensive to run against the whole world so we weren't particularly interested in that level of coverage for the full earth.For total viewshed area, our algorithm comes in at roughly a percent or so difference which was what we used as our benchmark for correctness.All this to say, no, we don't think you both are wrong, we've been looking at making ours more accurate. At a world scale that's quite computationally expensive, so we didn't use that methodology for our initial launch. We see our results as validation of yours, not as something we've disproved.Edit: grammar
The algorithm is already fairly expensive to run against the whole world so we weren't particularly interested in that level of coverage for the full earth.For total viewshed area, our algorithm comes in at roughly a percent or so difference which was what we used as our benchmark for correctness.All this to say, no, we don't think you both are wrong, we've been looking at making ours more accurate. At a world scale that's quite computationally expensive, so we didn't use that methodology for our initial launch. We see our results as validation of yours, not as something we've disproved.Edit: grammar
For total viewshed area, our algorithm comes in at roughly a percent or so difference which was what we used as our benchmark for correctness.All this to say, no, we don't think you both are wrong, we've been looking at making ours more accurate. At a world scale that's quite computationally expensive, so we didn't use that methodology for our initial launch. We see our results as validation of yours, not as something we've disproved.Edit: grammar
All this to say, no, we don't think you both are wrong, we've been looking at making ours more accurate. At a world scale that's quite computationally expensive, so we didn't use that methodology for our initial launch. We see our results as validation of yours, not as something we've disproved.Edit: grammar
Edit: grammar
reply
reply
reply
reply
I'm afraid I don't have a good answer. I'm sure with future runs will get closer to you and udeuschle.deI thought of you when we saw Colombia appear so high up in the list, I remembered that's something you'd found too.
I thought of you when we saw Colombia appear so high up in the list, I remembered that's something you'd found too.
reply
I wonder how atmospheric refraction is handled in the calculations for the longest line of sight. Since it (a) strongly affects the line of sight, and (b) depends on temperature and weather, how is a static "world record" possible, or even defined? E.g. objects may appear 400m higher in 200km distance under typical conditions.https://hdersch.github.io/Viewing.html
https://hdersch.github.io/Viewing.html
reply
We actually have a plan to aggregate world runs together, so that one run as low refraction and a short observer, then another run with high refraction and tall observer. Then instead of rendering longest lines of sight as those singl triangles, we could render them as 2 triangles that represents the extremes of expected visibility.
reply
reply
reply
reply
Why allow the user to select any arbitrary location on a map and give an answer when you know the answer is most likely nonsense? You don't need to compute for 2 days to accomplish that; you could just make it up.
reply
That it's not taking into account human construction or distances of tens of meters?Presumably you can walk a little bit and climb on someone's roof to see the claimed 24.7 km. Assuming a sufficiently clear atmosphere, and that there isn't a tall office building in the way or something.
Presumably you can walk a little bit and climb on someone's roof to see the claimed 24.7 km. Assuming a sufficiently clear atmosphere, and that there isn't a tall office building in the way or something.
reply
reply
reply
Definitions:* Hams: Amateur radio operators.* QSO: conversation or contact between two radio stations.* QRP: Low power, typically under 5 watts.
* Hams: Amateur radio operators.* QSO: conversation or contact between two radio stations.* QRP: Low power, typically under 5 watts.
* QSO: conversation or contact between two radio stations.* QRP: Low power, typically under 5 watts.
* QRP: Low power, typically under 5 watts.
reply
reply
https://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2021/08/using-1-2-ghz-in-the-...
reply
reply
[1] https://beyondrange.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestre...
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
So in mine you can click on a spot and it draws black lines over any land that is occluded by terrain, within 100km.(But all with AI-generated JavaScript, not cool Rust and SIMD stuff)https://incoherency.co.uk/line-of-sight-map/
(But all with AI-generated JavaScript, not cool Rust and SIMD stuff)https://incoherency.co.uk/line-of-sight-map/
https://incoherency.co.uk/line-of-sight-map/
reply
reply
This is what I get when I set the observer height to 20m, and increase the "max distance" to 300km (200km = ~124 miles so may not be enough).https://img.incoherency.co.uk/6478It's also possible that the half dome is too short and the sampling rate of the line-of-sight jumps over it!
https://img.incoherency.co.uk/6478It's also possible that the half dome is too short and the sampling rate of the line-of-sight jumps over it!
It's also possible that the half dome is too short and the sampling rate of the line-of-sight jumps over it!
reply
reply
reply
reply
Heh, I almost hit back at the "in Rust" mention.Would the end result have been different if it were done in python calling C libraries for performance? I strongly doubt it.
Would the end result have been different if it were done in python calling C libraries for performance? I strongly doubt it.
reply
reply
This is an independent observation from the Fabra Observatory:
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/03/inenglish/14253...
reply
Thanks for this tool!
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
I did some longshots back in the early days of wifi.
reply
You could probably talk between ends using cheap crappy 446MHz 250mW walkie-talkies though.
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
https://www.heywhatsthat.com/ is another bookmark that I had lost to time.
reply
reply
Actually, I was thinking of https://caltopo.com/map.html but your site led me to it.
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
Cheerswww.climbs.cc
www.climbs.cc
reply
reply
reply
reply
if we put mt. everest on a sperical cow, i mean on a planet with only ocean, how far could you see there? how far away could a second peak of the same height be, before it gets hidden by the curvature of the planet?
reply
reply
And it could even be tweaked slightly with some favourable refraction.
reply
reply
This is cool tho. What about to an ocean point from a mountain? Was there anything longer?
reply
reply
reply
reply
Next curious fact -- the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge are perfectly vertical, but the top of one tower is 4.6 cm (1.8 inches) farther away from the other, compared to the bottom of the towers -- because there is a small angular tilt between the towers. Guess why ...Okay, it's because the towers are independently vertical with respect the center of the earth, are horizontally separated by 4,200 feet, and each tower is 746 feet tall. These dimensions assure that the towers have a distinct angle with respect to each other. It's a small difference, but it's not zero.I thought about these things (and many others) during my four-year solo around-the-world sail (https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/).
Okay, it's because the towers are independently vertical with respect the center of the earth, are horizontally separated by 4,200 feet, and each tower is 746 feet tall. These dimensions assure that the towers have a distinct angle with respect to each other. It's a small difference, but it's not zero.I thought about these things (and many others) during my four-year solo around-the-world sail (https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/).
I thought about these things (and many others) during my four-year solo around-the-world sail (https://arachnoid.com/sailbook/).
reply
reply
I believe I _might_ have a 33km view FROM MY ROOF, from 2m above ground I have much less than 1 km.
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
Well there is a photo near our #3 longest line of sight https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/66661-lon...
reply
reply
reply
reply
reply
Reading time 3 minutes
“If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who's going to win the race?”That strange quote is from an extraordinary New York Times article about “Coral Hart,” the pseudonym of a Cape Town, South Africa-based writer granted anonymity by the Times to talk about her use of AI to mass produce “more than 200 romance novels,” which she then sells on Amazon without disclosing that they're the products of AI models like Claude and Grok, and in so doing she has pulled in six-figures, she says, off of about 50,000 sales.
The person known as Hart allowed what seems to be a real photograph of her, smiling face and all, to be used by the Times, apparently in service of a side hustle teaching people how to use AI to manufacture their own novels, courses she markets under the “Hart” name.
Hart, the story says, “requested anonymity” for what only sound like reasons related to professional expediency. She apparently works as some kind of coach, and has some unnamed role in publishing—work she performs under her real name. But she “fears that revealing her A.I. use would damage her business for that work.”
With her face now out there, how anonymous can she possibly be?
The Times' Alexandra Alter writes that during a Zoom conversation with Hart some unnamed A.I. program churned instructions into a full novel over the course of 45 minutes. The article also claims that through Hart's teaching business, Plot Prose, she's working on a proprietary piece of software that can “generate a book based on an outline in less than an hour, and costs between $80 and $250 a month.” It sounds a great deal like the same piece of software Hart demoed directly to the Times. The PlotProse website advertises something called “The PlotProse Skip-the-Draft Package,” claiming to produce novels that are 90% complete and “fully packaged for publication.”
The section on the “February Launchpad” from PlotProse costs $300, and it's described as a mentorship program “designed to take you from a single idea to a fully published author with a three-book catalogue.” Participants who AI-generate their three books, can expect, “instant momentum in the market,” and “a complete, repeatable production and launch blueprint that allows you to keep scaling up your business in the following months.”
The package, the site claims, “eliminates the blank page, replacing months of drafting with a data-validated manuscript and a clear, proprietary roadmap for rapid publication.” The Times' Alter writes that Hart doesn't disclose the use of AI, even to readers, because Hart claims that “there's still a strong stigma around the technology.”
Hart's odd choice to reveal her face but not her name extends to YouTube as well. Late last year she appeared on the video podcast “Brave New Bookshelf” to talk about what she was at the time calling an experiment to write under 20 different pseudonyms (“Coral Hart” is apparently a discontinued pseudonym when it comes to book bylines).
In the video, she occasionally slips up and refers to herself and her pseudonyms as “we.”
“When I say ‘we' it's just me and those personalities of pen names, right? My AI pen names are run just by me. That was part of the experiment. See if I could substitute volume of publishing as opposed to throwing ad money into something. So far the answer is yes. I'm still putting out quality books. I just learned how to do it fast and stack and juggle a lot.”
It strikes me that making six-figures per year is both ambitious in a way, and in another way, small potatoes. Even if you have zero qualms whatsoever about secretly selling people AI-generated text, generating millions of words to any sort of specifications at all—even loose ones—and then marketing them on Amazon still involves a whole lot of mouse clicks or iPad finger taps or whatever the case may be. And at the same time, you can almost certainly scam people out of crypto with much less effort and a whole lot more monetary reward.
This has to be one of the stranger cases of doing it for the love of the game I've seen. Whoever Coral Hart is, she doesn't exactly seem greedy in terms of wanting money. She seems like she truly just wants a decent income in exchange for turning the crank on a giant text meat grinder all day long.
Explore more on these topics
Share this story
Subscribe and interact with our community, get up to date with our customised Newsletters and much more.
What happens if a Waymo runs into an elephant? The world model knows.
Opus 4.6 has arrived.
They're hoping companies will pay for AI agent management.
ED-209 to the rescue.
Welcome to the future, where you can do TaskRabbit for robots.
He wants you to have AI whether you want it or not.
©2025 GIZMODO USA LLC.
All rights reserved.
Pancreatic cancer has a lot of nerve. Notoriously tricky to detect, the disease also often resists traditional therapy. So, researchers are urgently looking for new ways to disrupt tumor formation. Though scientists know that the nervous system can help cancer spread, its role in the disease's earliest stages remains unclear. "One phenomenon that is known is called perineural invasion," says Jeremy Nigri, a postdoc in Professor David Tuveson's lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). "This means cancer cells will migrate within the nerve and use the nerve as a way to metastasize."
Now, Nigri and his colleagues at CSHL have discovered that the nervous system plays an active part in pancreatic cancer development, even before tumors form. Using 3D imaging, they found that tumor-promoting fibroblasts called myCAFs send out signals to attract nerve fibers. The myCAFs and nerve cells then work together within pancreatic lesions to create a favorable environment for cancer to grow. The findings are reported in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
A technique called whole-mount immunofluorescence enabled Tuveson's team to take 3D photographs of the lesions and surrounding cells. Where standard 2D images show thin nerve fibers as scattered tiny dots, the 3D images reveal a dense network of nerves snaking through and around the myCAFs and lesions. "When we first saw this picture, I was shocked," Nigri says. "I couldn't even imagine the lesion like this. I'd only ever seen it in 2D."
Nigri and his colleagues ran a series of experiments on mice and human cells that uncovered a vicious cycle between myCAFs and nerves. They found myCAFs give off signals that attract nerve fibers from the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for our fight-or-flight response. These nerve fibers release the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which binds to the fibroblasts and triggers a calcium spike that further activates myCAFs. This spike not only promotes pre-cancerous growth, but also pulls in even more nerve fibers, locking the system into a dangerous self-reinforcing loop.
In one experiment, we use a neurotoxin to disable the sympathetic nervous system. We show reduced fibroblast activation and a nearly 50% reduction in tumor growth."
Jeremy Nigri, postdoc, CSHL
Because the myCAF-nerve loop happens so early, disrupting this cycle could lead to potential new therapies. The findings suggest that clinically available drugs, including doxazosin, may be effective when combined with standard treatments like chemotherapy or immunotherapy. "The next step will be to study this more in detail and try to find a way to block the crosstalk between fibroblasts and nerves," Nigri says. "With support from groups like the Lustgarten Foundation and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, we hope to one day help improve patient outcomes."
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Nigri, J., et al. (2026) Myofibroblasts induce neuroplasticity to promote pancreatic inflammation and cancer progression. Cancer Discovery. DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-25-1337. https://aacrjournals.org/cancerdiscovery/article-abstract/doi/10.1158/2159-8290.CD-25-1337/772007/Myofibroblasts-induce-neuroplasticity-to-promote
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
A significant discovery by Case Western Reserve University researchers could change how doctors treat two of the most devastating neurodegenerative diseases.
The team identified a link between gut bacteria and the deterioration of the brain in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). The researchers discovered that certain bacterial sugars cause immune responses that kill cells-and how to prevent it.
FTD mainly affects the brain's frontal and temporal lobes, causing changes in a person's personality, behavior and language. ALS primarily targets motor neurons, resulting in gradual muscle weakness and paralysis.
Most causes of ALS and FTD cases are unknown, although researchers have been examining several potential reasons, including genetics, environmental issues, brain injuries and diet.
The study, recently published in Cell Reports, solves a long-standing question about neurodegenerative diseases. The team discovered a molecular connection that explains why some people with specific genetic mutations acquire FTD and ALS and others don't.
We found that harmful gut bacteria produce inflammatory forms of glycogen (a type of sugar), and that these bacterial sugars trigger immune responses that damage the brain."
Aaron Burberry, assistant professor, Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve School of Medicine
Burberry, the study's senior investigator, reported that 70% of the 23 ALS/FTD patients examined had dangerous glycogen levels. Of those without the brain diseases, only a third had high levels of glycogen.
The study has immediate implications for patient care by identifying new targets to treat ALS and FTD, while providing biomarkers to identify patients who might benefit from gut-targeted therapies.
This discovery paves the way for testing new treatments that break down harmful sugars in the gut, and it opens doors for developing drugs that work on the connection between the digestive system and the brain-potentially offering new hope for patients suffering from these devasting brain diseases.
Alex Rodriguez-Palacios, assistant professor in the Digestive Health Research Institute at the School of Medicine, said the team used its findings to then reduce the harmful sugars, which "improved brain health and extended lifespan."
Their discovery is particularly significant for what is known as C90RF72 mutation carriers-the most common genetic cause of ALS and FTD. The research explains why some people with the mutation develop the diseases while others don't, identifying gut bacteria as a key environmental trigger.
The university's Department of Pathology and Digestive Health Research Institute are leading neurovegetative disease research through their unique ability to conduct studies using germ-free mouse models-mice raised in completely sterile environments with no bacteria, allowing researchers to study exactly how specific gut bacteria affect brain diseases.
Fabio Cominelli, Distinguished University Professor and director of the Digestive Health Research Institute, oversees this program, which relies on an innovative "cage-in-cage" sterile housing system developed by Rodriguez-Palacios-a technical capability that few institutions worldwide possess and that made this discovery possible.
The design makes possible the large-scale microbiological studies necessary to understand the complex communication between the gut and brain-research that would be impossible with traditional methods that can only accommodate a few mice at a time, and a technical capability that few institutions worldwide possess.
"To understand when and why harmful microbial glycogen is produced, the team will next conduct larger studies surveying gut microbiome communities in ALS/FTD patients before and after disease onset," Burberry said. "Clinical trials to determine whether glycogen degradation in ALS/FTD patients could slow disease progression are also supported by our findings and could begin in a year."
Case Western Reserve University
McCourt, B., et al. (2026). C9orf72 in myeloid cells prevents an inflammatory response to microbial glycogen. Cell Reports. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116906. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)01678-X.
Posted in: Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Small and dense but filled with vitally important neural fibers, the brainstem has been hard for brain imaging technologies to dissect. New software reliably and finely resolves eight distinct nerve bundles in live diffusion MRI scans, revealing signs of injury or disease.
The signals that drive many of the brain and body's most essential functions-consciousness, sleep, breathing, heart rate and motion-course through bundles of "white matter" fibers in the brainstem, but imaging systems so far have been unable to finely resolve these crucial neural cables. That has left researchers and doctors with little capability to assess how they are affected by trauma or neurodegeneration. In a new study, a team of MIT, Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers unveil AI-powered software capable of automatically segmenting eight distinct bundles in any diffusion MRI sequence.
In the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences, the research team led by MIT graduate student Mark Olchanyi reports that their BrainStem Bundle Tool (BSBT), which they've made publicly available, revealed distinct patterns of structural changes in patients with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and traumatic brain injury and shed light on Alzheimer's disease as well. Moreover, the study shows, BSBT retrospectively enabled tracking of bundle healing in a coma patient that reflected the patient's 7-month road to recovery.
The brainstem is a region of the brain that is essentially not explored because it is tough to image. People don't really understand its makeup from an imaging perspective. We need to understand what the organization of the white matter is in humans and how this organization breaks down in certain disorders."
Mark Olchanyi, doctoral candidate in MIT's Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program
Added Emery N. Brown, Olchanyi's thesis supervisor and co-senior author of the study: "The brainstem is one of the body's most important control centers. Mark's algorithms are a significant contribution to imaging research and to our ability to understand the regulation of fundamental physiology. By enhancing our capacity to image the brainstem, he offers us new access to vital physiological functions such as control of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, temperature regulation, how we stay awake during the day and how we sleep at night."
Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Medical Engineering in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He is also an anesthesiologist at MGH and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Diffusion MRI helps trace the long branches, or "axons," that neurons extend to communicate with each other. Axons are typically clad in a sheath of fat called myelin and water diffuses along the axons within the myelin, which is also called the brain's "white matter." Diffusion MRI can highlight this very directed displacement of water. But segmenting the distinct bundles of axons in the brainstem has proved challenging because they are small and masked by flows of brain fluids and the motions produced by breathing and heart beats.
As part of his thesis work to better understand the neural mechanisms that underpin consciousness, Olchanyi wanted to develop an AI algorithm to overcome these obstacles. BSBT works by tracing fiber bundles that plunge into the brainstem from neighboring areas higher in the brain such as the thalamus and the cerebellum to produce a "probabilistic fiber map." An artificial intelligence module called a "convolutional neural network" then combines the map with several channels of imaging information from within the brainstem to distinguish eight individual bundles.
To train the neural network to segment the bundles, Olchanyi "showed" it 30 live diffusion MRI scans from volunteers in the Human Connectome Project (HCP). The scans were manually annotated to teach the neural network how to identify the bundles. Then he validated BSBT by testing its output against "ground truth" dissections of post-mortem human brains where the bundles were well delineated via microscopic inspection or very slow but ultra-high-resolution imaging. After training, BSBT became proficient in automatically identifying the eight distinct fiber bundles in new scans.
In an experiment to test its consistency and reliability, Olchanyi tasked BSBT with finding the bundles in 40 volunteers who underwent separate scans two months apart. In each case, the tool was able to find the same bundles in the same patients in each of their two scans. Olchanyi also tested BSBT with multiple data sets (not just the HCP) and even inspected how each component of the neural network contributed to BSBT's analysis by hobbling them one by one.
"We put the neural network through the wringer," Olchanyi said. "We wanted to make sure that it's actually doing these plausible segmentations and it is leveraging each of its individual components in a way that improves the accuracy."
Once the algorithm was properly trained and validated, the research team moved on to testing whether the ability to segment distinct fiber bundles in diffusion MRI scans could enable tracking of how each bundle's volume and structure varied with disease or injury, creating a novel kind of biomarker. Though the brainstem has been difficult to examine in detail, many studies show that neurodegenerative diseases affect the brainstem, often early on in their progression.
Olchanyi, Brown and their co-authors applied BSBT to scores of datasets of diffusion MRI scans from patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Patients were compared to controls and sometimes to themselves over time. In the scans, the tool measured bundle volume and "fractional anisotropy" (FA), which tracks how much water is flowing along the myelinated axons vs. how much is diffusing in other directions, a proxy for white matter structural integrity.
In each condition, the tool found consistent patterns of changes in the bundles. While only one bundle showed significant decline in Alzheimer's, in Parkinson's the tool revealed a reduction in FA in three of the eight bundles. It also revealed volume loss in another bundle in patients between a baseline scan and a two-year follow-up. Patients with MS showed their greatest FA reductions in four bundles and volume loss in three. Meanwhile, TBI patients didn't show significant volume loss in any bundles, but FA reductions were apparent in the majority of bundles.
Testing in the study showed that BSBT proved more accurate than other classifier methods in discriminating between patients with health conditions vs. controls.
BSBT, therefore, can be "a key adjunct that aids current diagnostic imaging methods by providing a fine-grained assessment of brainstem white matter structure and, in some cases, longitudinal information," the authors wrote.
Finally, in the case of a 29-year-old man who suffered a severe TBI, Olchanyi applied BSBT to scans taken during the man's 7-month coma. The tool showed that the man's brainstem bundles had been displaced but not cut and showed that over his 7-month coma, the lesions on the nerve bundles decreased by a factor of three in volume. As they healed, the bundles moved back into place as well.
The authors wrote that BSBT, "has substantial prognostic potential by identifying preserved brainstem bundles that can facilitate coma recovery."
The study's other senior authors are Juan Eugenio Iglesias and Brian Edlow. Other co-authors are David Schreier, Jian Li, Chiara Maffei, Annabel Sorby-Adams, Hannah Kinney, Brian Healy, Holly Freeman, Jared Shless, Christophe Destrieux, and Hendry Tregidgo.
Funding for the study came from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Defense, James S. McDonnell Foundation, Rappaport Foundation, American SidS Institute, American Brain Foundation, American Academy of Neurology, Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, and Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Picower Institute research is supported by The Freedom Together Foundation.
Picower Institute at MIT
Olchanyi, M. D., et al. (2026). Probabilistic mapping and automated segmentation of human brainstem white matter bundles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2509321123. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2509321123
Posted in: Device / Technology News | Medical Science News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
After serious injuries, burns, fractures, or major surgeries, the body normally repairs damaged tissues and restores movement. However, in some patients, the healing process takes an unexpected and harmful turn. Instead of rebuilding healthy muscle and tendon, new bone begins to form inside soft tissues, causing pain, stiffness, and long-term disability. This condition, known as heterotopic ossification (HO), often develops after trauma, joint replacement surgery, or combat-related injuries and may require additional surgery. Despite its serious impact on patients' lives, the biological processes behind it have remained poorly understood.
In a new study, a team of researchers led by Dr. Benjamin Levi from Center for Organogenesis, University of Texas Southwestern, United States, revealed how two key proteins, thrombospondin 1 (TSP1) and thrombospondin 2 (TSP2), contribute to abnormal bone growth after injury by reshaping damaged tissue. The findings help explain how injured tissue becomes "reprogrammed" to support bone formation and suggest new ways to prevent this serious complication. The study was published in Volume 14 of the journal Bone Research on January 19, 2026.
"Our study shows that these proteins play a central role in shaping the healing environment after injury. When their activity is reduced, abnormal bone growth drops dramatically," says Dr. Levi
Previous research suggested that changes in the extracellular matrix (ECM) may influence how tissues heal. However, the molecular signals that guide these changes were unclear. The new study set out to identify the specific factors that shape this healing environment after injury.
To investigate this, the researchers used a well-established mouse model involving burn and tendon injury, a type of trauma known to trigger HO. The team then followed how cells and tissues changed over time using advanced genetic and imaging tools. They combined several techniques, including single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics. In addition, high-resolution imaging was used to analyze collagen fibers and three-dimensional scans to analyze bone formation.
The analyses showed that TSP1 was mainly produced by immune cells known as macrophages at the center of the injury, with lower levels also detected in mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs), early-stage cells that can develop into bone-forming cells. In contrast, TSP2 was produced mainly by MPCs around the edges of the damaged area.
The researchers also found that these proteins influenced how collagen fibers were arranged. In normal healing, collagen is flexible and loosely organized. In injured tissue with active thrombospondin signaling, the fibers became tightly aligned, creating a structure that supported bone growth. To test whether these proteins were essential, the team studied mice that lacked both TSP1 and TSP2. In these animals, collagen fibers were disorganized, and abnormal bone growth was greatly reduced.
"When we removed both proteins, the tissue no longer formed the supportive framework needed for ectopic bone to develop. As a result, we saw much less harmful bone formation," says Dr. Levi
Scans confirmed that these mice had far smaller bone deposits in tendons and surrounding tissues, while their normal skeleton remained unaffected. This suggests that targeting these proteins may reduce abnormal bone growth without interfering with healthy bone development.
The study also identified a regulatory protein called FUBP1 that helps control TSP2 production. When FUBP1 levels were reduced in laboratory-grown cells, TSP2 levels also dropped, weakening the signals that promote tissue remodeling. Additionally, the authors caution that their findings are based mainly on animal models. Further research is needed to confirm whether the same mechanisms operate in humans and how safely they can be targeted. Taken together, the study provides insights into how thrombospondin signaling contributes to HO after injury.
"HO can be life-altering for many patients. By understanding the roles of TSP1 and TSP2 in HO formation, we hope to develop therapies that target these proteins and prevent HO before it causes permanent damage," concludes Dr. Levi.
University of Texas Southwestern
Hunter, M. K., et al. (2026). Thrombospondin 1 and 2 regulate mesenchymal progenitor cell fate and matrix organization. Bone Research. DOI: 10.1038/s41413-025-00493-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41413-025-00493-2
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
In nanoscale particle research, precise control and separation have long been a bottleneck in biotechnology. Researchers at the University of Oulu have now developed a new method that improves particle separation and purification. The promising technique could be applied, for example, in cancer research.
Separating nanosized particles remains a persistent challenge in biotechnology. Once particle size drops below a few hundred nanometres, their behaviour becomes dominated by diffusion – the random walk of particles. This weakens the forces used to guide them, causing separation accuracy to collapse.
A microfluidics research group led by Professor Caglar Elbuken at the University of Oulu has developed a new solution to the problem. The method significantly improves the separation and purification of both small synthetic particles and nanoscale vesicles secreted by living cells.
Particle separation is crucial because many biological processes occur precisely at the nanoscale. Extracellular vesicles isolated from biological samples can reveal early changes in the body. If impurities cannot be removed, valuable information may remain undetected. An efficient yet gentle purification method is therefore essential for both diagnostics and basic research.
In the new method, the researchers combined two physical phenomena: lift generated by electrophoretic slip and the lateral forces that arise in a viscoelastic fluid. In the slip phenomenon, an electric field does not pull the particle directly but sets the surrounding fluid in motion. A viscoelastic fluid behaves partly like a conventional liquid and partly like an elastic material, resulting in lateral forces that do not emerge in water-based solutions.
The study was recently published in the respected journal Analytical Chemistry. The article's lead author, doctoral researcher Seyedamirhosein Abdorahimzadeh from the University of Oulu, explains the significance of the work:
“Controlled separation of nanoparticles is essential in both biological research and many clinical applications, yet existing methods are often slow, complex or unreliable. Our separation and purification method enables surprisingly efficient sorting of particles in an ordinary microchannel. Until now, particles of this size required nanofluidic channels, which clog easily and demand high operating pressures. Compared to earlier techniques, the new method is faster, more accurate and easier to scale.”
The study demonstrated that the method improves the separation and purity of polystyrene particles by roughly 30–50%. Polystyrene particles are commonly used as model particles in research because their size, shape and surface properties can be manufactured with high precision. This makes them ideal test material for various separation techniques, such as those used in microfluidics. The researchers also succeeded in enhancing the purity of vesicles secreted by cancer cells by more than one fifth – a significant improvement at this scale.
According to the researchers, the method could be applied in the future in blood sample analysis, cancer research, studies of cellular communication and nanomedicine more broadly.
The research forms part of Abdorahimzadeh's doctoral thesis, which examines electroviscoelastic and electroinertial methods for controlling and separating micro- and nanoscale particles. He will defend his dissertation on Friday, 13 February 2026, at the University of Oulu.
The University of Oulu
Abdorahimzadeh, S., et al. (2026). Microfluidic Electro-Viscoelastic Separation of Submicron Particles and Extracellular Vesicles. Analytical Chemistry. DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.5c06727. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.5c06727
Posted in: Device / Technology News | Medical Science News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Deaths due to synthetic opioids nitazenes have likely been underestimated by up to a third.
King's College London research, published today in Clinical Toxicology, sheds light on the UK's growing synthetic opioid problem.
The presence of nitazenes on the unregulated drug market has risen steeply in the last seven years – prompting UK and international bodies to issue public health warnings about their use.
Nitazenes are a class of synthetic opioids which can have potencies of up to 500 times that of heroin. They can be readily manufactured at low cost. These potent synthetic opioids were originally synthesised for use in humans as analgesics but their development was halted due to extreme potencies.
While the National Crime Agency (NCA) reported 333 fatalities linked to nitazenes in 2024, researchers believe that the number of deaths has been underreported as concerns have been raised by toxicologists regarding their stability in postmortem blood samples. This means they are likely being missed by postmortem toxicology tests.
Testing this theory, researchers used anesthetized animal models to find that on average only 14% of nitazene present at the time of overdose was present when tested under real-world pathology and toxicology sample handling conditions.
The team then used modeling to reveal a 33% excess in drug deaths in Birmingham in 2023, using data from the UK National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM) based at King's College London. They believe that a credible explanation for at least some of these excess deaths may be due to the non-detection of nitazene that degraded prior to toxicology testing being performed. It typically takes around a month for blood samples to be analysed by toxicologists.
If nitazenes are degrading in post-mortem blood samples, then we are almost certainly undercounting the true number of deaths that they are causing. That means we're trying to tackle a crisis using incomplete data. When we don't measure a problem properly, we don't design the right interventions – and the inevitable consequence is that preventable deaths will continue.
Understanding how nitazenes degrade, and what they degrade into, is critical. If we can identify these breakdown products and where degradation is occurring, we will be able to detect deaths more accurately and respond more effectively. Better science leads to better surveillance, and better surveillance will save lives.
This research shows that the harm caused by nitazenes is likely being significantly underestimated. Because these drugs degrade in post-mortem blood, we may be missing up to a third of the deaths they are involved in, meaning public health responses are being designed and funded for only two-thirds of the real problem.
Behind this undercount are people dying suddenly from extremely potent opioids, families left without answers, and communities facing a growing but largely hidden toll."
Dr. Caroline Copeland, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology, King's College London
King's College London
Posted in: Medical Research News | Healthcare News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Chronic alcohol consumption profoundly alters gene expression in key brain regions involved in reward, impulse control, and decision-making, according to a study led by researchers at the Institute for Neurosciences, a joint center of Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Published in the journal Addiction, the work provides new insight into the biological basis of alcohol addiction and points toward potential therapeutic targets.
Alcohol use disorder is one of the leading causes of disease and death worldwide, yet despite its enormous social and health impact, available treatment options remain limited. Understanding what changes in the brain after decades of alcohol consumption is essential for developing more effective therapies."
Jorge Manzanares, senior author of the study, UMH professor
To address this question, the researchers analyzed post-mortem brain tissue from individuals who had consumed alcohol chronically for an average of 35 years. The study focused on the endocannabinoid system, a key neurobiological network involved in reward, motivation, and addictive behaviors.
The endocannabinoid system regulates fundamental brain functions such as pleasure, mood, memory, and stress response. It consists of receptors-including CB1 and CB2-their endogenous ligands, and enzymes responsible for ligand degradation, such as FAAH and MGLL. "This system acts as a fine-tuned modulator of brain activity and plays a central role in reward and motivation," Manzanares explains.
Previous studies had shown that alcohol interacts with the endocannabinoid system, but evidence from human brain tissue was scarce. This study provides a detailed picture of how chronic alcohol use alters the expression of key endocannabinoid genes in brain regions critical to addiction.
Researchers examined two core components of the mesocorticolimbic system: the prefrontal cortex, involved in judgment, planning, and decision-making, and the nucleus accumbens, a central hub for reward processing and habit formation.
Compared with control samples from individuals without addiction, brain tissue from people with alcohol use disorder showed marked gene expression imbalances. Expression of the CB1 receptor gene increased by 125% in the prefrontal cortex and by 78% in the nucleus accumbens. "CB1 is closely linked to reinforcement of addictive behaviors and relapse risk," explains UMH professor María Salud García-Gutiérrez, first author of the study.
In contrast, expression of the CB2 receptor gene decreased by approximately 50% in both regions. "Because CB2 has neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory functions, its reduction suggests a weakening of the brain's defenses against alcohol-induced damage," García-Gutiérrez notes.
The study also revealed striking alterations in GPR55, a receptor long considered 'orphan' due to uncertainty about its natural ligand. GPR55 expression increased by 19% in the prefrontal cortex but dropped by 51% in the nucleus accumbens. This is the first study to document changes in GPR55 gene expression in humans with alcohol use disorder.
In addition, the researchers detected region-specific changes in FAAH, the enzyme responsible for degrading anandamide, an endocannabinoid involved in anxiety and reward. FAAH gene expression was reduced in the prefrontal cortex but increased by 24% in the nucleus accumbens, potentially altering endocannabinoid availability and signaling.
A major strength of the study is the use of brain tissue samples from the New South Wales Tissue Resource Centre in Australia. All samples came from individuals with chronic alcohol use disorder who did not consume other illicit drugs, allowing the researchers to isolate the specific effects of alcohol on the human brain. "This approach provides a much clearer picture of how alcohol alone reshapes gene expression in brain regions central to addiction," García-Gutiérrez explains.
According to the authors, these findings help explain why individuals with alcohol use disorder show increased relapse vulnerability and impaired executive control. Identifying which components of the endocannabinoid system are altered, and where in the brain these changes occur, opens the door to more targeted and personalized therapeutic strategies.
In addition to Jorge Manzanares and María Salud García-Gutiérrez, the study was authored by Abraham Bailén Torregrosa, Francisco Navarrete, and Auxiliadora Aracil, members of the Translational Neuropsychopharmacology of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders group at the Institute for Neurosciences and affiliated with the Primary Care Addiction Research Network of the Carlos III Health Institute and the Alicante Institute for Health and Biomedical Research (ISABIAL). Gabriel Rubio, researcher at the Hospital 12 de Octubre Health Research Institute (i+12), also contributed to the study.
The research was funded by the Carlos III Health Institute, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and the Spanish Ministry of Health, through national research networks in addiction and health, with additional support from ISABIAL. The Institute for Neurosciences is accredited as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence.
Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH)
García‐Gutiérrez, M. S., et al. (2025). Endocannabinoid system gene expression in mesocorticolimbic brain regions of individuals with alcohol use disorder: A descriptive study. Addiction. DOI: 10.1111/add.70293. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70293
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Panic attacks are sudden bouts of intense fear without an obvious cause. An estimated 10% of people experience at least one panic attack in their lifetime. But between 2% and 3% of the population have such frequent and severe panic attacks that they meet the criteria for the debilitating condition 'panic disorder'.
The current standard of care for panic disorder is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), with or without antidepressants. A technique of CBT with proven efficacy is 'interoceptive exposure', where therapists trigger common symptoms of panic attacks like chest pain, sweating, rapid respiration, and a racing heart in a safe, controlled environment. Its aim is to raise tolerance to these symptoms by teaching patients that they aren't dangerous.
Typically, interoceptive exposure works through office-based exercises such as voluntary hyperventilation or spinning on a chair. But now, researchers have shown that a less artificial and more intense form of interoceptive exposure – brief intermittent intense exercise – is more effective. The results are published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Here we show that a 12-week program of brief intense intermittent exercise can be used as an interoceptive exposure strategy to treat panic disorder patients."
Dr. Ricardo William Muotri, postdoctoral fellow at the Anxiety Disorders Program, University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil
In this randomized controlled trial, Muotri and colleagues compared the effect of brief, intense intermittent exercise with a form of relaxation therapy commonly used in CBT, in 102 adult women and men diagnosed with panic disorder over a period of 12 weeks.
The participants were divided across two parallel arms and did three sessions every week of their allocated exercise. No drugs were administered to either group throughout the trial.
Patients in the experimental arm began each session with a bout of muscle-stretching, followed by 15 minutes of walking and one to six 30-seconds-long bouts of high-intensity running alternating with 4.5-minutes of active recovery, and ending with additional 15 minutes of walking. Patients in the control arm did segmental muscle contraction exercises in the brachial, scapular, cervical, facial, dorsal, abdominal, and lower limb regions, followed by localized muscle relaxation. All patients wore biometric monitoring devices during the exercises.
The primary endpoint was any change over a period of 24 weeks in a patient's score on the Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (PAS), which rates the severity of panic symptoms from answers to 13 questions in a questionnaire. Secondary endpoints were analogous changes in scores on questionnaires for anxiety and depression, as well as the self-reported frequency and severity of panic attacks. A psychiatrist, blinded to treatment allocation, assessed outcomes on the endpoints.
The average PAS score, as well as the scores for anxiety and depression, decreased over time in both arms, but more steeply in the brief intense intermittent exercise arm. Similarly, the frequency and severity of panic attacks decreased more in the brief intense intermittent exercise arm.
The authors concluded that brief, intense intermittent exercise is a more effective method for interoceptive exposure than relaxation therapy for the treatment of panic disorder, with positive effects that last for at least 24 weeks. Because patients reported enjoying this method treatment more than relaxation therapy, engagement and compliance with the treatment are likely to be high.
"Healthcare professionals can adopt brief intermittent intense exercise as a natural and low-cost interoceptive exposure strategy. It doesn't need to take place in a clinical setting, so that exposure to the symptoms of a panic attack is brought closer to the patient's daily life. It could also be integrated into care models for anxiety and depression disorders," summarized Muotri.
Frontiers
Muotri, R. W., et al. (2026) Brief intermittent intense exercise as interoceptive exposure for panic disorder: a randomized controlled clinical trial. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1739639. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1739639/full
Posted in: Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
A small Tennessee hospital that was destroyed by a surging river during Hurricane Helene will soon be rebuilt on low-lying farmland that could face several feet of flooding in a much smaller storm, risking another disaster if the new facility is not built to withstand extreme weather, according to a KFF Health News analysis.
Ballad Health announced in January that it would spend about $44 million to rebuild the 10-bed Unicoi County Hospital in a field behind a Walmart in Unicoi, Tennessee, about 7 miles from the shuttered hospital that was the site of catastrophic flooding and a daring helicopter rescue on Sept. 27, 2024.
But the new location also faces significant flood risk, according to a KFF Health News review of information from Fathom and First Street, two climate data companies whose flood modeling is considered more sophisticated than outdated flood maps published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both Fathom and First Street estimate that a 100-year flood — a weather event more common and less intense than Helene — could cover much of the hospital site with more than 2 feet of water.
"The proposed site is so obviously a flood plain geomorphologically," said Oliver Wing, chief scientific officer at Fathom. "You don't need a model to see that."
Wing said the new hospital site was actually more likely to flood than the old site and "very risky" for development due to a nearby creek and potential storm runoff from mountains to the west. But the flooding would be less powerful than at the old site, Wing said, and its impact could be lessened by elevating the hospital or building earthen embankments.
Ballad Health confirmed the new hospital location but did not respond to questions about flood risk or defenses planned for the site. In a brief written statement, spokesperson Molly Luton said Ballad was working with geotechnical professionals, Zurich Insurance Group, and a high-profile architecture firm in Nashville, Earl Swensson Associates, to "plan and build a safe hospital for the Unicoi County community." Luton said Ballad is also working with FEMA, which is providing about $7.4 million for the rebuild.
FEMA has served as the nation's de facto authority for estimating flood risk for half a century, and its flood maps generally determine which buildings must be designed to withstand a flood. But those maps are often incomplete and do not account for the impacts of climate change. FEMA's flood maps of Unicoi, last updated in 2008, do not identify the new hospital site as a flood hazard zone.
Nationwide, FEMA maps don't capture much of the flood risk identified by Fathom and First Street, which use sophisticated computer models and detailed terrain data to create flood simulations that are relied on by major developers, insurance companies, and government agencies. First Street publishes much of its modeling online, while Fathom shared data with KFF Health News through a data-use agreement.
Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said that while the hilly terrain of northeastern Tennessee may limit Ballad's options to rebuild, it should not ignore the data from Fathom and First Street or rely purely on FEMA's maps, which suggest the hospital could be built with minimal flood protections.
If Ballad builds behind the Walmart, Berginnis said, it should follow the latest standards from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which recommend elevating hospitals enough to withstand a 1,000-year flood — like the one caused by Helene.
According to those standards and Google Earth elevation data, that could require earthwork to raise the ground of the Unicoi site by at least 8 feet and as much as 18 feet before construction.
"It's going to require some elevation, and there is going to be some cost," Berginnis said. "But, my God, you just lost your dang hospital."
The destruction of Unicoi County Hospital in 2024 prompted a KFF Health News investigation into hospital flood risk, which used Fathom data to identify more than 170 hospitals across the nation that face the greatest risk of significant or dangerous flooding. Of those hospitals, at least 39 faced circumstances similar to Unicoi's: Nearby rivers or creeks were predicted to swell beyond their banks and engulf the facility.
Ballad Health, which owns Unicoi and 19 other hospitals in Tennessee and Virginia, is the nation's largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly and the only option for hospital care for most residents in a 29-county region of Appalachia.
In a news release announcing the Unicoi reconstruction, Ballad said it was finalizing a land purchase for the new hospital site and expected construction to begin in the spring and last two years. Ballad Health Chief Operating Officer Eric Deaton said the reconstruction announcement was "a long-awaited step toward healing."
"Rebuilding Unicoi County Hospital is about more than bricks and mortar," Deaton said in the release. "It's about keeping care close to home for people who have been through so much."
Tennessee state Rep. Renea Jones, a Republican whose district includes both the old and new Unicoi hospital sites, praised the reconstruction plan in Ballad's news release. The release did not mention that Ballad would buy about 15 acres of land for the new hospital from Jones' family, which was first reported by local television station WJHL and later confirmed by Tennessee public records.
Jones did not agree to be interviewed about the sale of the property or its flood risk.
The destroyed Unicoi County Hospital, which cost $30 million, was built along a bend of the Nolichucky River even though FEMA had labeled that area a flood zone for decades. Mountain States Health Alliance began construction in 2017, then later became Ballad Health, which opened the hospital in 2018.
Alan Levine, who was the CEO of Mountain States and now leads Ballad, told KFF Health News in a 2024 interview that Mountain States was aware of the flood risk when Unicoi was built but believed levees could protect the facility.
"I feel like everything we did when we built it was done the right way," Levine said.
Helene proved too much to handle. As the hurricane carved a deadly path across Southern states and into Appalachia, heavy rainfall caused the Nolichucky to overspill its banks and engulf the hospital in as much as 12 feet of water.
Floodwater pushed inside the hospital and cut the power, forcing patients and staff to evacuate to the roof in hopes of rescue. Ultimately, helicopters plucked 70 people from the roof and the rushing water, narrowly avoiding fatalities.
Angel Mitchell, a Unicoi survivor who was airlifted to safety with her ailing mother, said she was appalled that the hospital would be rebuilt in an area vulnerable to another flood.
But the worst part, Mitchell said, was that locals would have little choice but to tolerate the risk because of Ballad's monopoly.
"It's ridiculous," Mitchell said. "We want to go somewhere to heal, not somewhere to worry."
KFF Health News
Posted in: Healthcare News
Cancel reply to comment
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Rebekah Stewart, a nurse at the U.S. Public Health Service, got a call last April that brought her to tears. She had been selected for deployment to the Trump administration's new immigration detention operation at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
This posting combined Donald Trump's longtime passion to use the offshore base to move "some bad dudes" out of the United States with a promise made shortly after his inauguration last year to hold thousands of noncitizens there. The naval base is known for the torture and inhumane treatment of men suspected of terrorism in the wake of 9/11.
"Deployments are typically not something you can say no to," Stewart said. She pleaded with the coordinating office, which found another nurse to go in her place.
Other public health officers who worked at Guantánamo in the past year described conditions there for the detainees, some of whom learned they were in Cuba from the nurses and doctors sent to care for them. They treated immigrants detained in a dark prison called Camp 6, where no sunlight filters in, said the officers, whom KFF Health News agreed not to name because they fear retaliation for speaking publicly. It previously held people with suspected ties to al-Qaida. The officers said they were not briefed ahead of time on the details of their potential duties at the base.
Although the Public Health Service is not a branch of the U.S. armed forces, its uniformed officers — roughly 5,000 doctors, nurses, and other health workers — act like stethoscope-wearing soldiers in emergencies. The government deploys them during hurricanes, wildfires, mass shootings, and measles outbreaks. In the interim, they fill gaps at an alphabet soup of government agencies.
The Trump administration's mass arrests to curb immigration have created a new type of health emergency as the number of people detained reaches record highs. About 71,000 immigrants are currently imprisoned, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, which shows that most have no criminal record.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said: "President Donald Trump has been very clear: Guantanamo Bay will hold the worst of the worst." However, several news organizations have reported that many of the men shipped to the base had no criminal convictions. As many as 90% of them were described as "low-risk" in a May progress report from ICE.
In fits and starts, the Trump administration has sent about 780 noncitizens to Guantánamo Bay, according to The New York Times. Numbers fluctuate as new detainees arrive and others are returned to the U.S. or deported.
While some Public Health Service officers have provided medical care to detained immigrants in the past, this is the first time in American history that Guantánamo has been used to house immigrants who had been living in the U.S. Officers said ICE postings are getting more common. After dodging Guantánamo, Stewart was instructed to report to an ICE detention center in Texas.
"Public health officers are being asked to facilitate a man-made humanitarian crisis," she said.
Seeing no option to refuse deployments that she found objectionable, Stewart resigned after a decade of service. She would give up the prospect of a pension offered after 20 years.
"It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make," she said. "It was my dream job."
One of her PHS colleagues, nurse Dena Bushman, grappled with a similar moral dilemma when she got a notice to report to Guantánamo a few weeks after the shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August. Bushman, who was posted with the CDC, got a medical waiver delaying her deployment on account of stress and grief. She considered resigning, then did.
"This may sound extreme," Bushman said. "But when I was making this decision, I couldn't help but think about how the people who fed those imprisoned in concentration camps were still part of the Nazi regime."
Others have resigned, but many officers remain. While they are alarmed by Trump's tactics, detained people need care, multiple PHS officers told KFF Health News.
"We do the best we can to provide care to people in this shit show," said a PHS nurse who worked in detention facilities last year.
"I respect people and treat them like humans," she said. "I try to be a light in the darkness, the one person that makes someone smile in this horrible mess."
The PHS officers conceded that their power to protect people was limited in a detention system fraught with overcrowding, disorganization, and the psychological trauma of uncertainty, family separations, and sleep deprivation.
"Ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE," said Tricia McLaughlin, chief spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, in an emailed statement to KFF Health News.
Adm. Brian Christine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Public Health Service, said in an email: "Our duty is clear: say "Yes Sir!", salute smartly, and execute the mission: show up, provide humane care, and protect health." Christine is a recent appointee who, until recently, was a urologist specializing in testosterone and male fertility issues.
"In pursuit of subjective morality or public displays of virtue," he added, "we risk abandoning the very individuals we pledged to serve."
In the months before Stewart resigned, she reflected on her previous deployments, during Trump's first term, to immigration processing centers run by Customs and Border Protection. Fifty women were held in a single concrete cell in Texas, she recalled.
"The most impactful thing I could do was to convince the guards to allow the women, who had been in there for a week, to shower," she said. "I witnessed suffering without having much ability to address it."
Stewart spoke with Bushman and other PHS officers who were embedded at the CDC last year. They assisted with the agency's response to ongoing measles outbreaks, with sexually transmitted infection research, and more. Their roles became crucial last year as the Trump administration laid off droves of CDC staffers.
Stewart, Bushman, and a few other PHS officers at the CDC said they met with middle managers to ask for details about the deployments: If they went to Guantánamo and ICE facilities, how much power would they have to provide what they considered medically necessary care? If they saw anything unethical, how could they report it? Would it be investigated? Would they be protected from reprisal?
Stewart and Bushman said they were given a PHS office phone number they could call if they had a complaint while on assignment. Otherwise, they said, their questions went unanswered. They resigned and so never went to Guantánamo.
PHS officers who were deployed to the base told KFF Health News they weren't given details about their potential duties — or the standard operating procedure for medical care — before they arrived.
Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army general and a psychiatrist who has advised on medical care at Guantánamo for two decades, said that was troubling. Before health workers deploy, he said, they should understand what they'll be expected to do.
The consequences of insufficient preparation can be severe. In 2014, the Navy threatened to court-martial one of its nurses at Guantánamo who refused to force-feed prisoners on hunger strike, who were protesting inhumane treatment and indefinite detention. The protocol was brutal: A person was shackled to a five-point restraint chair as nurses shoved a tube for liquid food into their stomach through their nostrils.
"He wasn't given clear guidance in advance on how these procedures would be conducted at Guantánamo," Xenakis said of the nurse. "Until he saw it, he didn't understand how painful it was for detainees."
The American Nurses Association and Physicians for Human Rights sided with the nurse, saying his objection was guided by professional ethics. After a year, the military dropped the charges.
A uniformed doctor or nurse's power tends to depend on their rank, their supervisor, and chains of command, Xenakis said. He helped put an end to some inhumane practices at Guantánamo more than a decade ago, when he and other retired generals and admirals publicly objected to certain interrogation techniques, such as one called "walling," in which interrogators slammed the heads of detainees suspected of terrorism against a wall, causing slight concussions. Xenakis argued that science didn't support "walling" as an effective means of interrogation, and that it was unethical, amounting to torture.
Torture hasn't been reported from Guantánamo's immigration operation, but ICE shift reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the government watchdog group American Oversight note concerns about detainees resorting to hunger strikes and self-harm.
"Welfare checks with potential hunger strike IA's," short for illegal aliens, says an April 30 note from a contractor working with ICE. "In case of a hunger strike or other emergencies," the report adds, the PHS and ICE are "coordinating policies and procedures."
"De-escalation of potential pod wide hunger strike/potential riot," says an entry from July 8. "Speak with alien on suicide watch regarding well being."
Inmates and investigations have reported delayed medical care at immigration detention facilities and dangerous conditions, including overcrowding and a lack of sanitation. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, making it the deadliest year in two decades.
"They are arresting and detaining more people than their facilities can support," one PHS officer told KFF Health News. The most prevalent problem the officer saw among imprisoned immigrants was psychological. They worried about never seeing their families again or being sent back to a country where they feared they'd be killed. "People are scared out of their minds," the officer said.
The PHS officers who were at Guantánamo told KFF Health News that the men they saw were detained in either low-security barracks, with a handful of people per room, or in Camp 6, a dark, high-security facility without natural light. The ICE shift reports describe the two stations by their position on the island, Leeward for the barracks and Windward for Camp 6. About 50 Cuban men sent to Guantánamo in December and January have languished at Camp 6.
A Navy hospital on the base mainly serves the military and other residents who aren't locked up — and in any case, its capabilities are limited, the officers said. To reduce the chance of expensive medical evacuations back to the U.S. to see specialists quickly, they said, the immigrants were screened before being shipped to Guantánamo. People over age 60 or who needed daily drugs to manage diabetes and high blood pressure, for example, were generally excluded. Still, the officers said, some detainees have had to be evacuated back to Florida.
PHS nurses and doctors said they screened immigrants again when they arrived and provided ongoing care, fielding complaints including about gastrointestinal distress and depression. One ICE monthly progress report says, "The USPHS psychologist started an exercise group" for detainees.
Doctors' requests for lab work were often turned down because of logistical hurdles, partly due to the number of agencies working together on the base, the officers said. Even a routine test, a complete blood count, took weeks to process, versus hours in the U.S.
DHS and the Department of Defense, which have coordinated on the Guantánamo immigration operation, did not respond to requests for comment about their work there.
One PHS officer who helped medically screen new detainees said they were often surprised to learn they were at Guantánamo.
"I'd tell them, 'I'm sorry you are here,'" the officer said. "No one freaked out. It was like the ten-millionth time they had been transferred." Some of the men had been detained in various facilities for five or six months and said they wanted to return to their home countries, according to the officer. Health workers had neither an answer nor a fix.
Unlike ICE detention facilities in the U.S., Guantánamo hasn't been overcrowded. "I have never been so not busy at work," one officer said. A military base on a tropical island, Guantánamo offers activities such as snorkeling, paddleboard yoga, and kickboxing to those who aren't imprisoned. Even so, the officer said they would rather be home than on this assignment on the taxpayer's dime.
Transporting staff and supplies to the island and maintaining them on-base is enormously expensive. The government paid an estimated $16,500 per day, per detainee at Guantánamo, to hold those accused of terrorism, according to a 2025 Washington Post analysis of DOD data. (The average cost to detain immigrants in ICE facilities in the U.S. is $157 a day.)
Even so, the funding has skyrocketed: Congress granted ICE a record $78 billion for fiscal year 2026, a staggering increase from $9.9 billion in 2024 and $6.5 billion nearly a decade ago.
Last year, the Trump administration also diverted more than $2 billion from the national defense budget to immigration operations, according to a report from congressional Democrats. About $60 million of it went to Guantánamo.
"Detaining noncitizens at Guantanamo is far more costly and logistically burdensome than holding them in ICE detention facilities within the United States," wrote Deborah Fleischaker, a former assistant director at ICE, in a declaration submitted as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union early last year. In December, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration's request to dismiss a separate ACLU case questioning the legality of detaining immigrants outside the U.S.
Anne Schuchat, who served with the PHS for 30 years before retiring in 2018, said PHS deployments to detention centers may cost the nation in terms of security, too. "A key concern has always been to have enough of these officers available for public health emergencies," she said.
Andrew Nixon, an HHS spokesperson, said the immigration deployments don't affect the public health service's potential response to other emergencies.
In the past, PHS officers have stood up medical shelters during hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas, rolled out covid testing in the earliest months of the pandemic, and provided crisis support after the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Boston Marathon bombing.
"It's important for the public to be aware of how many government resources are being used so that the current administration can carry out this one agenda," said Stewart, one of the nurses who resigned. "This one thing that's probably turning us into the types of countries we have fought wars against."
KFF Health News
Posted in: Healthcare News
Dr. Lena Smirnova
Brain microphysiological systems are reshaping in vitro neurotoxicity testing through functional validation and advanced disease modeling.
Natasha Bury
Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.
Rosanna Zhang
In our latest interview, News-Medical speaks with Rosanna Zhang from ACROBiosystems about utilizing organoids for disease modeling in the field of neuroscience research.
News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance
with these terms and conditions.
Please note that medical information found
on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship
between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide.
Last Updated: Monday 9 Feb 2026
News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2026
Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant
Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net.
To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account.
Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content.
A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue.
Please check the box above to proceed.
Great. Ask your question.
Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses.
Read the full terms.
Terms
While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena
answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses.
Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or
authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for
medical information you must always consult a medical
professional before acting on any information provided.
Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with
OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their
privacy principles.
Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential
information.
Read the full Terms & Conditions.
Provide Feedback
Cellares, the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), today announced a collaboration with the Stanford Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine (CDCM) and Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) to automate manufacturing and release testing for gene-edited hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) therapies, expanding the application of Cellares' automation platforms beyond T cell therapies into a new cell modality.
Gene-edited HSCs are being developed as durable, potentially one-time treatments that rebuild the blood and immune system with corrected cells for patients with HIV and rare inherited diseases. Many of these conditions currently lack effective treatment options, highlighting the need for scalable, reliable manufacturing approaches that can support patient access as programs advance.
Under the collaboration, Cellares will establish a standardized platform manufacturing process on the Cell Shuttle™ and platform release assays on the Cell Q™, designed to apply across multiple indications. Automation efforts are already underway with the HARBOR KNOCK (safe harbor knock-in) gene-editing approach.
The effort is supported by the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) and Stanford Medicine Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine (CDCM). The collaboration aims to reduce hands-on variability and create a scalable foundation to help move academic innovation toward clinical development.
Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD, Director of the CDCM at Stanford University School of Medicine, and his lab, have developed an HSC gene-editing approach that can be applied across HIV and a wide range of monogenic diseases. One of their goals is to identify a manufacturing process that is consistent and scalable. Cellares' technology in automation could remove the barrier to making therapies more cost effective and accessible.
Gene-edited hematopoietic stem cells have the potential to address the root cause of disease for patients who today have limited or no treatment options, With Stanford Medicine, we're building a manufacturing and analytical foundation that can be applied across many rare disease programs to improve patient access."
Fabian Gerlinghaus, Co-founder and CEO, Cellares
Cellares
Posted in: Cell Biology | Device / Technology News | Medical Science News
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
APA
Cellares. (2026, February 08). Cellares to expand automated manufacturing to gene-edited stem cell therapies. News-Medical. Retrieved on February 09, 2026 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260208/Cellares-to-expand-automated-manufacturing-to-gene-edited-stem-cell-therapies.aspx.
MLA
Cellares. "Cellares to expand automated manufacturing to gene-edited stem cell therapies". News-Medical. 09 February 2026.
Expanded physician-led air ambulance services are improving access to advanced prehospital care across the UK, yet important regional and overnight gaps highlight ongoing challenges in delivering equitable lifesaving treatment.
Study: Access to physician-based Helicopter Emergency Medical Services in the UK: a service analysis in 2024. Image Credit: Jaromir Chalabala / Shutterstock
In a recent study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, researchers evaluated national access to physician-based Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) in the United Kingdom and assessed how availability and advanced interventions vary across regions and time.
When a person suffers severe trauma or sudden critical illness, minutes can mean the difference between life and death. In the United Kingdom, advanced lifesaving interventions, such as prehospital emergency anesthesia, can be delivered only by physician-based prehospital teams; however, access to this level of care is often inconsistent across regions.
A national review in 2009 revealed that round-the-clock physician-led HEMS services were extremely rare. Since then, trauma networks, training pathways, and service delivery models have evolved substantially. This raises a critical question: has access to physician-based prehospital care improved for patients regardless of where or when emergencies occur? Evaluating whether progress has translated into equitable and reliable national coverage remains essential.
A national service analysis was conducted using an online survey distributed to all HEMS services operating across the United Kingdom. The survey was circulated between January and March 2024 to medical and operational leads within each service. One response per service was permitted, with follow-up clarification obtained where discrepancies arose. Participation was voluntary and uncompensated.
For classification purposes, a physician-based HEMS team was defined as one in which a physician was present on more than 95 percent of operational shifts. Teams that did not meet this threshold were included in overall service counts but excluded from analyses of advanced prehospital care capability. Data collected included funding structures, staffing models, dispatch operations, working hours, and the range of interventions provided.
To enable regional comparisons, respondents reported service availability at standardized weekday and weekend time points during both daytime and overnight hours. Population density data were used as a proxy for clinical demand, based on publicly available national statistics. Primary outcomes focused on the number and operational coverage of physician-based teams, while secondary outcomes examined intervention availability and the presence of additional prehospital critical care resources.
All 21 HEMS services operating in the United Kingdom responded to the survey, providing complete national coverage.
The analysis estimated an increase from 11 physician-based teams in 2009 to approximately 30 teams in 2024, representing a roughly 2.7-fold increase, including services in Scotland. This reflects a substantial expansion in potential access to advanced prehospital care.
Despite this progress, round-the-clock availability remained uneven. In 2024, approximately half of the services provided continuous 24-hour physician-based coverage. This marked an improvement from 2009, when only one service operated at this level, yet significant regional gaps persisted. The East of England demonstrated the highest overnight availability, while Northern Ireland, South West England, and parts of Northern England lacked consistent overnight physician coverage.
Some services ceased operations in the early evening, whereas others remained active into the early morning. Not all services routinely operated aircraft overnight; some relied instead on ground-based response vehicles.
Population-adjusted access also varied significantly. Nationally, the ratio was approximately 0.63 HEMS teams per million people, including all teams, not only physician-based units. Availability tended to be higher in less densely populated regions and lower in major urban centers such as London. These disparities highlight how geography, population distribution, service configuration, and dispatch practices shape real-world access.
All physician-based teams were capable of delivering advanced Level 3 prehospital interventions, including prehospital emergency anesthesia, surgical airways, thoracostomies, amputations, resuscitative thoracotomies, and resuscitative hysterotomies. However, the availability of other advanced procedures varied. Most teams carried blood products; many provided regional anesthesia and arterial line placement; fewer offered dried plasma; and only one service reported the capability to perform resuscitative balloon occlusion of the aorta.
Beyond HEMS, all regions reported access to additional prehospital critical care assets. These included paramedic-led teams capable of delivering intermediate-level interventions and volunteer physician responders affiliated with the British Association for Immediate Care. Funding models differed substantially, with most services relying partly or entirely on charitable funding, whereas only one service was fully supported by government funding. The study did not directly test causal links between funding structure and service availability.
Access to physician-based HEMS in the United Kingdom has improved markedly over the past decade, with more teams and greater overnight coverage than previously reported. Nevertheless, access to advanced prehospital care continues to depend strongly on geography and time of day.
Persistent variation in operating hours, intervention availability, and funding models raises concerns about equity of access. Given evidence suggesting potential survival benefits in some contexts, alongside acknowledged uncertainty, these findings highlight the need for coordinated national policy, sustainable funding mechanisms, and system-wide planning to ensure that advanced prehospital critical care is available to all patients who need it, regardless of location or timing. The authors note that this survey alone cannot fully characterize access to all prehospital critical care resources nationwide.
Posted in: Medical Research News | Healthcare News
Written by
Vijay holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology and possesses a deep passion for microbiology. His academic journey has allowed him to delve deeper into understanding the intricate world of microorganisms. Through his research and studies, he has gained expertise in various aspects of microbiology, which includes microbial genetics, microbial physiology, and microbial ecology. Vijay has six years of scientific research experience at renowned research institutes such as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and KIIT University. He has worked on diverse projects in microbiology, biopolymers, and drug delivery. His contributions to these areas have provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter and the ability to tackle complex research challenges.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
APA
Kumar Malesu, Vijay. (2026, February 08). UK air ambulance critical care expands but unequal access still limits lifesaving treatment. News-Medical. Retrieved on February 09, 2026 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260208/UK-air-ambulance-critical-care-expands-but-unequal-access-still-limits-lifesaving-treatment.aspx.
MLA
Kumar Malesu, Vijay. "UK air ambulance critical care expands but unequal access still limits lifesaving treatment". News-Medical. 09 February 2026.
New evidence suggests AI-assisted auscultation may help clinicians detect hidden valvular heart disease earlier, potentially reshaping frontline cardiac screening while raising important questions about implementation and diagnostic balance.
Study: Artificial-intelligence-enabled digital stethoscope improves point-of-care screening for moderate-to-severe valvular heart disease. Image Credit: Natali _ Mis / Shutterstock
In a recent prospective study published in the European Heart Journal Digital Health, researchers compared the diagnostic accuracy of primary care providers using standard stethoscopes with that of a relatively novel artificial intelligence (AI) enabled digital stethoscope. The study aimed to determine whether the latter could improve the accuracy of current diagnoses of valvular heart disease (VHD).
The study found that the AI system demonstrated a sensitivity of 92.3% for detecting audible VHD, compared with 46.2% for standard care (P = 0.01). Although the AI tool showed slightly lower specificity, it identified twice as many cases of previously undiagnosed moderate-to-severe disease, suggesting a role as a screening adjunct rather than a replacement for clinical assessment.
Valvular heart disease is a serious cardiac condition in which one or more heart valves, including the aortic, mitral, tricuspid, or pulmonary valves, fail to open or close properly, disrupting blood flow.
Common symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, and palpitations. Disease prevalence increases with age and is estimated to affect more than half of adults over 65 to some degree, although moderate-to-severe disease is substantially less common.
Diagnosis remains challenging because more than half of patients with clinically significant disease are asymptomatic.
Traditionally, diagnosis relies on clinician-performed auscultation. However, prior research suggests that even experienced general practitioners achieve limited sensitivity when screening asymptomatic patients, contributing to delayed diagnosis and disease progression.
The study explored whether deep learning algorithms, combined with digital acoustic recordings, could help detect cardiac abnormalities that may be missed during routine examinations.
This was a prospective single-arm diagnostic accuracy study conducted across three primary care clinics between June 2021 and May 2023. The cohort included 357 patients aged 50 years and older who were at elevated cardiovascular risk but had no prior diagnosis of VHD or known cardiac murmur.
Risk factors included hypertension, body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, atrial fibrillation, prior myocardial infarction, stroke or transient ischemic attack, coronary revascularisation, or other established cardiovascular disease.
Participants underwent two independent screening protocols.
In standard-of-care (SOC) screening, primary care providers (PCP) performed four-point cardiac auscultation using conventional stethoscopes.
In AI-augmented screening, study coordinators recorded phonocardiogram (PCG) data using a digital stethoscope. Recordings were analysed by an AI algorithm cleared by the FDA to detect heart murmurs.
All participants underwent echocardiography to confirm structural heart disease. An independent expert panel reviewed the digital audio recordings to verify the presence of audible murmurs and was blinded to AI results.
Audible VHD was defined as moderate-to-severe disease confirmed on echocardiography, together with an expert-confirmed audible murmur, recognising that some structurally significant disease may not produce a clearly audible murmur.
The AI-augmented system substantially outperformed standard auscultation when detecting audible VHD. Sensitivity was 92.3% for AI compared with 46.2% for SOC screening (P = 0.01).
Among confirmed cases, standard examination missed seven of thirteen patients, whereas the AI system missed only one. For previously undiagnosed moderate-to-severe VHD, the AI identified 12 cases, compared with 6 detected by PCPs.
This increased sensitivity was accompanied by reduced specificity. The AI system demonstrated a specificity of 86.9 percent, compared with 95.6 percent for clinicians (P < 0.001), resulting in more false-positive findings.
Using echocardiography alone as the reference standard for moderate-to-severe disease, regardless of murmur audibility, the AI system still outperformed standard care, with a sensitivity of 39.7 percent versus 13.8 percent for clinicians (P = 0.01).
This study suggests that integrating AI-enabled digital stethoscopes into primary care may substantially improve the detection of VHD compared with traditional auscultation. These tools may function as a second layer of screening support, enabling earlier identification and referral.
Earlier detection does not automatically translate into improved clinical outcomes, as this study evaluated diagnostic accuracy rather than downstream management or prognosis.
Several authors reported affiliations with the device manufacturer, which should be considered when interpreting the findings despite disclosed conflicts of interest.
Lower specificity may increase echocardiography referrals and healthcare utilisation, underscoring the need for future cost-effectiveness analyses.
Limitations include a modest sample size, limited geographic scope, incomplete demographic detail, and lack of systematic symptom assessment. Despite these constraints, the findings indicate that AI augmentation may represent a meaningful advance in point-of-care cardiac screening.
Posted in: Device / Technology News | Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News
Written by
Hugo Francisco de Souza is a scientific writer based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. His academic passions lie in biogeography, evolutionary biology, and herpetology. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. from the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, where he studies the origins, dispersal, and speciation of wetland-associated snakes. Hugo has received, amongst others, the DST-INSPIRE fellowship for his doctoral research and the Gold Medal from Pondicherry University for academic excellence during his Masters. His research has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and Systematic Biology. When not working or writing, Hugo can be found consuming copious amounts of anime and manga, composing and making music with his bass guitar, shredding trails on his MTB, playing video games (he prefers the term ‘gaming'), or tinkering with all things tech.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
APA
Francisco de Souza, Hugo. (2026, February 08). AI stethoscope doubles detection of serious valve disease in primary care study. News-Medical. Retrieved on February 09, 2026 from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260208/AI-stethoscope-doubles-detection-of-serious-valve-disease-in-primary-care-study.aspx.
MLA
Francisco de Souza, Hugo. "AI stethoscope doubles detection of serious valve disease in primary care study". News-Medical. 09 February 2026.
Noahkai Banks may be making a big impression in the Bundesliga this season, but the young defender won't be making a trip to the World Cup this summer, according to Alexi Lalas.
Banks has become a regular starter this season for Augsburg at age 19. The 6-foot-4 defender is considered one of the best American defensive prospects in many years and has earned one U.S. men's national team call-up.
"I saw him playing in Germany, and he's a massive talent," USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino said after naming Banks to his roster for September friendlies against South Korea and Japan.
"You never know how he can explode — maybe at the end of the season he can be the best center back in Europe or in Germany."
Banks did not participate in either match and wasn't called up for the USMNT's remaining four matches last fall.
That lack of experience may end up proving costly for Banks' World Cup hopes. As the USMNT prepares for two final matches in March before the World Cup roster is named, Lalas thinks it may already be too late for the talented teenager.
"Mauricio Pochettino just recently said that we are going to treat the March window as if it's the start of the World Cup," Lalas said on his "State of the Union" show.
"So we're going to start the World Cup with somebody that doesn't have a single minute playing for the U.S. men's national team? I don't think that's off base for me to be wary of that, or me to be skeptical of that actually happening."
Lalas was responding to co-host Stu Holden, who tipped Banks for a potential World Cup spot.
"He has great size," the former USMNT midfielder said. "I know he's 19 years old, but his experience that he's picking up right now, it's such a high level. He has a lot of tools that I don't see anywhere else in the center back pool."
But Lalas said the March games against Belgium and Portugal won't be the time for experimenting.
"According to Pochettino, it's as if the World Cup just started," he said. "So I want the best 11 playing in whatever formation it is that you believe we are going to play in the World Cup.
"And so I don't understand what leads Stu or others to believe that Pochettino is going to have this player that nobody has seen actually play for the U.S. before not only be there, but in many cases start."
Lalas added: "I'm excited about Noahkai Banks, don't get me wrong. ... Starting consistently over there for a young player is a good thing for the future."
GOAL breaks down the key moments from USWNT players abroad, including Thompson getting back in form.
Manchester United Women's quiet climb toward the top of the Women's Super League continued this weekend with a tidy 2-0 win over Leicester, but once again it was USWNT goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce who stole the spotlight. The shot-stopper made six saves to secure another clean sheet and underline her growing importance for the Reds.
Across Manchester, Sam Coffey earned more league minutes off the bench for Manchester City, though the Blues suffered a rare defeat at the hands of Arsenal. While the result itself was headline-worthy, Coffey's increased involvement stood out, as her developing chemistry alongside Yui Hasegawa added a new American dimension to City's midfield.
In west London, Alyssa Thompson continued her breakout WSL campaign, scoring in Chelsea's 2-0 rebound win over Tottenham to keep her scoring streak alive. And while Chelsea rediscovered their footing, Emily Fox and Arsenal set the weekend's tone, handing Manchester City a surprising loss. Fox delivered a composed defensive performance, helping keep the Sky Blues off the scoresheet.
From highlight-reel saves to goals, growing roles, and statement results, it was a weekend that showcased the expanding impact of USWNT players across the WSL. GOAL takes a closer look at how USWNT players fared across Europe over the weekend.
Thompson was on the scoresheet again as Chelsea earned a weekend win, adding to what has been a productive WSL campaign for the American attacker. Across all competitions for Chelsea, Thompson now has eight goals to her name.
The goal against Tottenham marked her sixth league goal of the season, continuing a run of consistent output in the final third. Thompson's movement and finishing have made her a regular difference-maker for the Blues, and her ability to convert chances in tight matches is becoming a defining part of her impact in England.
Arsenal's statement win over Manchester City came with plenty of talking points, and Fox was quietly central to the result and all of the points.
Tasked with managing one of the league's most dangerous attacks, from Khadija Shaw to Kerolin,Fox delivered a composed, disciplined performance on the outside back spot. She managed to limit City's space in transition, and picked her moments to get forward without leaving Arsenal exposed. It was the kind of performance that doesn't always dominate highlight reels but absolutely shapes outcomes - a reminder of why Fox has become such a trusted presence in Arsenal's back line.
If Manchester United's push near the top of the table is going to hold, Tullis-Joyce is making a strong case that she'll be one of the main reasons why. The American goalkeeper delivered another assured performance in United's weekend victory over Leicester City, producing six saves to preserve a clean sheet and reinforce the defensive confidence in her backline.
Tullis-Joyce's command of the box, shot-stopping ability, and growing composure under pressure turned what could have been a tricky afternoon into a controlled one and another victory for United this year.
Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting
Man City didn't get the result they wanted, but Coffey's latest WSL minutes continued to show why her arrival matters a lot in the middle. In a high-leverage matchup against Arsenal, Coffey brought steadiness to City's midfield moments. She was ultimately tidy in possession, positionally sharp, and took on the not-so-glamorous part of the game, bodying up Kim Little and Mariona Caldentey.
This defeat felt less like a midfield collapse and more like a day when City's usual edge never fully surfaced. Even so, Coffey's presence offered another snapshot of what she can add to the middle.
by Sasha Spencer, University of Sheffield
edited by
Lisa Lock, reviewed by Andrew Zinin
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
Academics from the University of Sheffield are warning that current gambling advertising rules may be insufficient after new research revealed that television gambling ads significantly influenced betting activity during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The study examined betting behavior among men aged 18–45 in England during the tournament in Qatar, to see how exposure to gambling advertising on television influenced the likelihood of placing bets.
The findings, published in Addictive Behaviors Reports, show that the frequency of football betting was between 16% and 24% higher during matches broadcast on channels carrying gambling advertising, compared with games shown on channels without such ads. Participants were also between 22% to 33% more likely to place a bet during matches that included television gambling advertising.
Although participants reported no personal history of gambling problems, men and individuals aged 18–44 are known to disproportionately make up the largest group of sports bettors in the U.K. and are also at the greatest risk of gambling-related harm.
Sports betting, particularly football, remains one of the most common forms of gambling in Great Britain, with the rapid growth of in-play and micro-betting intensifying both the speed and frequency of opportunities to place bets.
Gambling is widely recognized as a public health issue, with associated health, social and economic costs in England alone estimated at between £1.05 and £1.77 billion per year.
As the U.K. approaches the 2026 World Cup, the rules governing the timing of gambling advertisements on television remain unchanged since 2022. Existing restrictions are largely voluntary and industry led, raising fresh concerns about whether current rules are sufficient to protect viewers.
Lead author of the study, Ellen McGrane, Research Associate at the University of Sheffield's School of Medicine and Population health, said, "These television ads may be acting as powerful triggers during live games, encouraging betting even among people who had no prior intention to gamble.
"One of our key findings was that this advertising doesn't simply shift people between betting platforms, it increases the overall amount of gambling taking place. A substantial body of evidence shows that when gambling participation rises at a population level, gambling-related harm also increases, suggesting that the current restrictions in place may not be effective enough.
"Despite the scale of this issue, advertising rules are not being strengthened. Tighter regulation of gambling advertising during live sport may be needed, particularly ahead of highly televised events such as the World Cup, to better protect those most at risk."
Recent reviews of gambling law in the U.K. have introduced measures such as adjustments to gambling taxation, a new compulsory industry levy to fund prevention, research and treatment, and limits on stakes for certain gambling products. However, no changes have been made to gambling advertising regulations.
The research points to approaches already in place in several European countries, where policies restrict gambling advertising around live football broadcasts, as potential models for reform.
Ellen McGrane et al, The effect of television advertising on gambling behaviour: a quasi-experimental study during the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup, Addictive Behaviors Reports (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.abrep.2026.100666
Provided by
University of Sheffield
Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page.
For general inquiries, please use our contact form.
For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines).
Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request
Optional (only if you'd like a response)
Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.
0 shares
Research raises concerns over gambling advertising ahead of 2026 World Cup
Note:
Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Tech Xplore in any form.
About
Phys.org™ is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics.
Phys.org is a part of Science X network.
With a global reach of over 10 million monthly readers and featuring dedicated websites for science (Phys.org),
technology (Tech Xplore) and medical research (Medical Xpress),
the Science X network is one of the largest online communities for science-minded people.
Science X Account
Forgot Password?
Not a member? Sign up.
Identify the news topics you want to see and prioritize an order.
Science X Daily and the Weekly Email Newsletter are free features that allow you to receive your favorite sci-tech news updates in your email inbox
© Phys.org 2003 - 2026 powered by Science X Network
Foxborough vs. FIFA and the Kraft Group is underway.
The Town of Foxborough reaffirmed Monday morning that it is not going to front the $7.8 million it will cost to provide necessary safety and security measures for the seven World Cup games coming to Kraft family-owned Gillette Stadium this summer.
“We've spent the last year planning for the security and safety of the stadium and the event, but the issue comes down to one of the town not being responsible for the costs associated with that security — it really falls to either the Kraft Sports and Entertainment Group or FIFA to cover those costs,” said Bill Yukna, chair of the town's select board.
Yukna said the town was supposed to learn on Jan. 30 about its grant request but is still waiting.
FEATURED VIDEO
The hammer Foxborough holds over FIFA and the Kraft Group is the granting of an entertainment license that will allow the games to be held in the Patriots' and Revolution's home stadium, which is to be known as “Boston Stadium” during the event.
Because the Kraft Group is subletting the venue to FIFA, the existing entertainment license does not cover this summer's tournament and a new one is required, said Yukna.
The town has set a March 17 deadline to receive its full security request before granting a license.
“Our issue quite honestly is grants don't really work for us in the sense of timing,” said Yukna. “We obviously would have to pay all the officers and any of the [new capital] purchases before the grant would reimburse us.”
Yukna said the town is not allowed to discuss specific security measures and requirements from FIFA and security partners the town is working with, other than to say they are “enhanced” needs and are not used for standard security operations for sports events and concerts.
Advertisement
“We told them that if we don't have a completed lease resolved and signatures on both sides by March 17, then the town will not issue a license,” said Yukna.
The end of the town's fiscal year falls on June 30, the day after the sixth match and nine days before the seventh.
In a statement sent to the Globe, the town reiterated that the World Cup is not an event that its taxpayers can subsidize.
“Foxborough supports the World Cup and wants to be a successful host community,” read the statement in part. “However, the taxpayers of Foxborough cannot and will not be responsible for funding an international sporting event. We believe it is reasonable and appropriate that FIFA and/or event partners provide the funding necessary to support the public safety and operational requirements that come with hosting these matches.”
The town's 2026 fiscal year operating budget is $102,338,412, with $13 million budgeted for public safety.
The funds from the $47 million federal grant earmarked to Massachusetts for World Cup security matters exceeds the 2026 total outlay of $6.4 million for its police department.
FIFA, soccer's governing body, estimates revenues from the expanded 48-country event to be held in 16 North American cities will top $11 billion.
FIFA reported $4.76 billion in assets at the end of 2024, when it generated $483 million in revenues.
Based on FIFA's revised 2024 budget, its expenses and investments this year will total close to $6.4 billion.
Last year, CNBC ranked the Kraft Group as the eighth-most-valuable sports conglomerate, worth an estimated $11 billion.
The Boston 26 committee charged with staging the event is a nonprofit that does not receive funding from FIFA. Its approximately $100 million budget is funded through state, federal, and private investments.
Advertisement
Foxborough and Boston are expected to apply for and receive a large portion of the $47 million allocated to Massachusetts. The grant approval process is complex, involving first the state and then federal review, which is handled through FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, which makes the final funding decisions.
The Globe reached out to FIFA for comment and was told to redirect inquiries to the Boston host committee, which did not immediately respond. Last Friday, the committee conveyed in a statement that it was “working closely with FIFA, the stadium, and the Town of Foxborough to reach an agreement.”
Foxborough's statement said that it is working “collaboratively with FIFA, Boston Soccer, Kraft Sports and Entertainment, the Commonwealth, and our public safety partners to prepare for the 2026 FIFA World Cup” and that the games represent an “exciting opportunity for the region.
“At the same time, hosting an event of this scale creates significant public safety, operational, and infrastructure demands on the host community. Our police, fire, emergency communications, public works, and municipal staff will be responsible for ensuring the safety of tens of thousands of visitors while also maintaining essential services for our residents and businesses.”
The town has spent many months working with event organizers and public safety professionals to identify the resources required to host these matches. Those efforts have made clear that the associated municipal costs are substantial.
The town emphasized that it is working toward a solution: “Our goal is to ensure that the event is safe, well managed, and successful for visitors, the region, and most importantly, the residents and businesses of Foxborough.”
Last Friday, a spokesperson for Governor Maura Healey said, in part: “We are committed to ensuring that municipalities, especially Foxborough, have the support they need to make this a successful event through state, federal, and private funds.”
Advertisement
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.
Digital Access
Home Delivery
Gift Subscriptions
Log In
Manage My Account
Customer Service
Delivery Issues
Feedback
News Tips
Help & FAQs
Newsroom Staff
Advertise
Newsletters
View the ePaper
Order Back Issues
News in Education
Search the Archives
Privacy Policy
Your Privacy Choices
Terms of Service
Terms of Purchase
Career Opportunities
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Boston Globe Media
Today's e-Edition
Get Morning Report and other email newsletters
Get Morning Report and other email newsletters
Today's e-Edition
Trending:
SAN FRANCISCO — With a Super Bowl in the books and the FIFA men's World Cup around the corner, the Bay Area Host Committee has already set its aim on the next marquee sporting event it wants to bring to the region.
As part of the U.S. bid for the 2031 Women's World Cup, the Bay Area submitted Levi's Stadium and Oracle Park as potential venues. FIFA officials were in town this week for the Super Bowl, and host committee CEO Zaileen Janmohamed said she was “hopeful” about the region's chances.
“Personally, I want to bring a women's event here — that would be really meaningful to me,” Janmohamed said after Monday morning's news conference passing the Super Bowl torch to next year's host, Los Angeles. “We'll see how that goes, but we saw what happened this week when an event comes into this market. This place is awesome in hosting an event.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell echoed the sentiment, calling the Bay Area a “very special place” and saying that the league “could not have had a better week.” While Super Bowl 60 took place Sunday at Levi's Stadium, events throughout the week were spread between San Francisco, the East Bay and Silicon Valley.
“The innovation, the strength that you all have, the diversity, the creativity, the can-do atmosphere showed itself incredibly well this week,” Goodell said, crediting the mayors of San Jose and San Francisco, 49ers executives Jed York and Al Guido, as well as Janmohamed. “She just pulled it all together. This is a very complicated event, and she did it. So we are eternally grateful to her.”
According to York, the 49ers' CEO, the Super Bowl generated “about $500 million” in economic impact around the region and brought in visitors who accounted for more than 100,000 room nights in local hotels. The 49ers also donated close to $10 million into the community this week, York said.
“If we can't host a Super Bowl next year, we might as well keep it on the best coast,” York said. “The season starts today. The Niners are ready to get after it. Hopefully we'll be there.”
With Super Bowl 61 coming to Los Angeles, it will mark the fourth time in NFL history that separate cities in the same state have hosted the game in consecutive years. The Men's World Cup will also play matches at two venues in California, and Los Angeles is set to host the Summer Olympics in 2028.
“We know there is a lot of misinformation out there about our state,” Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis said. “But what we know is that there is a reason why we have two back-to-back Super Bowls. … Because California has the people, the cities, the sports teams, the sports fans, the incredible infrastructure, the hotels and the ability to continue to invest in all these things as the fourth-largest economy in the world.”
Janmohamed intends to keep the Bay Area as a prominent player for big events. When the Men's World Cup arrives in June, with six matches at Levi's Stadium, it will become the first time a venue has hosted a Super Bowl and the World Cup in the same calendar year.
“We're going to take a couple days to regroup; otherwise my team is going to fall over,” Janmohamed said. “Close some things off with the NFL, make sure we transition really well, and by next week, we'll be back at it and starting to go full-steam ahead on the World Cup.”
Janmohamed said she met with FIFA officials on Saturday.
The U.S., along with proposed co-hosts Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica, was the sole bid for the 2031 Women's World Cup when FIFA released proposals in November. A formal announcement awarding the tournament is expected in April, with cities and venues announced after that.
“I think what FIFA wants to make sure of is that the Women's World Cup isn't necessarily just a replication of the Men's World Cup,” Janmohamed said. “There's different cities in the country that might not have been considered for a Men's World Cup. San Diego is a great example. So I actually have no idea how it's going to play out. Obviously, the Bay is an important market for them. They have a lot of sponsors that are based out here. So I'm hopeful.”
Copyright © 2026 MediaNews Group
Next summer, the FIFA World Cup is going to be held in over a dozen other cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico, including a semi-final in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. However, actions from the federal government and FIFA have caused anxieties about the event being held in the U.S.
The U.S. has hosted the World Cup once before, in 1994, and it caused an explosion in the popularity of soccer in the U.S. It paved the way for the formation of the MLS and the modern status of soccer as America's fifth major sport. The impending 2026 World Cup was hoped to be the same, injecting a fresh wave of enthusiasm and cash into the United State's continually growing soccer culture and economy Unfortunately, the Trump administration's policies have been affecting the World Cup both indirectly and directly.
During the Club World Cup in July, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President Trump colluded to hold the group draw for next year's World Cup in Washington D.C, where Trump would have easy access to the massive event to bring public attention to himself. FIFA itself is no stranger to corruption. In 2015, seven FIFA higher ups were arrested in Switzerland on corruption charges, which kicked off a year long saga where five more FIFA officials were arrested and the then President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, resigned.
Infantino has described Trump as his “great friend”, as well as gifting Trump a gold replica of the World Cup trophy, claiming it was “for winners only”. Infantino also tested the waters of Trump doing the group stage draw himself, calling it the “MAGA-FIFA World Cup Draw”. This would prove to be true, as during the draw on Dec. 5, Trump was awarded the brand-new “FIFA Peace Prize”. Trump was gifted a medal and gold trophy for the honor, claiming he had stopped 8 wars in 10 months.
Infantino has visited Trump publicly more than he has visited any other national leader or soccer official. In contrast, he only visited Trump's successor/predescessor Joe Biden twice, and he has not yet visited Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and met with Mexican President Claudia Finebaum for the first time in August. FIFA has even set up a headquarters in Trump Tower in New York City. Infantino claimed that Trump will present the World Cup trophy to the victor, further appealing to the current president.
Trump's political actions have caused an indirect impact on the world cup. African media and fans have expressed nervousness about attending the World Cup in America due to the recent immigration raids by ICE also causing problems for tourists. Trump has indefinitely frozen visas from 14 qualifying nations, including Brazil, the most successful team in World Cup history, and 2022 semi-finalist Morocco. While Trump has promised that teams and media will get exemptions from these restrictions, no indication has been given about whether spectators will be afforded the same luxury. Additionally, Trump's belligerent foreign policy has turned nations away, with Germany saying that if the U.S. invades Greenland the 4-time world champions will pull out of the tournament.
Infantino's close relationship with Trump can easily be a cause for concern as an additional issue looming over the head of the World Cup is Trump's crackdown on crime across numerous major cities in America. The federal government has deployed national guard troops to several cities across the nation, including World Cup host city Los Angeles. Trump has claimed that he can move the games of the World Cup away from cities he has deemed dangerous, such as Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles. While FIFA Vice President Victor Montagliani initially pushed back against these claims, FIFA later stated that they would leave matters of safety and security wholly to the governments of the three host nations. Moving games on such a short notice would be extremely detrimental to any travelling fans, as well as teams and officials who make the journey across the world to compete in the World Cup.
The World Cup both was and will be one of the most important sporting events to occur in the United States, promising to bring in over $47 billion dollars to The American, Canadian and Mexican economies. The federal government, on the other hand, is overstepping its hand and trying to control elements of the tournament that are traditionally run by FIFA, and it is likely that FIFA will let them.
An upbeat website for a downtown school
Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Comment *
Name *
Email *
Cristiano Ronaldo is reportedly ready to end his strike at Al-Nassr as he prepares to return for the Saudi Arabian club. The former Real Madrid and Manchester United superstar had refused to play for his side in protest at their transfer dealings in January, missing the team's last two matches, but Al-Nassr have now pencilled in the date for their superstar's return.
Per A Bola, Ronaldo is already back in training with Al-Nassr after missing their last two fixtures in protest at their January transfer dealings. Nassr have now pencilled in his return date, against Al-Fateh next weekend. Nassr play Arkadag in Turkmenistan in the Asian Champions League 2 in midweek, but Ronaldo is not set to play in that fixture.
Reports suggested Ronaldo was affronted by Nassr's lack of activity in the winter window, as they only signed a youth player, while title rivals Al-Hilal were allowed to sign Karim Benzema from Al-Ittihad. PIF owns all three clubs, and Ronaldo was left furious, though A Bola also claims he was angry about payments to workers at Nassr being delayed. Now, Nassr are said to have agreed to pay up, with the power struggle ending with a victory for the forward.
Ronaldo has reportedly threatened to leave Nassr but it is unclear if new political machinations behind the scenes will convince him to stay. A Bola report that two Portuguese executives, Jose Semedo and Simao Coutinho, had seen their powers reduced ahead of the transfer window, impacting their ability to sign new players, but those responsibilities are now said to have been returned to them.
Saudi Pro League bosses have taken to reminding Ronaldo that every club in their division operates independently, meaning that the all-time great should raise any issues with his own employers - rather than potentially damage the reputation of the league as a whole.
“The Saudi Pro League is structured around a simple principle: every club operates independently under the same rules," they said in a statement.
“Clubs have their own boards, their own executives and their own football leadership. Decisions on recruitment, spending and strategy sit with those clubs, within a financial framework designed to ensure sustainability and competitive balance. That framework applies equally across the league.
“Cristiano has been fully engaged with Al Nassr since his arrival and has played an important role in the club's growth and ambition. Like any elite competitor, he wants to win. But no individual - however significant - determines decisions beyond their own club.
“Recent transfer activity demonstrates that independence clearly. One club strengthened in a particular way. Another chose a different approach. Those were club decisions, taken within approved financial parameters.
“The competitiveness of the league speaks for itself. With only a few points separating the top four, the title race is very much alive. That level of balance reflects a system that is working as intended.
“The focus remains on football - on the pitch, where it belongs - and on maintaining a credible, competitive competition for players and fans.”
Looking for smarter football bets? Get expert previews, data-driven predictions & winning insights with GOAL Tips on Telegram. Join our growing community now!
Ronaldo's strike has not gone down particularly well with onlookers at home and abroad, with Premier League legend Alan Shearer shocked by his behaviour.
The league's all-time leading goalscorer said: “There's not many people on over £400,000 a day and go on strike. It must be a nice position to be in to say I'm not coming to work despite being on that amount of money. It's bizarre when you think about it. He's a superstar but going on strike at that level doesn't look good.”
Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting
Al-Nassr are currently second in the SPL table, and are just one point behind Al-Hilal, even though their title rivals have yet to lose this season. Ronaldo has yet to win the biggest prize in Saudi and is continuing his quest to do so, ahead of the 2026 World Cup this summer. He will, of course, want to be in the best possible shape for that tournament.
Promises are hard to keep, but one Manchester United fan has held up his end of a viral bargain for well over a year and he is in it for the long haul, for better or worse...
By now, you've probably heard about the hapless Manchester United fan who vowed never to cut his hair until the Red Devils won five games in a row.
He certainly couldn't have imagined the impact his promise would have on football fan culture, or, indeed, the trajectory of his life, with millions of people now following him on social media and the biggest names in the sport fully aware of who he is.
Here is everything you need to know about The United Strand - one fan's hairy viral journey to football notoriety:
The United Strand is the name of an online sensation that came to life following a public declaration issued by long-suffering Manchester United fan Frank Ilett.
Growing frustrated with the on-field inconsistency of his beloved Red Devils, Mr Ilett vowed in October 2024 that he would not cut his hair until they won five games in a row. Little did he - or, indeed, those who follow him - realise that he would still be bound by that solemn declaration 16 months later.
Ilett's ever-expanding afro soon became a running gag among football fans as a hirsute barometer of United's inconsistency, with various national and international news outlets acknowledging the effect his viral pact was having on football fan culture.
"It just started as a bit of fun, really," Illett told Sky Sports. "I thought it would be a fun thing to do, to bring some humour into what was a painful time for Manchester United fans."
Unfortunately for Ilett, however, not everyone has seen the funny side and he was actually assaulted by another supporter while attending United's 2-1 victory against Chelsea at Old Trafford in September 2025.
"My intention was never to highlight the flaws of Man United, but to spread positivity and humour," Ilett has insisted.
The United Strand hair cut challenge officially began on October 5, 2024.
That means that Ilett's hair has been draped across the tenures of three different Manchester United managers so far (Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim and now Michael Carrick).
As of publication on February 9, 2026, the hair challenge has been going for 492 days - that's one year, four months and seven days.
A very good question. In simple terms, the challenge will be complete as soon as Manchester United win five games in a row.
Following their victory over Tottenham on February 7, the team's fourth win in a row, there is a possibility that Ilett's hairy nightmare will be over should the Red Devils win their next match against West Ham on Tuesday, February 10, 2026.
Indeed, plans have been confirmed for a 'watchalong' video and Ilett appears to be relieved that the end is potentially near, saying: "Carrick is at the wheel, this hair is going soon, West Ham next, four out of five done – this is the first time it's been four in a row since I started the challenge. This time it's happening! Thank you so much to Carrick – thank you, thank you, thank you."
For those so inclined, Manchester United's game against West Ham is being broadcast live on TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports Ultimate in the United Kingdom, while fans in the United States can watch the game live on Peacock.
Watch live on TNT SportsBrowse deals
As much as Aston Villa fans mocked The United Strand as the Villans notched 11 successive victories during the 2025-26 season, winning five games in a row is a tough task for even the best teams, especially in an elite-level league such as the Premier League.
You have to go back to February 2024 for the last time Manchester United managed a five-game winning streak.
The five-game run began with a win over Newport County in the FA Cup, which was followed by victories against Wolves, West Ham, Aston Villa and Luton Town.
Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting
U.S. men's national team boss Mauricio Pochettino revealed he assured President Donald Trump that the Stars and Stripes can win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, unfolding largely on home soil.
The Argentine manager, who took over the USMNT in September 2024, sat down on the High Performance Podcast and opened up about a brief encounter with President Trump at the 2026 World Cup draw back in December.
“At the draw of the World Cup, I met Donald Trump for a few minutes. He asked me, ‘What do you think, coach. Can you win the World Cup?' ” Pochettino recalled.
“I said, ‘Of course, Mr President.' Because it's the USA. The American dream is there. It is about being first. Being the number one. We really believe we can win. We are in a place where, after a year and a half, people are starting to feel that we can win.”
The Stars and Stripes received a favorable draw for the competition, matching up against Paraguay, Australia and one of Türkiye, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo in Group D. With the “massive boost” of the home crowd, Pochettino is confident in his team's chances of making a deep run in the tournament.
After initial struggles under the new leadership of Pochettino, the USMNT hit its stride to close out 2025. The Stars and Stripes ended the year on a five-game unbeaten run, tallying victories over Japan, Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Even more impressive is that the team accomplished the streak without some of its best players.
The opponents waiting for Pochettino's men in March and June, though, present an entirely different challenge. During the March international window, the USMNT is set to face off with Belgium and reigning UEFA Nations League winners Portugal.
Then in June, the Stars and Stripes' final two matches before the World Cup come against newly crowned AFCON champions Senegal and Germany.
Going against such top competition will be the real barometer of the USMNT's title credentials. Sure, the team has proven it can defeat Concacaf, CONMEBOL and Oceania opposition, but it will likely need to get past European and African giants if it wants to make history this summer.
Poor results in the build-up to the tournament could rip up Pochettino's promise to President Trump before the World Cup even begins. A few victories or even hard-fought draws, though, could be the confidence boost the team needs to excel on the grandest stage in the sport, even if they realistically are not ready to defeat the tournament favorites; Spain, Argentina and France.
When Pochettino took charge of the USMNT, he signed a two-year contract that will take him through the 2026 World Cup. Should the Stars and Stripes perform well this summer, U.S. Soccer would likely want to lock down his future.
Yet the 53-year-old teased a potential return to European soccer on the podcast, revealing the trophy he would most like to win is the Champions League. Pochettino quickly added he “doesn't know” for which club.
The desire to hoist the most prestigious trophy in Europe is no surprise considering it alluded him during his time at Spurs, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. But it also poses the question: Does Pochettino have plans to return to Europe following the World Cup?
The only person who knows the answer is Pochettino, but the fact that the question even has to be asked paints questions marks around the manager's future with the USMNT. A poor performance at the World Cup on home soil could propel the Argentine back to Europe, leaving the Stars and Stripes once again in another transitional period.
Amanda Langell is a Sports Illustrated FC freelance writer and editor. Born and raised in New York City, her first loves were the Yankees, the Rangers and Broadway before Real Madrid took over her life. Had it not been for her brother's obsession with Cristiano Ronaldo, she would have never lived through so many magical Champions League nights 3,600 miles away from the Bernabéu. When she's not consumed by Spanish and European soccer, she's traveling, reading or losing her voice at a concert.
© 2026 ABG-SI LLC - SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. - All Rights Reserved. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates, licensees and related brands. All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER.
U.S. men's national team boss Mauricio Pochettino revealed he assured President Donald Trump that the Stars and Stripes can win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, unfolding largely on home soil.
The Argentine manager, who took over the USMNT in September 2024, sat down on the High Performance Podcast and opened up about a brief encounter with President Trump at the 2026 World Cup draw back in December.
“At the draw of the World Cup, I met Donald Trump for a few minutes. He asked me, ‘What do you think, coach. Can you win the World Cup?' ” Pochettino recalled.
“I said, ‘Of course, Mr President.' Because it's the USA. The American dream is there. It is about being first. Being the number one. We really believe we can win. We are in a place where, after a year and a half, people are starting to feel that we can win.”
The Stars and Stripes received a favorable draw for the competition, matching up against Paraguay, Australia and one of Türkiye, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo in Group D. With the “massive boost” of the home crowd, Pochettino is confident in his team's chances of making a deep run in the tournament.
After initial struggles under the new leadership of Pochettino, the USMNT hit its stride to close out 2025. The Stars and Stripes ended the year on a five-game unbeaten run, tallying victories over Japan, Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Even more impressive is that the team accomplished the streak without some of its best players.
The opponents waiting for Pochettino's men in March and June, though, present an entirely different challenge. During the March international window, the USMNT is set to face off with Belgium and reigning UEFA Nations League winners Portugal.
Then in June, the Stars and Stripes' final two matches before the World Cup come against newly crowned AFCON champions Senegal and Germany.
Going against such top competition will be the real barometer of the USMNT's title credentials. Sure, the team has proven it can defeat Concacaf, CONMEBOL and Oceania opposition, but it will likely need to get past European and African giants if it wants to make history this summer.
Poor results in the build-up to the tournament could rip up Pochettino's promise to President Trump before the World Cup even begins. A few victories or even hard-fought draws, though, could be the confidence boost the team needs to excel on the grandest stage in the sport, even if they realistically are not ready to defeat the tournament favorites; Spain, Argentina and France.
When Pochettino took charge of the USMNT, he signed a two-year contract that will take him through the 2026 World Cup. Should the Stars and Stripes perform well this summer, U.S. Soccer would likely want to lock down his future.
Yet the 53-year-old teased a potential return to European soccer on the podcast, revealing the trophy he would most like to win is the Champions League. Pochettino quickly added he “doesn't know” for which club.
The desire to hoist the most prestigious trophy in Europe is no surprise considering it alluded him during his time at Spurs, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. But it also poses the question: Does Pochettino have plans to return to Europe following the World Cup?
The only person who knows the answer is Pochettino, but the fact that the question even has to be asked paints questions marks around the manager's future with the USMNT. A poor performance at the World Cup on home soil could propel the Argentine back to Europe, leaving the Stars and Stripes once again in another transitional period.
Amanda Langell is a Sports Illustrated FC freelance writer and editor. Born and raised in New York City, her first loves were the Yankees, the Rangers and Broadway before Real Madrid took over her life. Had it not been for her brother's obsession with Cristiano Ronaldo, she would have never lived through so many magical Champions League nights 3,600 miles away from the Bernabéu. When she's not consumed by Spanish and European soccer, she's traveling, reading or losing her voice at a concert.
© 2026 ABG-SI LLC - SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. - All Rights Reserved. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates, licensees and related brands. All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER.
Manage your account
...
Something special is unfolding in France's top soccer division, and at the heart of it stands the Alabama-born godson of a famous college football coach.
Tanner Tessmann — on pace to make the U.S. World Cup squad this summer after captaining the 2024 U.S. Olympic team — was in the lineup again Saturday as Olympique Lyonnais won at Nantes 1-0 for its 12th consecutive victory across all competitions.
Lyon has won six straight in Ligue 1 to ascend to third place — the final UEFA Champions League berth — along with three in a row to reach the French Cup quarterfinals and three straight in the Europa League, the continent's second-most important club competition, to clinch first place in the 36-team opening stage.
Going unbeaten in a dozen matches is a feat, but to avoid not only defeats but draws is staggering. The streak seemed in peril this weekend when a red card left Lyon with 10 men for the last half-hour, but resolute defending and a Nantes shot off the post preserved the run, which began Dec. 11.
Lyon finished sixth each of the previous two Ligue 1 seasons and hasn't ended in the top three since 2019.
Tessmann missed the first two games of the streak with a thigh injury and came off the bench in the subsequent two. Since then, he has started six of eight and substituted into the other two. Overall, the FC Dallas homegrown has appeared in 19 of 21 Ligue 1 matches, tying him for third on the squad, and started 16.
The 24-year-old defensive midfielder is in his second season in France after three with Italian club Venezia. Tessmann's godfather is Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, who has been best friends with Tessmann's father P.J. since high school. P.J. runs Swinney's charitable foundation.
To Tanner, Swinney is “Uncle Bo.”
A talented soccer player and football kicker, Tessmann planned to play both sports at Clemson. Before enrolling, however, he signed a homegrown contract with FC Dallas.
His soccer path has taken him to two of Europe's top five leagues — Italy's Serie A in 2021-22 before relegation and France's Ligue 1 the past two seasons — and up the U.S. ladder. Since playing every minute of four Olympic matches in France, he has integrated into Mauricio Pochettino's senior squad. Last fall, he started twice and came off the bench twice, scoring in the 5-1 rout of Uruguay in Tampa.
With World Cup veteran Tyler Adams recovering from a knee injury, Tessmann's role could grow this spring. Pochettino is expected to summon him for the friendlies in late March against Belgium and Portugal in Atlanta — just a two-hour drive from Uncle Bo.
Elsewhere in France, striker Folarin Balogun's scoreless streak reached seven during his 90-minute effort in Monaco's 0-0 draw at Nice.
Wing back Tim Weah (90 poor minutes) was part of fourth-place Olympique Marseille's 5-0 embarrassment against the new front-runner, Paris Saint-Germain. Center back Mark McKenzie entered in the 81st of Toulouse's 1-0 loss at Angers, ending his string of nine straight 90-minute stints.
With a 59th-minute header, midfielder Weston McKennie scored his fourth Serie A goal and seventh overall to spark Juventus' two-goal rally for a 2-2 home draw with Lazio.
Forward Christian Pulisic and second-place AC Milan were off this weekend and, with the Winter Olympics leaving their home stadium unavailable, they will play their third consecutive away match Friday at Pisa.
Midfielder Yunus Musah and Atalanta will host Cremonese on Monday.
In the second division, Jonathan Klinsmann earned his first clean sheet since Nov. 28, a span of 10 matches, as Cesena defeated Pescara 2-0.
In his first start since late November, winger Alex Zendejas scored a marvelous goal on his 28th birthday as Club América edged Monterrey 1-0. A leg injury had sidelined him for the first four Liga MX Clausura matches before entering as a sub in the CONCACAF Champions Cup on Wednesday.
Center back Chris Richards went the distance as Crystal Palace won at Brighton 1-0, ending a 12-game winless streak in all competitions since mid-December.
Left back Antonee Robinson didn't play in Fulham's 2-1 loss to Everton, the first match he has sat out since his long-awaited return from injury in mid-December. Presumably he will return for Wednesday's visit to second-place Manchester City.
Midfielder Brenden Aaronson logged 78 minutes as Leeds rebounded from a four-goal loss at front-running Arsenal with a 3-1 victory over Nottingham Forest, staying six points above the relegation zone.
Striker Haji Wright's scoreless streak hit three during a 90-minute effort in Coventry City's 0-0 home draw with Oxford. Atop the second-tier table much of the campaign, the wobbling club is in danger of yielding the top spot Monday, when Middlesbrough visits Sheffield United. Nevertheless, with two teams assured promotion, Coventry holds a five-point cushion over third-place Ipswich Town.
Midfielder Aidan Morris is expected to start for Middlesbrough, which will visit Coventry next Monday.
Forward Patrick Agyemang made his 21st consecutive start for Derby County in a 2-1 loss to Ipswich Town. The Rams slipped from seventh to ninth place, two points off the pace for a spot in the promotion playoffs.
Midfielder Malik Tillman played 90 in Bayer Leverkusen's 1-1 draw at Mönchengladbach, leaving the club sixth in the Bundesliga and three points from the last Champions League slot next season.
Mönchengladbach midfielder Gio Reyna missed his third consecutive match with a muscle injury, while right wing back Joe Scally was a 79th-minute substitute.
Midfielder James Sands made his 16th straight start as next-to-last St. Pauli surprised Stuttgart, 2-1. Defender Noahkai Banks played the first half of Augsburg's 2-0 loss at Mainz.
Forward Damion Downs' scoreless streak since joining Hamburg on loan from Southampton hit 271 minutes after playing the second half of a 2-0 victory at Heidenheim.
In the second division, left back John Tolkin logged 90 in Holstein Kiel's 3-1 loss at Hannover, its third straight setback to leave it two points safe of the relegation playoffs.
Right back Sergiño Dest played all of PSV Eindhoven's 2-1 comeback victory at Groningen, stretching the leaders' streak in the Eredivisie to 16-0-2 since Sept. 13 and 19-1-2 overall.
Center back Auston Trusty went 120 minutes as Celtic outlasted Dundee 2-1 in the Scottish Cup's round of 16. Celtic scored the equalizer in the final seconds of stoppage time.
Atletico Madrid midfielder Johnny Cardoso missed his second consecutive match with a muscle injury. … Wing back Alex Freeman will seek to make his Villarreal debut Monday against Espanyol.
U.S. men's national team attacker Tim Weah says a middle-of-the-night FaceTime call from manager Roberto De Zerbi and a quick embrace have helped him feel at home with Marseille, following a testing time with Serie A giants Juventus.
Weah, 25, recalled De Zerbi's pursuit of him in the summer, using a relatively untraditional method in the modern game, in order to land the American forward.
“The coach really believed in me,” Weah told Téléfoot. “He called me at four in the morning in my pyjamas, on FaceTime. He was smoking, and he said, ‘Tim, you have to come here. You'll see, this is your home.' And at the airport, I was received as if I were at home.”
Since arriving in Marseille, Weah has become a key player in De Zerbi's side and been embraced by the fanbase, going on to add that he is starting to feel “a bit like a Marseillais,” after just six months with his new club.
This season, he has been a versatile attacking force, racking up two goals and two assists across 17 games in Ligue 1 action, while adding a goal and an assist in the UEFA Champions League. All told, it's given him a sense of belonging, after admitting that he was a “broken player” by the time he stepped away from Juventus.
“When I arrived here, they took on a player who was a bit broken, lacking in confidence,” he added. “Getting up in the morning was hard for me, going to training. Because things weren't going well for me. So they took a chance on me.”
Given his success this season with Marseille, Weah, the son of former Ballon d'Or winner and Liberian Prime Minister, George Weah, hopes to translate his success at the 2026 World Cup when he dons the Stars and Stripes.
Before that, he will keep his focus on the Ligue 1 season as Marseille look to find their way back into the automatic top three spots for Champions League qualification, currently sitting fourth with 39 points, behind Lyon on 42 points through 21 games each following a 5–0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
While the club didn't advance to the knockout phase of the Champions League, there is still hope in the French Cup, where they are among the eight quarterfinalists after a round of 16 win over Rennes.
"I want to stay at Olympique Marseille for a long time,” Weah added. “I give my all for this club, I want to win something here, and I hope to start this year. It would be a dream to win a trophy in my first season.”
Ben Steiner is an American-Canadian journalist who brings in-depth experience, having covered the North American national teams, MLS, CPL, NWSL, NSL and Liga MX for prominent outlets, including MLSsoccer.com, CBC Sports, and OneSoccer.
© 2026 ABG-SI LLC - SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. - All Rights Reserved. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates, licensees and related brands. All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER.
Support WBUR
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
The less said about last night's game, the better? After a season that exceeded almost everyone's expectations, the Patriots lost Super Bowl 60 to the Seattle Seahawks by a score of 29-13. Drake Maye and the Pats' offense struggled to get anything going against Seattle's relentless defense. "I'd like to go back to the beginning and redo it," Maye said after the game, adding that the tough loss will be motivation for next year.
"The biggest thing about life is you're going to have times like this, and it's how you bounce back," said the 23-year-old, who got emotional at times during the post-game press conference as he reflected on the loss and the season as a whole.
In between the action, Bad Bunny's much-anticipated halftime show was a festive homage to Puerto Rico — with nearly as many celebrity cameos as Dunkin's "Good Will Hunting" parody commercial. (You can watch the performance in full here.)
Now, to the news:
Meanwhile back in Foxborough: Just over four months from the start of the World Cup, town officials in Foxborough are threatening to withhold a necessary entertainment license for matches at Gillette Stadium — unless they get their money first. During a meeting last week, Foxborough Select Board Chair Bill Yukna said they've requested $7.7 million to pay for local security costs, and they want it all upfront before they grant the license. "This event is not Foxborough's event," Yukna said. "This is a national — international — event, and it's not up to the town of Foxborough to support or pay for any of this."
In other local news: The Pentagon is cutting ties with Harvard University, as the Trump administration's ongoing standoff with the university continues. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who attended the Harvard Kennedy School, said Friday that the university is "woke" and "no longer meets the needs" of the department.
On the T: The Green Line has resumed normal service this morning after a trolley derailed yesterday afternoon at Park Street and ripped up a bit of the platform. Service between Park Street and Government Center was suspended until late last night due inspections and repairs, according to the MBTA.
P.S.— The sports continue tonight at TD Garden. Boston University takes on Boston College in the men's Beanpot final in what's also the 300th "Battle of Comm. Ave." between the two hockey teams. It'll be televised on NESN and ESPN+ at 7:30 p.m.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Foxborough Select Board Chair Bill Yukna's last name. We regret the error.
Nik DeCosta-Klipa is a senior editor for newsletters at WBUR.
Support WBUR
Support WBUR
Cristiano Ronaldo is yet to win a major trophy since arriving in Saudi Arabia, and Al-Nassr will be hoping the 41-year-old Portuguese star returns to action on Wednesday to help the Riyadh club move closer to silverware.
Al-Nassr takes on Arkadag of Turkmenistan with a place in the quarterfinals of the Asian Champions League Two on the line.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Ronaldo hasn't played any part in Al-Nassr's most recent two games in the Saudi Pro League amid reports he was unhappy with the way the club is being funded, particularly after watching rival Al-Hilal sign Karim Benzema in last month's transfer window.
Al-Nassr, Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli are all majority owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
In a statement, the SPL outlined that no player is bigger than the club or the league.
“The Saudi Pro League is structured around a simple principle: every club operates independently under the same rules,” the league said. “Cristiano has been fully engaged with Al-Nassr since his arrival and has played an important role in the club's growth and ambition. But no individual — however significant — determines decisions beyond their own club.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Despite the absence of the five-time Ballon d'Or winner, Al-Nassr beat reigning champion Al-Ittihad 2-0 on Friday.
Ittihad is the only one of three Saudi teams in the top-tier AFC Champions League Elite not to have secured a place in the round of 16, with two group games remaining.
Despite losing star striker Karim Benzema last week to Al-Hilal, which has a history of making high-profile signings, including Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain in 2023, Ittihad will advance to the next round if it defeats Al-Gharafa of Qatar on Tuesday.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The top eight in each of the tournament's two 12-team groups — divided geographically into East and West Asia — qualify for the second round.
Al-Hilal leads the western zone and is the only team with a perfect record of six wins from six, meaning coach Simone Inzaghi can choose to rest players. Al-Ahli, which won its first Champions League title in May, is also guaranteed a spot in the knockout stage.
In the eastern zone, only Vissel Kobe has clinched qualification, but Japan will have three teams in the round of 16 if both Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Machida Zelvia win this week.
The pressure is on China's three representatives, which occupy the bottom three positions.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Chinese champion Shanghai Port is in last place and on the verge of being ousted from the tournament. Wins for Chengdu Rongcheng and Shanghai Shenhua would keep both teams in contention.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
About
Contact
Services
Account
Broadband TV News
Independent. Since 2003
February 9, 2026 10.40 Europe/London By Julian Clover
DAZN's agreement to exclusively distribute GRUP MEDIAPRO's dedicated 2026 FIFA World Cup channel on pay-TV in Spain will not remove the tournament entirely from free-to-air television, with key matches still protected by national regulations.
While the deal gives DAZN access to all 104 matches of the expanded FIFA World Cup 2026 via a linear World Cup channel and on-demand coverage, Spanish legislation requires listed events to be broadcast free-to-air. This is expected to include Spain's matches, the final and selected later-stage games, most likely shown by RTVE on La 1 and RTVE Play.
The Spanish model mirrors arrangements in other major European markets, where pay-TV and streaming operators hold comprehensive rights but public broadcasters retain access to protected fixtures.
In the UK, the World Cup is listed under Ofcom's “Group A” events, meaning live coverage must be available free-to-air. Recent tournaments have been shared between BBC and ITV, even where pay-TV operators have held broader FIFA rights portfolios.
Germany follows a similar approach, with public broadcasters ARD and ZDF guaranteed access to matches involving the national team and the final, alongside wider commercial exploitation by pay-TV and digital platforms.
In France, World Cup matches involving Les Bleus and the final are protected for free-to-air broadcast, typically via TF1, despite increasing competition from subscription-based sports services for full tournament coverage.
DAZN's Spanish deal underlines a broader European trend as streamers and pay-TV platforms secure end-to-end tournament coverage and dedicated channels, while free-to-air broadcasters maintain a reduced but high-impact role focused on national interest matches and major finals.
Further details on sublicensing and match allocations in Spain are expected closer to the start of the tournament, which runs from 11 June to 19 July 2026 across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Filed Under: 2nd Story, Top Story Edited: 9 February 2026 12:48
Julian Clover is a Media and Technology journalist based in Cambridge, UK. He works in online and printed media. Julian is also a voice on local radio. You can talk to Julian on X @julianclover, or by email at jclover@broadbandtvnews.com.
Virgin Media O2 has struck a multi-year deal with Starlink's Direct to Cell network to launch “O2 Satellite”, a handset-to-satellite service that will extend coverage into rural and coastal not-spots from early 2026. … [Download the White Paper ...]
Copyright © 2026 Broadband TV News LLP · Log in
Connect With Your Community
Subscribe for stories that matter!
Subscribe for stories that matter!
Airbnb is projecting that around 17,000 visitors will book its rentals during the FIFA World Cup 2026, creating what it estimates to be $167 million in regional economic impact, write Alex Barreira and Emma Dooling for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
These visits are expected to generate 126,000 room nights throughout Greater Philadelphia during the six World Cup matches planned for Lincoln Financial Field. According to the report, direct guest spending should reach about $52 million, while additional indirect and induced spending will likely push the total impact to roughly $167 million.
The 17,000 projected visitors make up only a fraction of the 149,000 tourists the report anticipates will travel to Philadelphia and require lodging during the World Cup.
Airbnb guests are expected to spend around $109 per night on their stays and put about $411 toward transport. Local Airbnb hosts are projected to earn close to $1,900 per visit, which will average about $160 per night.
Additionally, the World Cup will have a long-term impact on local tourism, as, according to FIFA, 65 percent of World Cup visitors will often make a return visit to see the host cities after the competition has concluded.
Read more about Airbnb's expectations for Philadelphia during the FIFA World Cup in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
_____
Editor's Note: This post first appeared on PHILADELPHIA Today in December 2025.
Help Sustain Our Mission.
Get a little feel-good in your inbox from your trusted community journal. Subscribe to get our free daily newsletter with quick reads and upbeat local stories covering business, community, and culture in Philadelphia County, delivered in time for your morning coffee.
"*" indicates required fields
"*" indicates required fields
© 2026 WWB Holdings, LLC. All rights reserved
February 09, 2026
With the FIFA World Cup expected to bring a surge of tourists to Philly, the restaurant and bar industry wants Pennsylvania to extend last call beyond 2 a.m. Above, a countdown clock to the World Cup at Dilworth Park in Center City.
More than 500,000 tourists are expected to visit Pennsylvania when the World Cup comes to Philly for a three-week stretch this summer.
The bar and restaurant industry sees this as a golden opportunity for Philly's nightlife to capitalize on a swell of soccer fans and others coming to town to mark the United States' 250th anniversary. Bars want the option stay open past the state's 2 a.m. curfew for serving alcohol.
"We want to make sure that Philly is competitive with the other host cities," said Ben Fileccia, senior vice president of strategy and engagement at the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, a trade group based in Harrisburg. "We know people are going to be coming from all over the world, and their drinking schedule doesn't necessarily stop at 2 a.m. I would much prefer that liquor is being sold and provided by businesses that do this on a regular basis and know how to protect their guests."
Lincoln Financial Field is hosting six World Cup matches, including one on the Fourth of July. The international soccer tournament is at the heart of a packed summer schedule that has made Philadelphia a global travel destination in 2026. The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau estimates more than 1 million international travelers will be in town this year.
"We're going to be hosting a huge crowd, anyway," Fileccia said. "We would rather capture that extra revenue and help our restaurants and our liquor licensees. It will also drive more tax revenue to the city and state."
Other World Cup host cities, like New York and Miami, allow alcohol service until 4 a.m. or later. Kansas City is hosting six matches this summer, and lawmakers in Missouri recently passed legislation allowing bars and restaurants to stay open up to 23 hours straight during the World Cup. Kansas lawmakers are considering a similar bill.
Any temporary changes to Philly's bar curfew would need to be authorized by a state law. The bill would need to spell out how and when the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board should administer permits for businesses that want to adjust their hours.
The city is interested in entertaining ways to grant bars more leeway to take advantage of the tourism boom.
"Exploring extended business hours is one of many economic strategies that is being discussed as cities around the country prepare to host large-scale global events in 2026 and beyond," Karen Fegely, acting director of the Philadelphia Department of Commerce, said in a statement. "... If the State advances legislation, the City is ready to engage and partner to ensure any policy is thoughtful, and centered on public safety, neighborhood quality of life, and economic benefit for all."
The last time Philly was granted a window to extend its bar curfew happened during the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Less than two weeks before the political convention that July, the state passed a law narrowly defining how Philly bars could participate during a period of about a week.
PLCB accepted applications for a $5,000 "national event permit" allowing approved businesses to stay open until 4 a.m., but only if they hosted events sanctioned by the DNC. The response was underwhelming, partly because of the time crunch and confusion about the rules.
Thirty bars ended up with permits, including Center City sports bar Ladder 15 and Gayborhood hotspot Woody's. More than half of the participating bars were at hotels, and applications from 17 other businesses were denied.
The PLCB is required to follow strict rules in any laws granting time-limited changes to the liquor code, spokesperson Shawn Kelly said. Many questions will need to be answered in Harrisburg, including how many bars could stay open late, whether the extended curfew would be restricted to certain neighborhoods and if there would be a cost to participate.
"If and when the law is changed, PLCB will respond accordingly," he said.
Zakary Pyzik, leader of the restaurant and lodging association's public affairs efforts in Harrisburg, said there has been "enthusiastic" support from a handful of state lawmakers based in Philly. Several of them, including Democrats and Republicans, declined to comment on plans to introduce legislation concerning bar hours this summer, or answer questions about the potential scope of extended service.
At a minimum, PRLA wants bars to have the option to stay open past 2 a.m. for the entirety of the World Cup — a 39-day stretch from June 11 to July 19.
"We want operators and owners of all restaurants and bars of different sizes, ranging from small mom-and-pops to bigger chains and even beyond that, to have the opportunity to get involved if they want to," Pyzik said. "It would be different for everybody. There are a lot of questions operators would have to ask if they do get involved. They'll want to make sure they can do it responsibly and safely."
Philadelphia Soccer 2026, FIFA's World Cup host committee for the city, did not respond when asked whether it has been involved in discussions about extended bar service or if it would partner with businesses for late-night events should a law get passed.
Of the six World Cup matches scheduled in Philly, the latest start time is the 9 p.m. group stage contest between Brazil and Haiti on Friday, June 19. Another group stage match between Ivory Coast and Ecuador on June 14 starts at 7 p.m. All of the other matches have 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. start times.
Group stage games last about two hours. Knockout round games could be three hours long if they end on penalty kicks.
How much demand there will be for World Cup-related nightlife past 2 a.m. in Philly is difficult to predict. FIFA says its match times are optimized to enable the "widest-possible global audience" to follow the tournament. Several matches, all broadcast on FOX-owned networks, are scheduled to begin as late as midnight on the East Coast.
Philadelphia Soccer 2026, which will hold the free FIFA FanFest at Fairmount Park's Lemon Hill for the duration of the World Cup, has not yet revealed its daily hours of operation. Watch parties at the festival are expected to draw as many as 25,000 people each day, and they may want to keep festivities going afterward, including at hotels contracted for the 39-day event.
"I think there's a lot of different restaurants and bars in Philly that not only already operate with significant late-night demand, but would welcome the opportunity to explore extended hours," Pyzik said.
The Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage & Tavern Association, another trade group in Harrisburg, is "supportive" of legislation to extend service hours but has some doubts about how successful it would be with businesses and customers.
"Part of the problem with the 4 a.m. concept will be getting employees to work that late," Executive Director Chuck Moran said. "The second issue with the 4 a.m. concept will be that the late-night bar crowds have disappeared. At least that's what bar owners tell me across the state. So I'm not sure how popular it would be with bar owners. Nonetheless, it would be worth giving bar owners that option."
Moran said he expects lawmakers to address a range of regulatory issues for bars statewide this year due to the boost in tourism and major events. He noted the NFL Draft coming to Pittsburgh and the MLB All-Star Game in Philly as occasions that merit flexibility for venues that serve alcohol.
"It's a much bigger issue that goes beyond the World Cup," he said.
Pyzik said he's hopeful state lawmakers will get on board with a sensible plan to make Philadelphia an attractive nightlife destination for World Cup travelers, but he expects it will be a battle that's going to take bipartisan leadership.
"Obviously, they've got divided government up (in Harrisburg) and it's an election year, so you've got partisan politics that will be on full display," he said. "We're mindful of the fact that even bridge naming resolutions in Harrisburg right now are uphill battles."
Michael Tanenbaum
PhillyVoice Staff
tanenbaum@phillyvoice.com
Business
Guides
Health News
Philadelphia 250
Nightlife
Sixers
Health Insurance
Lawyers
Prevention
Finance
Adult Health
Travel
Gaming
© 2026 WWB Holdings, LLC. All rights reserved
Pundits have lambasted plans to hold three-minute hydration breaks in each half of the 104 games to be played at the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup.
FIFA say the process for the drinks breaks will be a “streamlined and simplified” version of those used at previous tournaments, including the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
“The referee will stop the game 22 minutes into each half to allow players to rehydrate,” FIFA said.
“There will be no weather or temperature condition in place, with the breaks being called by the referee in all games, to ensure equal conditions for all teams, in all matches.”
Main photo: The All Whites and other participating teams will get two mandatory hydration breaks during their games.
Total A-Leagues show panellists Daniel McBreen and Tommy Oar have criticised the move, saying it will halt the flow of games.
“I think it's a disgrace,” McBreen said.
“Let's not beat around the bush. It's not about a drink break. It's about commercial income.”
The three-minute drink breaks will provide international broadcasters with the opportunity to insert commercials midway through each half of football.
“A lot of the American sports are very stop-start sports,” McBreen said.
Time-outs and team changes interrupt the flow of games.
“Momentum isn't a key feature [in those sports] as much as in football. It is completely different in football.
“This is just all about finances; it's got nothing to do with drinks breaks.”
Oar asked: “Where do you draw the line with this?
“I think it's an absolute disgrace, and people who have no feeling or understanding for the game are the ones who make these decisions, unfortunately.
“At the moment, it's just a little drinks break, and then next year it might be an extra minute, and all of a sudden the game's not two halves, it's four quarters.”
The 48-nation FIFA Men's World Cup will be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Manolo Zubiria, chief tournament officer, United States, for the FIFA World Cup, said: “For every game, no matter where the games are played, no matter if there's a roof, (or) temperature-wise, there will be a three-minute hydration break. It will be three minutes from whistle to whistle in both halves,” he said.
“Obviously, if there's an injury (stoppage) at the moment of the 20th or 21st minute and it's ongoing, this will be addressed on the spot with the referee.”
FIFA say the use of hydration breaks is part of a focused effort to ensure the best possible conditions for players, drawing on the experiences of previous tournaments.
Game to be played on Tuesday June 16, 2026 (NZT)
Iran v New Zealand
SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, Los Angeles, 1pm (NZT)
Game to be played on Monday June 22, 2026 (NZT)
Egypt v New Zealand
BC Place, Vancouver, 1pm (NZT)
Game to be played on Saturday June 27, 2026 (NZT)
Belgium v New Zealand
BC Place, Vancouver, 3pm (NZT)
This story was first published on February 9, 2025.
More football stories
Canterbury's FC Twenty 11 will hold a golf fundraiser at Waitikiri Golf Club on Sunday...
By Rachel Lilburn and Warren Olson On training grounds across New Zealand, a new generation...
Central League club Upper Hutt City have appointed Toby Wilton as their men's head coach...
The All Whites could face the world's fourth-ranked team, England, in a warm-up match 10...
Wing back Liberato Cacace has joined the list of All Whites carrying injuries with little...
Here's our round-up of top results from the long weekend, with scorers and updated tables....
Midfielder Matthew Garbett is the latest All White under an injury cloud after confirmation by...
South Melbourne have closed the gap on OFC Pro League leaders Auckland FC with a...
Click on links for more information
Monday February 16 (8pm): Halberg Sports Awards, Spark Arena, Auckland (click here for details)
February 21-28: Round 3, OFC Professional League, Australia (click here for details)
February 24-March 7: Round 2 of FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifying series (click here for details)
Friday February 27 (3pm NZT): Samoa v Football Ferns, FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifier series, National Stadium, Honiara, Solomon Islands (click here for details)
Monday March 2 (7pm NZT): Solomon Islands v Football Ferns, FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifier series, National Stadium, Honiara, Solomon Islands (click here for details)
Thursday March 5 (3pm NZT): Football Ferns v American Samoa, FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifier series, National Stadium, Honiara, Solomon Islands (click here for details)
March 14-19: Round 4, OFC Professional League, Honiara, Solomon Islands (click here for details)
March 25-31: OFC U-16 Men's Championship, Tonga
Friday March 27 (3pm NZT): New Caledonia v Jamaica, FIFA Men's World Cup play-off semi-final, Guadalajara Stadium, Mexico (click here for details)
Friday March 27 (7pm): All Whites v Finland, FIFA Series, Eden Park, Auckland (click here for details)
Monday March 30 (7pm): All Whites v Chile, FIFA Series, Eden Park, Auckland (click here for details)
April 11-18: Round 5, OFC Professional League, Ba/Suva, Fiji (click here for details)
Sunday April 12 (12pm, 4pm): Semi-finals, FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifier series, FMG Stadium Waikato, Hamilton (click here for details)
Wednesday April 15 (7pm): Final, FIFA Women's World Cup Oceania qualifier series, North Harbour Stadium, Albany (click here for details)
Friday April 17 (6.30pm): World Cup Celebratory Dinner, hosted by Centre Circle, Chateau on the Park, Christchurch (click here for details)
April 18-24: OFC U-16 Women's Championship qualifying tournament, Papua New Guinea
April 21-28: OFC Women's Champions League qualifying tournament, Cook Islands
May 4-12: OFC U-15 Girls Youth Development tournament, Fiji
May 6-12: Leaders group series, OFC Professional League, Auckland (click here for details)
May 7-13: Challengers group series, OFC Professional League, Auckland (click here for details)
May 15-17: Grand final for 2025-26 women's A-League (click here for details)
May 22-24: Grand final for 2025-26 men's A-League (click here for details)
Sunday May 24: Grand final for 2026 OFC Professional League, Auckland
June 6-12: OFC U-19 Men's Championship qualifying tournament, Cook Islands
June 12-July 20 (NZT): FIFA Men's World Cup, co-hosted by Canada, United States and Mexico (click here for details)
Tuesday June 16 (1pm, NZT): Iran v New Zealand, FIFA Men's World Cup, SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles (click here for details)
Monday June 22 (1pm NZT): Egypt v New Zealand, FIFA Men's World Cup, BC Place Stadium, Vancouver (click here for details)
Saturday June 27 (3pm NZT): Belgium v New Zealand, FIFA Men's World Cup, BC Place Stadium, Vancouver (click here for details)
June 27-July 10: OFC Women's Champions League, Solomon Islands
July 12-25: OFC U-16 Men's Championship, Papua New Guinea
Tuesday July 28 (9.45pm NZT): Chelsea v Western Sydney Wanderers, Sydney Super Cup, Accor Stadium, Sydney (click here for details)
Wednesday July 29 (9.45pm NZT): Tottenham Hotspur v Sydney, Sydney Super Cup, Allianz Stadium, Sydney (click here for details)
Saturday August 1 (9.45pm NZT): Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur, Sydney Super Cup, Accor Stadium, Sydney (click here for details)
August 9-22: OFC Men's Champions League, Fiji (click here for details)
Wednesday August 12 (9.45pm NZT): Chelsea Women v Women's A-League All Stars, Allianz Stadium, Sydney (click here for details)
September 1-14: OFC U-19 Men's Championship, Samoa
September 6-19: OFC U-16 Women's Championship, Solomon Islands
October 1-9: OFC U-15 Boys' Youth Development tournament, New Zealand
October 22-31: OFC Beach Soccer Men's Nations Cup, Tahiti
© 2026 Friends of Football Site designed by Hurricane Press Ltd using - WordPress Theme by Kadence WP
Get official marketing communications from the ATP and WTA! We'll send you newsletters keeping you informed about news, tournaments, competitions, ticketing, partner offers and more.
Your data will be used in accordance with the
ATP Privacy Policy
and
WTA Privacy Policy.
© Copyright 1994 - 2026 ATP Tour, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc.. Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Community Social Media Policy | Modern Slavery Statement | Feedback | Cookies | Your Privacy Choices
Felix Auger-Aliassime has climbed in the PIF ATP Rankings after he successfully defended his title at the Open Occitanie in Montpellier. ATPTour.com looks at the movers of the week as of Monday 9 February.
No. 6 Felix Auger-Aliassime, +2
The 25-year-old has risen two spots to No. 6 in the PIF ATP Rankings following his title success in Montpellier. The Canadian dropped just one set en route to his ninth tour-level title and eighth on indoor hard courts.
You May Also Like: Auger-Aliassime successfully defends Montpellier crown, sets Canadian title record
No. 52 Adrian Mannarino, +18
The Frenchman reached the final in Montpellier, his first at tour-level since he won in Sofia in 2023. The 37-year-old recorded three three-set wins to advance to his maiden championship match on French soil.
No. 97 Luca Nardi, +7
Nardi is back in the Top 100 following victories against Nikoloz Basilashvili and Flavio Cobolli in Montpellier.
No. 120 Titouan Droguet, +30 (Career High)
Droguet has jumped to a career-high No. 120 after he came through qualifying in Montpellier to reach his first tour-level semi-final in Montpellier. The 24-year-old beat seed Tallon Griekspoor in the quarter-finals but couldn't overcome Auger-Aliassime in the semis.
No. 130 Martin Damm, +30 (Career High)
Like Droguet, Damm has moved 30 places after reaching the Montpellier semis as a qualifier. The 22-year-old American saved a match point in qualifying and then defeated former Top 10 stars Hubert Hurkacz and Roberto Bautista Agut to advance to the last four at a tour-level event for the first time.
Your data will be used in accordance with the
ATP Privacy Policy
and
WTA Privacy Policy.
Get official marketing communications from the ATP and WTA! We'll send you newsletters keeping you informed about news, tournaments, competitions, ticketing, partner offers and more.
Your data will be used in accordance with the
ATP Privacy Policy
and
WTA Privacy Policy.
© Copyright 1994 - 2026 ATP Tour, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc.. Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Community Social Media Policy | Modern Slavery Statement | Feedback | Cookies | Your Privacy Choices
In the meantime, the Canadian teenager is eager to face as many Top 10 players as possible.ByDavid KanePublished Feb 09, 2026 copy_link
Published Feb 09, 2026
DOHA, Qatar—Athletes often dream of competing against their idols, and Victoria Mboko is no different.The 19-year-old was fresh off a winning debut at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open when she was asked if there was an opponent she still longed to face as she continued her meteoric rise up the rankings.🖥️📲 Match in 15 Minutes: Victoria Mboko def. Marie Bouzkova, Doha 1RAlready up to No. 13 thanks to title runs in Montréal and Hong Kong, Mboko, who took on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open last month, gave an unsurprising answer, but one that may yet come true:Q. It's your first year on the tour, second year on the tour, on the main tour. Is there any player that you're particularly keen to play against, ones that you watched growing up that you want to match up against on the tour right now?VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
The 19-year-old was fresh off a winning debut at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open when she was asked if there was an opponent she still longed to face as she continued her meteoric rise up the rankings.🖥️📲 Match in 15 Minutes: Victoria Mboko def. Marie Bouzkova, Doha 1RAlready up to No. 13 thanks to title runs in Montréal and Hong Kong, Mboko, who took on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open last month, gave an unsurprising answer, but one that may yet come true:Q. It's your first year on the tour, second year on the tour, on the main tour. Is there any player that you're particularly keen to play against, ones that you watched growing up that you want to match up against on the tour right now?VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
🖥️📲 Match in 15 Minutes: Victoria Mboko def. Marie Bouzkova, Doha 1RAlready up to No. 13 thanks to title runs in Montréal and Hong Kong, Mboko, who took on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open last month, gave an unsurprising answer, but one that may yet come true:Q. It's your first year on the tour, second year on the tour, on the main tour. Is there any player that you're particularly keen to play against, ones that you watched growing up that you want to match up against on the tour right now?VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
Already up to No. 13 thanks to title runs in Montréal and Hong Kong, Mboko, who took on world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open last month, gave an unsurprising answer, but one that may yet come true:Q. It's your first year on the tour, second year on the tour, on the main tour. Is there any player that you're particularly keen to play against, ones that you watched growing up that you want to match up against on the tour right now?VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
Q. It's your first year on the tour, second year on the tour, on the main tour. Is there any player that you're particularly keen to play against, ones that you watched growing up that you want to match up against on the tour right now?VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
VICTORIA MBOKO: Well, one person that I always looked up to was Serena Williams, but she's retired now. I feel like I kind of already played people who I was wanting to play growing up. I mean, playing world No. 1 has always been a dream of mine, whether you win or lose it.But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
But, yeah, I think just playing as many top-10 players as I can is pretty cool. That's always a different experience for me. Yeah, there's not someone in particular.
Indeed, rumors have swirled since last fall that Serena Williams is planning a return to tennis, having re-entered the World Anti-Doping Authority's testing pool. She was even rumored to be making a major announcement during this weekend's Super Bowl.But though the 23-time Grand Slam champion is yet to confirm a comeback, she could be cleared to return as early as this spring, meaning Mboko could find herself on the court with Williams sooner than she could have ever imagined.In the meantime, the Canadian is getting plenty of exposure to elite athletes, competing alongside Coco Gauff in women's doubles this week in Doha and taking on former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva in her second-round singles match.
But though the 23-time Grand Slam champion is yet to confirm a comeback, she could be cleared to return as early as this spring, meaning Mboko could find herself on the court with Williams sooner than she could have ever imagined.In the meantime, the Canadian is getting plenty of exposure to elite athletes, competing alongside Coco Gauff in women's doubles this week in Doha and taking on former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva in her second-round singles match.
In the meantime, the Canadian is getting plenty of exposure to elite athletes, competing alongside Coco Gauff in women's doubles this week in Doha and taking on former world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva in her second-round singles match.
Another 20-year-old, Sara Bejlek, also makes her Top 40 debut after winning her first WTA title in Abu Dhabi.ByJohn BerkokPublished Feb 09, 2026 copy_link
Published Feb 09, 2026
© 2026 Getty Images
Alexandra Eala continues her historic rise this week, becoming the first woman from the Philippines to break into the Top 40 in WTA rankings history, which dates all the way back to 1975.She rises from No. 45 to No. 40 today following her run to the quarterfinals of Abu Dhabi, which was actually her first time reaching the quarterfinals of a WTA 500-level event.It was her fifth time reaching the quarterfinals at a WTA event at any level and they've all come in the last 11 months—her first three last year with her run to the semis of Miami (WTA 1000), the final of Eastbourne (WTA 250) and the quarters in Sao Paulo (WTA 250), and two this year with a semifinal in Auckland (WTA 250) and now a quarterfinal in Abu Dhabi (WTA 500).The 20-year-old was already the first woman from the Philippines to break into both the Top 100 and the Top 50 when she cracked those ranking classes last year, in March and November, respectively. And now, the first to crack the Top 40.
She rises from No. 45 to No. 40 today following her run to the quarterfinals of Abu Dhabi, which was actually her first time reaching the quarterfinals of a WTA 500-level event.It was her fifth time reaching the quarterfinals at a WTA event at any level and they've all come in the last 11 months—her first three last year with her run to the semis of Miami (WTA 1000), the final of Eastbourne (WTA 250) and the quarters in Sao Paulo (WTA 250), and two this year with a semifinal in Auckland (WTA 250) and now a quarterfinal in Abu Dhabi (WTA 500).The 20-year-old was already the first woman from the Philippines to break into both the Top 100 and the Top 50 when she cracked those ranking classes last year, in March and November, respectively. And now, the first to crack the Top 40.
It was her fifth time reaching the quarterfinals at a WTA event at any level and they've all come in the last 11 months—her first three last year with her run to the semis of Miami (WTA 1000), the final of Eastbourne (WTA 250) and the quarters in Sao Paulo (WTA 250), and two this year with a semifinal in Auckland (WTA 250) and now a quarterfinal in Abu Dhabi (WTA 500).The 20-year-old was already the first woman from the Philippines to break into both the Top 100 and the Top 50 when she cracked those ranking classes last year, in March and November, respectively. And now, the first to crack the Top 40.
The 20-year-old was already the first woman from the Philippines to break into both the Top 100 and the Top 50 when she cracked those ranking classes last year, in March and November, respectively. And now, the first to crack the Top 40.
After a three-tournament week on the WTA tour, Eala is one of several players making breakthroughs on the new WTA rankings.The woman who ended up winning the title in Abu Dhabi, Sara Bejlek, soars from No. 101 to No. 38, shattering her previous high of No. 75. It was the 20-year-old Czech's first career WTA titleAmerican Hailey Baptiste, who made her maiden WTA semifinal in Abu Dhabi, rises from No. 56 to No. 39 for her Top 40 debut.The last two players standing in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Emma Raducanu and Sorana Cirstea, continue their rises back up the rankings. Raducanu, who reached her first WTA final since winning the 2021 US Open, moves up from No. 30 to No. 25, her highest ranking since 2022. And Cirstea, who won the fourth WTA title of her career—and her first on home soil in Romania—goes from No. 36 to No. 31, her highest ranking since 2024.And Ukrainian breakout star Oleksandra Oliynykova rises from No. 91 to No. 71, soaring past her previous high of No. 90, after reaching the first WTA semifinal of her career in Cluj-Napoca. It was the second WTA main draw of her career, after this year's Australian Open, where she fell first round to Madison Keys.
The woman who ended up winning the title in Abu Dhabi, Sara Bejlek, soars from No. 101 to No. 38, shattering her previous high of No. 75. It was the 20-year-old Czech's first career WTA titleAmerican Hailey Baptiste, who made her maiden WTA semifinal in Abu Dhabi, rises from No. 56 to No. 39 for her Top 40 debut.The last two players standing in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Emma Raducanu and Sorana Cirstea, continue their rises back up the rankings. Raducanu, who reached her first WTA final since winning the 2021 US Open, moves up from No. 30 to No. 25, her highest ranking since 2022. And Cirstea, who won the fourth WTA title of her career—and her first on home soil in Romania—goes from No. 36 to No. 31, her highest ranking since 2024.And Ukrainian breakout star Oleksandra Oliynykova rises from No. 91 to No. 71, soaring past her previous high of No. 90, after reaching the first WTA semifinal of her career in Cluj-Napoca. It was the second WTA main draw of her career, after this year's Australian Open, where she fell first round to Madison Keys.
American Hailey Baptiste, who made her maiden WTA semifinal in Abu Dhabi, rises from No. 56 to No. 39 for her Top 40 debut.The last two players standing in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Emma Raducanu and Sorana Cirstea, continue their rises back up the rankings. Raducanu, who reached her first WTA final since winning the 2021 US Open, moves up from No. 30 to No. 25, her highest ranking since 2022. And Cirstea, who won the fourth WTA title of her career—and her first on home soil in Romania—goes from No. 36 to No. 31, her highest ranking since 2024.And Ukrainian breakout star Oleksandra Oliynykova rises from No. 91 to No. 71, soaring past her previous high of No. 90, after reaching the first WTA semifinal of her career in Cluj-Napoca. It was the second WTA main draw of her career, after this year's Australian Open, where she fell first round to Madison Keys.
The last two players standing in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Emma Raducanu and Sorana Cirstea, continue their rises back up the rankings. Raducanu, who reached her first WTA final since winning the 2021 US Open, moves up from No. 30 to No. 25, her highest ranking since 2022. And Cirstea, who won the fourth WTA title of her career—and her first on home soil in Romania—goes from No. 36 to No. 31, her highest ranking since 2024.And Ukrainian breakout star Oleksandra Oliynykova rises from No. 91 to No. 71, soaring past her previous high of No. 90, after reaching the first WTA semifinal of her career in Cluj-Napoca. It was the second WTA main draw of her career, after this year's Australian Open, where she fell first round to Madison Keys.
And Ukrainian breakout star Oleksandra Oliynykova rises from No. 91 to No. 71, soaring past her previous high of No. 90, after reaching the first WTA semifinal of her career in Cluj-Napoca. It was the second WTA main draw of her career, after this year's Australian Open, where she fell first round to Madison Keys.
Sara Bejlek was on another level today 📈 She earns the @BetMGM shot of the day en route to capturing the title ⤵️ #MubadalaAbuDhabiOpen pic.twitter.com/XmIKW3sarv
There aren't too many big moves on the ATP rankings this week after just one ATP event last week in Montpellier, France.But the last two men standing at the indoor event both make notable moves—champion Felix Auger-Aliassime rises from No. 8 to No. 6 after capturing the ninth ATP title of his career, while runner-up Adrian Mannarino jumps from No. 70 to No. 52 after reaching the 16th ATP final of his career, and first since 2023.
But the last two men standing at the indoor event both make notable moves—champion Felix Auger-Aliassime rises from No. 8 to No. 6 after capturing the ninth ATP title of his career, while runner-up Adrian Mannarino jumps from No. 70 to No. 52 after reaching the 16th ATP final of his career, and first since 2023.
Federer was on hand to watch the game in person, while Serena made an appearance in a commercial for Ro.ByTENNIS.comPublished Feb 09, 2026 copy_link
Published Feb 09, 2026
The GOATs came out for the Big Game.Roger Federer and Serena Williams stepped into the spotlight in different ways on this Super Bowl Sunday, as the New England Patriots faced the Seattle Sewhawks in Super Bowl LX.After making a surprise cameo appearance during Kendrick Lamar's halftime show performance in 2025, Williams this year starred in ad for Ro, the healthcare technology company which her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a board member of.While media speculation ran rampant ahead of the game that Williams would announce a comeback to professional tennis via the ad, she instead stuck solely on product placement, detailing her weight loss journey via GLP-1 drugs.Read more: Serena Williams refuses to rule out tennis comeback in 'TODAY' interview
Roger Federer and Serena Williams stepped into the spotlight in different ways on this Super Bowl Sunday, as the New England Patriots faced the Seattle Sewhawks in Super Bowl LX.After making a surprise cameo appearance during Kendrick Lamar's halftime show performance in 2025, Williams this year starred in ad for Ro, the healthcare technology company which her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a board member of.While media speculation ran rampant ahead of the game that Williams would announce a comeback to professional tennis via the ad, she instead stuck solely on product placement, detailing her weight loss journey via GLP-1 drugs.Read more: Serena Williams refuses to rule out tennis comeback in 'TODAY' interview
After making a surprise cameo appearance during Kendrick Lamar's halftime show performance in 2025, Williams this year starred in ad for Ro, the healthcare technology company which her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is a board member of.While media speculation ran rampant ahead of the game that Williams would announce a comeback to professional tennis via the ad, she instead stuck solely on product placement, detailing her weight loss journey via GLP-1 drugs.Read more: Serena Williams refuses to rule out tennis comeback in 'TODAY' interview
While media speculation ran rampant ahead of the game that Williams would announce a comeback to professional tennis via the ad, she instead stuck solely on product placement, detailing her weight loss journey via GLP-1 drugs.Read more: Serena Williams refuses to rule out tennis comeback in 'TODAY' interview
Read more: Serena Williams refuses to rule out tennis comeback in 'TODAY' interview
While Serena's appearance was virtual, Federer was in-person at Levi's Stadium, and he didn't just get camera time along the pre-game sideline.The Swiss great was also featured on the NFL's social media, where he recalled his favorite Super Bowl memory.Federer detailed how he was on hand, in-person in Arizona, for one of the Patriots' most infamous appearances back in 2008, when they entered the game against the New York Giants with an undefeated 18-0 record. While New England led for much of that game, Giants quaterback Eli Manning famously connected with his receiver David Tyree as time was winding down for the game-winning touchdown, with Tyree famously keeping the play alive by catching the ball on his helmet.“That was my favorite memory, obviously, of being in the stadium," he said.
The Swiss great was also featured on the NFL's social media, where he recalled his favorite Super Bowl memory.Federer detailed how he was on hand, in-person in Arizona, for one of the Patriots' most infamous appearances back in 2008, when they entered the game against the New York Giants with an undefeated 18-0 record. While New England led for much of that game, Giants quaterback Eli Manning famously connected with his receiver David Tyree as time was winding down for the game-winning touchdown, with Tyree famously keeping the play alive by catching the ball on his helmet.“That was my favorite memory, obviously, of being in the stadium," he said.
Federer detailed how he was on hand, in-person in Arizona, for one of the Patriots' most infamous appearances back in 2008, when they entered the game against the New York Giants with an undefeated 18-0 record. While New England led for much of that game, Giants quaterback Eli Manning famously connected with his receiver David Tyree as time was winding down for the game-winning touchdown, with Tyree famously keeping the play alive by catching the ball on his helmet.“That was my favorite memory, obviously, of being in the stadium," he said.
“That was my favorite memory, obviously, of being in the stadium," he said.
Ahead of Grammy-winner Bad Bunny's highly-anticipated halftime performance, Federer also detailed his favorite halftime shows from years past. Michael Jackson's 1993 set "was awesome," Federer said, having seen the set on YouTube, while a more recent halftime show also resonated with him.“Then I liked Eminem, 50 Cent, and Dr. Dre in LA [in 2022],” Federer continued. “I like that because that's music I also grew up with.”
“Then I liked Eminem, 50 Cent, and Dr. Dre in LA [in 2022],” Federer continued. “I like that because that's music I also grew up with.”
The world's biggest celebrities often gather at the Super Bowl. On Sunday, Roger Federer was one of the global icons in attendance for the Seattle Seahawks' win against the New England Patriots.
This was not the first time the ATP No. 1 Club member has been at the biggest NFL game of the year. Federer also attended the Super Bowl while he was the No. 1 player in the PIF ATP Rankings in 2008.
“I was at the Super Bowl in '08 in Arizona when Tom Brady was going for the perfect season and then we had the catch, I remember, on the helmet, from the Giants to win the game that Eli Manning passed,” Federer said in a social media interview with the NFL. “So that was my favourite memory obviously of being in the stadium.”
Other celebrities in attendance include Bon Jovi, Chris Pratt, Justin Bieber, Kendall Jenner, Lewis Hamilton and Kim Kardashian. Bad Bunny headlined the halftime show.
Before the game, Federer was asked which Super Bowl halftime show has been his favourite.
“From YouTube, everything I saw, [it] was Michael Jackson, the moment when he comes and he shows up, that was awesome. Then I liked Eminem and 50 Cent and Dr. Dre,” Federer said. “That's music I also grew up with.”
Your data will be used in accordance with the
ATP Privacy Policy
and
WTA Privacy Policy.
Get official marketing communications from the ATP and WTA! We'll send you newsletters keeping you informed about news, tournaments, competitions, ticketing, partner offers and more.
Your data will be used in accordance with the
ATP Privacy Policy
and
WTA Privacy Policy.
© Copyright 1994 - 2026 ATP Tour, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc.. Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Community Social Media Policy | Modern Slavery Statement | Feedback | Cookies | Your Privacy Choices
Authentics
Store
Tickets
Hospitality
Experiences
Next
Upcoming
Oscar Piastri reflects on 'tough lessons' and his goals for 2026
Lando Norris 'proved to myself that I have what it takes' after title success
With Adrian Newey's maiden Aston Martin design emerging at the end of the Barcelona Shakedown, its dramatic looks have gotten plenty of people talking.
The Aston Martin AMR26 certainly caused a stir when it emerged from the garage on the fourth day of the Barcelona Shakedown, ahead of the team's official launch tonight. As the first Adrian Newey-conceived Aston Martin it has been perhaps the most eagerly anticipated of all the new 2026 cars but, in its dramatic looks and extreme engineering solutions, it exceeded even the wildest expectations.
From the tip of its ‘pelican' nose to the tail of its rear wing pillar-mounted suspension arms, it's radically different to any other car. The heavily downward-ramped sidepods, housed around tiny radiator horizontal inlets look more like tubes than pods – and are similar in this respect to the Red Bull RB22.
However, in this case they do not run down to the floor edge, leaving a huge expanse of floor to feed between the diffuser wall and rear wheel. A big cooling exit duct is incorporated just below the cockpit between the sidepod tubes and engine cover.
As with the Red Bull, the sidepod shape implies that a big proportion of the radiator area – including probably the intercooler – may in fact be sited upwards and in the centre of the car.
The front pushrod suspension has its upper rearwards wishbone mounted even further back than on the McLaren, giving the upper wishbone layout an enormous offset triangular shape in plan view. In profile the arms appear to form an aerodynamic cascade to boost the airflow.
But the most radical part of the car is at the rear. The upper arms of the pushrod layout are mounted incredibly high and attach to the centre where the rear wing mount runs.
Structurally, this isn't new; several teams – notably Williams and Red Bull – designed cars in the early 2010s with the wishbones attached to a super-strong central mount, with the wing support running around it. But they were not mounted anywhere near as high as this.
Not only does it create a clear unobstructed space for the diffuser exit but it could potentially even serve as a part-replacement for the now-banned beam wing.
Although the arms cannot by regulation be aerofoil shaped in profile, they way they are mounted, together with a degree of rake in the car itself could certainly induce at least part of that beam wing function of connecting up the flow exiting the diffuser and that being fed to the rear wing underside.
The front wing looks much plainer than those seen on other cars and is probably not the final version.
The nose is as wide as the Red Bull's. This wide nose/narrow sidepod combination is shared with the Red Bull and could be about maximising the high-pressure area behind the front wheels to direct the wheel wake outward far enough to clear the front of the sidepod and thereafter be pulled into that expanse of exposed floor feeding the rear.
Little is known about the new Honda power unit which drives through Aston Martin's own gearbox (a first) but the progress of this incredible-looking design is sure to be monitored very closely by everyone as the season gets underway.
Next Up
© 2003-2026 Formula One World Championship Limited
By Nellie Andreeva
Editor-In-Chief
EXCLUSIVE: In one of those “This is Hollywood, land of dreams” stories the aspirational epilogue in Pretty Woman is about, a spec script by a 20-something British actor with one produced episodic writing credit triggered a heated bidding war among top TV producers, networks and streamers, landing at A24 in a seven-figure deal with Nicole Kidman among A-listers in talks to star, Deadline has learned.
The writer's name is Dylan Brady, and the spec script is an untitled erotic thriller. (The project was originally titled Discretion; it will undergo a name change, in part not to be confused with the legal thriller drama series Discretion A24 has at Paramount+ with Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning starring).
Related Stories
News
'Pillion', 'Hamnet' & Milestones for Bleecker Street & Vertical At The Specialty Box Office
News
A24 Wins 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Rights: TV Series In Works From JT Mollner, Glen Powell & Roy Lee; ImageNation Pic In Early Development
The untitled drama centers on a struggling actor who takes a nannying job with a high-flying producer and her movie-star husband, plotting to seduce his employers and exploit their industry connections only to find himself ensnared in a far more dangerous game.
Watch on Deadline
The spec ranked second on the 2025 The Brit List — the British and Irish equivalent of The Black List, featuring top unproduced film and TV scripts — which came out in early November. At the time, Deadline profiled Brady, who didn't have U.S. representation, and Discretion, which had been optioned by Kudos. (The British production company will remain attached.)
By the end of 2025, Brady was signed by a U.S. agency, UTA, after being identified by a young agent and an assistant there. He is repped by UTA's co-head of TV Lit Dan Erlij, the architect behind the big auction last fall over another spec, Joshua Zetumer's supernatural drama Pagans, which was won by Netflix with a straight-to-series order after some 15-18 studios, platforms and producers bid for it.
Brady's Discretion also sparked a bidding war when it was sent out last month, with nine offers on the table from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Apple, FX, Peacock and others, sources said. There has been great curiosity about Brady, a virtual unknown as a writer, and some 27 meetings have been set up for him with producers, studios and networks.
He flew in from the UK Friday night for the meetings, in which he was to lay out his ideas for the rest of the series. By Saturday morning, before Brady had a chance to start the process and while Netflix and Amazon were still making bids, A24 took the project off the market preemptively after a 24-hour blitz with a substantial seven-figure offer, sources said. Conversations started with Kidman and other top actors for lead roles.
This has become a signature MO for A24. Last year, the company won a seven-way bidding war for Trigger Point, a spec script by Harrison Query. A24 developed the project internally and attached Joel Edgerton to star and Jeremy Saulner to direct before taking it out, sparking a bidding won by Netflix with a straight-to-series order.
Similarly, A24 acquired the rights to Chandler's Baker's yet-to-be-published short story Discretion in a highly competitive situation with a 7-figure purchase price and additional million dollars in script/development fees. After attaching Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning and writer Susannah Grant, the package was taken out and, in a bidding war, went to Paramount+ with a straight-to-series order. Both series are produced by A24-based Joe Hipps.
Brady told Deadline in November that inspiration for the series came from a real-life friend who took on a job as home-help to a high-powered couple, before becoming entwined in their lives. The project takes references from Fatal Attraction, Eyes Wide Shut, and Sunset Boulevard while aiming to subvert storytelling conventions.
“Erotic thrillers have historically always been very heterosexual, and it's the marital unit that is the hero that has to be preserved at all costs from an evil slut, who threatens that unity,” he said. “I thought about what this looks like in 2025. What if the slut is the hero and there is something rotten in the marriage? I wanted to break form and put a queer lens on it.”
In addition to the title change, the drama is expected to undergo creative tweaks as it moves forward.
As an actor, Brady has appeared on such series as The Diplomat, Andor, Tell Me Everything and Coronation Street. As a writer, his sole produced credit to date is an episode of the short-lived 2023 British YA series for Netflix Everything Now. He is working on his self-funded short Anon starring Con O'Neill, shot entirely on dash cam in his home city of Derby, and has another series project in development with Kudos for the BBC, an adaptation of Charlotte Vassell's novel The Other Half. Brady, who was mentored by All of Us Strangers director Andrew Haigh through the BFI Flare x BAFTA Cohort scheme, is also repped by Charlotte Knight of Knight Hall Agency in the UK.
The erotic thriller genre has been enjoying a major comeback, with at least 10 TV and film projects in the works. The untitled Brady project is joining such series in development as Hancock Park at Netflix and Fifth Season starring Regé-Jean Page, Teach Me at Peacock starring Mandy Moore, and two more projects at Fifth Season, Night Float starring Nina Dobrev and Dangerous Liaisons.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Comment
Name
Email
Website
Δ
A24 can no longer get favorable talent deals as they did when they were starting. The budgets are getting higher, the packages more expensive. Can they transition to play against larger companies and remain profitable?
Additionally, can they or anyone outperform the mean long-term? Feige couldn't, Nexfix TV couldn't, Pixar reverted, perhaps it is impossible.
Kidman? Please no. Choose someone else
high sale spec script. same movie we have seen before
Good for him. Love hearing stories like this. Make your dreams come true….
Sorry but oh please. Haven't we seen this before?
yes and starring Nicole Kidman!
Uh, not really. This is a solid logline that got my attention. I think it sounds cool. As someone who grew up watching movies like Sliver, I'm here for it. (I like all movie genres).
Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our annonymous form.
Sign up for our breaking news alerts
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By Matt Grobar
Senior Film Reporter
After taking notice of the use of a piece of music from their 2017 film Phantom Thread in Amazon MGM Studios‘ Melania Trump documentary Melania, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood are requesting its removal.
“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” said the duo in a statement issued by Greenwood's camp.
They noted that while “Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”
A cultural lightning rod released in theaters January 30 with a global rollout, Melania follows the current First Lady during the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump's second inauguration in January 2025. While the doc has already grossed far more than many docs do, with over $13 million in its first two weekends, it's been the subject of controversy ever since it was announced by Amazon MGM in January 2025.
Watch on Deadline
Reportedly, the studio paid a staggering $40M for the doc, along with a forthcoming docuseries, and spent around $35M on marketing efforts, which would make Melania one of the most expensive docs ever, all things considered. Some have speculated the investment was politically motivated. Then, there's the fact that the film is directed and produced by Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017 and has more or less flown under the radar ever since.
Marking Radiohead guitarist Greenwood's fourth collaboration with Anderson following There Will Be Blood, The Master and Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread was a psychological drama centered on a haute couture '50s London dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis) and the young waitress (Vicky Krieps) he takes as his muse, leading to a twisted love affair. The film earned myriad Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Score, following its release through Focus Features.
Greenwood and Anderson have more recently teamed on One Battle After Another, the darkly comedic thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Benicio Del Toro and Regina Hall, which has picked up 13 Oscar nominations, with Greenwood in the running once again for Score. Anderson is looking likely to finally break through — in Best Picture, Director and/or Adapted Screenplay — with 14 nominations but no wins to date.
Amazon MGM couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Comment
Name
Email
Website
Δ
Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our annonymous form.
Sign up for our breaking news alerts
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
There are plenty of box office milestones to attach to Timothée Chalamet's name. Over 3 billion bucks in overall box office take? He did it in 2025. Leading the top-two domestic box office winners in the space of eight months? He did it in 2024. Giving A24 its highest-grossing film of all time? Happened just this weekend, when Josh Safdie's “Marty Supreme” crossed $147 million at the global box office.
There's little doubt that the actor and three-time Best Actor nominee is a major box office draw, but Chalamet's resume is dotted with not just films in which he's very much the lead (“Marty Supreme,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Wonka,” the “Dune” franchise), but features that boast quite starry ensembles.
Popular on IndieWire
Related Stories Is the ‘Wuthering Heights' Press Tour Messy Performance Art or Marketing Rage Bait? Utopia Launches New Membership on Patreon, Complete with Online Screenings, Special Events, and More
Just how big is Chalamet's own star power as a leading man, we wondered? Not to worry, Chalamaniacs, it's still quite big: over 2 billion bucks in global returns. Yes, we did the math.
While box office tracking site The Numbers counts 13 films in which Chalamet is the lead, we hewed down the list to nine titles in which he's easily and obviously the lead or co-lead (in five of those films alone, he plays the titular character).
That means we didn't count films like “Little Women,” “Lady Bird,” “The French Dispatch,” “Don't Look Up,” “A Rainy Day in New York,” or “Hostiles,” in which the actor is one part of a big ensemble and couldn't reasonably be considered the lead (yes, we're sure there will be arguments that rebuff this thinking, and we're open to them).
But that still means that in films that most people would call “a Timothée Chalamet” movie, the just-turned-30-year-old has helped pull in over 2 billion dollars at the box office. We even made a chart!
And this total will only go up (duh) and fast, as “Marty Supreme” has yet to open in a number of international markets, and Denis Villeneuve's much-anticipated “Dune: Part Three” is gearing up for a December release (a slot that has previously earned the prior two “Dune” films over a billion dollars alone at the box office).
And while this 2-billion-dollar take doesn't yet place Chalamet in the tippy-top tier of his money-making acting brethren, consider this: of the current crop of top 10 earners, nine have made major money in traditional superhero roles (save for Tom Cruise, though we could all make the argument for Ethan Hunt as his own brand of superhero). Chalamet has yet to go that route, and still made plenty of money (and earned the kind of accolades that don't need to be sparked by Marvel or DC gigs) along the way.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Turning Point USA may have tried to lead a boycott and counter-program the Super Bowl halftime show, but somehow nearly every right-wing influencer managed to watch Bad Bunny bring down Levi's Stadium — and they are furious.
The annual meltdown by conservative influencers and activists over the halftime show is about as predictable as death and the sunrise, a Super Bowl tradition alongside buffalo chicken dip and weird commercials. But this year the hysterical MAGA masses are in rare form.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to terrorize migrants around the country, Puerto Rico's very own Bad Bunny became the first Latino male artist to not only headline the halftime show, but perform entirely in Spanish. Bad Bunny used the national stage to celebrate Latino culture, focusing on his Puerto Rican roots. The star ripped through some of his biggest hits and brought out surprise guests, including Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. He also invited a cast of celebrities to dance in his famed La Casita stage set.
During his 13-minute show, Bad Bunny was not overtly political but he did send a message of unity as he paraded flags from all over Latin America. Unsurprisingly, his set was the most exciting part of the night. Neither the Seahawks nor the Patriots scored a touchdown until the fourth quarter.
Bad Bunny's hater-in-chief remains President Donald Trump who, despite statements from the White House asserting that he would not be watching Bad Bunny and would instead support TPUSA, immediately posted an angry rant about the performance.
The president wrote that the performance was “an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” and a “a ‘slap in the face' to our Country.” Trump also echoed the chief complaint of many right-wing detractors, that the performance was delivered in Spanish, the second-most spoken language around the world and in the United States.
Editor's picks
The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far
The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
100 Best Movies of the 21st Century
Megyn Kelly shared a similar sentiment. “Nah, I like my half time shows in English from ppl who love America,” she wrote in response to a political science professor telling her she missed out on the halftime show for opting to watch the Turning Point USA's version.
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh — who claimed he hadn't watched the performance and only seen social media clips — complained on X that “having the halftime show for your biggest game of the year in a language almost none of your lifelong fans can understand, while waving the flags of countries that none them are from, is the biggest fuck you that l've ever seen a corporation give to its own.”
Walsh, like many others in his cohort, is apparently unaware that the NFL enjoys a global audience. Games are available in over 185 countries and over 25 languages. The league regularly hosts sold out games in non-English predominant destinations including Mexico City, Rio, Madrid, Munich, and Paris. Bad Bunny is one of if not the most popular artist in the world, dethroning Taylor Swift last year as the most-streamed artist on Spotify.
Trump stan account “Catturd” wrote that “the Super Bowl in the USA just had a halftime all in Spanish. I'm dead serious, I will never watch a NFL game again as long as I live. Not one second.” In 2020, Catturd declared that he was “never watching the NBA, NFL, MLB, or NASCAR again — and I won't miss it one damn bit.” We'll see you next year, sir.
Right-wing filmmaker Robby Starbuck whined that “having Bad Bunny do the Super Bowl halftime show ENTIRELY in Spanish, in the United States is like playing the national anthem in Chinese at the World Series or replacing hot dogs on the 4th of July with tofu. It's just not right [the] NFL disrespected the fans and the country.”
Related Content
No, the Little Boy in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set Was Not Liam Ramos
A Timeline of Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny Fangirling Over Each Other
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
The national anthem was performed at the Super Bowl, in English, by Charlie Puth. Rolling Stone could not immediately confirm the presence of hot dogs in Levi's Stadium (we assume they were there), but we do know that Super Bowl attendees could purchase a braised veal shank burger topped with cheese fondue for $180 — and what's more American than corporations price-gouging a hunk of meat at an already ridiculously expensive sporting event?
Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorist and Trump confidant Laura Loomer had a full-on meltdown as soon as Bad Bunny took the stage. “What the hell is this illegal alien farm worker non English shit on my TV,” she wrote in an X post. As a Community note informed Loomer, Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican and U.S. citizen, since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. That didn't stop Loomer from begging for an ICE raid to stop the halftime show in multiple posts. “SOMEONE CALL IN AN ICE RAID AT THE SUPER BOWL!” At one point, she even said the quiet part aloud. “This isn't White enough for me,” she wrote in a different post.
Trending Stories
Kid Rock Delivers Half-Assed Lip-Synch at TPUSA Anti-Halftime Show
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All of the Hidden Symbols and Meanings You May Have Missed in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set
Before the Super Bowl even kicked off, influencer Logan Paul let out an emphatic “no” when asked if he was excited about the halftime show. His lack of enthusiasm seemed to match his brother, Jake. Earlier in the night, Jake called on his followers to turn off the halftime show, describing Bad Bunny as “a fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America.” But it seems the Paul brothers weren't exactly on the same page. “I love my brother but I don't agree with this,” Logan wrote on X. “Puerto Ricans are Americans & I'm happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island.”
Bad Bunny ended the halftime show with a cry of “God bless America!” and named list of the nations that comprise the American continents. Before a parade of flags, he held out a football emblazoned with the words “TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA.” Behind him, the stadium jumbotrons flashed the phrase “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.” It was some of the only English featured in the program. It's a message the right has had trouble understanding.
We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Stand-up comedian Chris Fleming recently joked that while other people are worried about the Olympics coming to Los Angeles in 2028, he's more concerned about the imminent release of Emerald Fennell's “Wuthering Heights” — in theaters from Warner Bros. on February 13.
“I don't think the infrastructure we have in place can withstand the release of ‘Wuthering Heights,'” Fleming deadpanned in a viral clip, suggesting the box office would soon collapse under the weight of “pent-up erotic readers” demanding a twisted take on a classic period piece.
It's a timely joke (with a regrettably short shelf life for Fleming) that nevertheless feels like a strong thesis amid growing excitement and even brewing resentment for Fennell's bold film adaptation of Emily Brontë's historic novel. A revisionist reframing of the tragic 1847 romance, the new “Wuthering Heights” has been a lightning rod for controversy from the start.
Related Stories Timothée Chalamet's Box Office Worth as a Leading Man? A Cool 2 Billion Dollars Utopia Launches New Membership on Patreon, Complete with Online Screenings, Special Events, and More
Allegations of racism emerged months ago when Fennell chose Jacob Elordi (a white actor) as her Heathcliff (an explicitly dark-skinned character). Now, amid an increasingly messy global press tour, that debate and several others are being hashed out — on and off the red carpet. Between Fennell, Elordi, and star/producer Margot Robbie, the result is a stunning media frenzy caught somewhere between a U.K. royal engagement and the “It Ends with Us” PR crisis.
That clash could be the point. After making her fiery feature debut with the rape-revenge thriller “Promising Young Woman,” Fennell sharpened her public reputation as a provocateur during the promotion of her sophomore feature, “Saltburn.” The writer/director had a notoriously nonchalant interview style that made some fans question Fennell's core understanding of the script she wrote, while others pointed out that paradox as proof her buzz-building had worked.
Now, cross-multiplying that evasive, unapologetic persona with the ever-confrontational literary audience, Fennell is betting big on “Wuthering Heights” to sustain enough conversation to become a genuine, money-making hit. With an estimated $80 million budget, it's LuckyChap's biggest commercial gamble on Fennell to date — and whether this wild press tour is a real mistake or just clever marketing, the film's rollout is officially high risk, high reward.
It's not every day a 179-year-old ghost story lights up Instagram and TikTok, but “Wuthering Heights” has long been a volatile, obsession-worthy tale that readers struggle to get over. With Robbie name-dropping the mega-viral “A Court of Thorns and Roses” fantasy series (by Sarah J. Maas) in a recent interview for Bustle, the film's producers know the literary-minded audience they want for the opening weekend. But will the so-called “book girlies” turn on Fennell before then?
“Wuthering Heights” readership is famously intense and unusually willing to litigate not just the original text's meaning but the fidelity and feeling of every film and TV adaptation since. Way before production on Fennell's movie even started, fans were taking to social media to argue about the casting, tone, and potential changes to the book. That speculation has only accelerated as the director, Robbie, and Elordi have promoted the project on the world stage.
Fennell has been cagey about what she is and isn't adapting, insisting she isn't making “Wuthering Heights” so much as “a version of it.” Even the stylized quotation marks that frame the title on the film's official posters have been parsed for deeper messaging, effectively forcing baseless fan theories and more serious-minded cultural critique into an online scrum that's as overwhelming as the baroque fashion we've already seen the trio wear on several red carpets.
Promoting a novel about the pitfalls of material wealth through obscene displays of luxury sounds a bit like hosting a “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago. But there's precedent for this type of chaos. In 2023, following Fennell's Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay with “Promising Young Woman”, “Saltburn” arrived as a sneaky eat-the-rich saga dripping with irony.
Starring Elordi and Barry Keoghan, Fennell's dark comedy about class resentment and covetous destruction was sold on the promise of erotic excess. The infamous grave scene. The even more infamous bathtub scene. These moments weren't just shocking; they were explosive choices that demanded explanation — particularly from a female filmmaker. And yet, Fennell broadly refused clarity, forcing viewers to decide for themselves what the strange script meant and if they liked it.
In her freshman feature, fronted by the straight-shooting Carey Mulligan) Fennell was more open to dissecting “Promising Young Woman” as a feminist allegory. But “Saltburn” saw the writer/director lean further into interpretive slipperiness and double down on her willingness to be disliked. That ambiguity didn't hurt Fennell's film but fueled its reputation. Teaming with LuckyChap again, Fennell seems to be taking that same approach with “Wuthering Heights” for a precarious, scaled-up version of a beloved story some people already feel they own.
Brontë purists don't have to love Fennell's “Wuthering Heights” for the movie to make its money back, but the idea that literary audiences don't matter to an adaptation once it's released misunderstands how fandoms still impact theaters today. From Harry Potter nostalgics to “Fifty Shades” converts, reading communities can be just as argumentative and influential as video gamers. Talking about a movie, good or bad, is free marketing, and Fennell seems to understand better than most that enraging potential ticket-holders is a promotional strategy.
When questions surfaced about Elordi's casting as Heathcliff and the novel's racial implications, Fennell's response, rooted in her childhood perception, felt clumsy. The critique is valid, especially at a time when white supremacy threatens so much of Western culture. But the fallout from that incident demonstrates how outrage compounds — often in unexpected ways. Now, Fennell's loyalty to the book isn't just about plot; it's about identity politics and authorship.
That same week, Robbie attended the world premiere of “Wuthering Heights” in Los Angeles, wearing a necklace associated with Elizabeth Taylor. It was gifted to the actress by Richard Burton (he played Heathcliff in 1958), but it's widely known as the Taj Mahal diamond because of its historic ties to India. When Robbie told a reporter the necklace “was Elizabeth Taylor's” in a viral clip, a fly-by fashion fact became a heated debate about British colonialism and white-washed glamour. No one invented the outrage because the conditions were already there.
There's discomfort in realizing that Fennell's interpretation is ironically faithful to the feel of the original material. In the novel, Catherine (Robbie) and Heathcliff (Elordi) are cruel, obsessive, and corrosive lovers whose attraction is more warning than inspiration. Introducing the pair through a press tour that intoxicates but doesn't welcome fans in feels, if nothing else, honest.
There's a punk-rock feminist streak to the film's promotional campaign so far. High fashion. Impenetrable confidence. An attitude that suggests women directors don't need your approval — because they are the ones in charge. With Charli XCX contributing the soundtrack, and both Robbie and Elordi leaning into “method dressing” for the red carpet, the extravagant rollout for Fennell's interpretation mirrors the book's warped fixation on prioritizing wealth over happiness.
The luxury reads as alienating, but maybe it was always supposed to. For the Los Angeles world premiere, Robbie wore special rings (designed by CeCe Fein-Hughes) with Elordi, and the pair then did an interview about them in British Vogue. When “Wuthering Heights” debuted in London, Robbie wore a one-of-a-kind gown (designed by Dilara Findikoglu) modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Victorian mourning bracelet for her late sister. In a moment of profound economic anxiety, jewelry myth-making and couture symbolism can feel out of step. But the “Barbie” and Nate from “Euphoria” know better than most that celebrities can sell tickets.
Audiences bring their own baggage to movie theaters, and Fennell's gambling that their fascination with her work will outpace any resentment they feel for how she treats the “Wuthering Heights” text. That bet extends to timing with Warner Bros. courting lonely hearts and contrarians alike with a Galentine's Day release that feels sort of off… but also not at all.
When Robbie joked to Fandango that Fennell wanted viewers to “cry so hard they vomit” after seeing the film, she conveyed both caution and promise. Repeat viewings aren't guaranteed — but conversation almost certainly is. Professional reviews will set the tone as they always do. But the movie has already gone viral without them. Not only is social media overflowing with speculation, dissecting everything from elements of the trailer to the stability of Robbie's real-life marriage, but the press tour has also become its own sordid mystery framed by infinite perspectives.
So, is it messy performance art or genius rage bait? The answer is yes. Fennell's refusal to explain herself turns maybe-manufactured marketing into an extension of the source material theme. In an industry that rarely grants filmmakers enough artistic latitude, the spectacle of a woman's creativity spiraling out of control becomes a statement unto itself.
From Warner Bros. Pictures, “Wuthering Heights” is in theaters Friday, February 13.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Bad Bunny is no stranger to making history, and last night, he conquered another first when he became the first artist to perform only in Spanish at the Super Bowl halftime show. Up until the big day, the only hint we had about potential themes for the show came from the Apple Music trailer that showed Bad Bunny dancing to his hit song “Baile Inolvidable” with a diverse cast of dancers. The vibe was unity and fun. But Bad Bunny always finds a way to get many complex messages into his performances, just as he does with his songs.
The performance had been even more anticipated because of the conservative backlash he received (to the point of Turning Point USA organizing an alternative halftime show). Additionally, because of Bad Bunny's highly political Grammy acceptance speeches (he started one by declaring, “ICE out”), many people couldn't wait to see what Bad Bunny might say or do during his 13-minute halftime set.
But in true Bad Bunny fashion, everything was a surprise. The show featured many symbols of Puerto Rican history and culture, as well as gestures to the broader Latino community, and a strong reframing of U.S. notions of what it means to be American. Here are some of the significant symbols and history lessons that were wrapped up in the show that you just might have missed.
The halftime show began with a wide shot of people working in sugar-cane fields before the camera panned down to Bad Bunny singing “Tití Me Preguntó” as he walked past people cutting cane with machetes. Sugar cane was the economic engine for many Caribbean countries in the 19th and early-20th centuries, including Puerto Rico. Sugar plantations have also long been symbols of the legacy of colonialism and slavery in the region. Enslaved Africans worked the sugar plantations until 1873, when Puerto Rico under Spanish colonial rule ended slavery. After the U.S. took over in 1898, U.S. sugar companies gobbled up Puerto Rican lands while reaping enormous profits off Puerto Rican labor and land. The laborers in the halftime show wore all-white clothes and straw “pava” hats, referencing the figure of the iconic Puerto Rican countryman, or jíbaro. Beginning the halftime show with sugar-cane fields and the agricultural laborers who harvested them both references a common image associated with rural Puerto Rican life, and nods to the history of colonialism that continues to impact life in the Caribbean.
Editor's picks
The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far
The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
100 Best Movies of the 21st Century
As Bad Bunny walked through the sugar-cane fields during “Tití Me Preguntó,” he passed various scenes: friends at a coco frío stand, a group of older men playing dominoes, young women getting their nails done, and then a piragua (Puerto Rican shaved ice) stand where Benito is served the treat before he keeps walking. The piragua stand is an icon of Puerto Rican culture that signals community and nostalgia. Piragua stands can be found all over Puerto Rico and the diaspora. In piraguas, the shaved ice is usually topped with tropical flavored syrups that are displayed in glass bottles on the piragua cart. During Bad Bunny's halftime performance, each glass bottle of piragua syrup on the cart featured a different flag, including Colombia, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Besides the fact that the lyrics to “Tití Me Preguntó” reference women from each of those countries, the flags were yet another representation of Latino unity during the show.
On a screen above the halftime stage, viewers saw the animated character “Concho,” who is a key figure in Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS short film and album. Concho is a sapo concho, a crested toad endemic to Puerto Rico that is now critically endangered due to invasive species and the rapid development that is destroying its habitat. Just days before DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS came out, Bad Bunny released a short film of the same name. That film featured Puerto Rican actor Jacobo Morales playing an elderly Bad Bunny who reminisces with his friend Concho as they looked through photos. At one point, Morales' character heads to the center of town to purchase quesitos (a Puerto Rican puff-pastry roll filled with sweet cream cheese). He wanders down the street and encounters an American cashier trying to sell him cheese-less vegan quesitos. The short film, and the album as a whole, is a meditation on the dangers of gentrification that is rapidly transforming Puerto Rico. The endangered sapo concho is the perfect embodiment of the potential destruction of Puerto Rican life via U.S. colonialism and gentrification.
Related Content
No, the Little Boy in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set Was Not Liam Ramos
A Timeline of Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny Fangirling Over Each Other
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
Bad Bunny performed several songs, including “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Safaera,” “Party,” and “Voy a Llevarte Pa' PR” from the rooftop of the famed “Casita” (Spanish for “little house”). Bad Bunny fans were first introduced to the casita in the short film Debí Tirar Más Fotos. In the film, actor Jacobo Morales lives in a traditional cement house in the countryside of Puerto Rico. The house is very typical of the Puerto Rican midcentury homes that were built to better withstand hurricanes, in comparison with the much-older-style wooden homes. This home was pink, in the Puerto Rican tradition of painting homes a bright color, with shuttered windows and a carved wood door. These are the kinds of homes that are becoming less common with new development in Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny turned the casita into one of his stages during his 2025 “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” residency in San Juan. At the residency concerts, Bad Bunny performed on the porch and on the rooftop, bringing a different group of celebrity guests to the casita to party with him. On Super Bowl Sunday, the casita welcomed a host of important Latino celebrity guests such as Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Young Miko, Karol G, and Jessica Alba.
The portion of the halftime show that featured a wedding, plus Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny singing “Baile Inolvidable,” was a partial replica of Castillo San Felipe del Morro, more commonly known as El Morro. This 16th-century Spanish-built stone fort borders part of the coast of the historic areas of Puerto Rico's capital city, San Juan. El Morro is now a national symbol of Puerto Rico so much so that it often appears on license plates, in addition to being a U.S. National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of the most iconic elements of El Morro are the small stone turrets, or garitas, that were used as shelter for soldiers who were on the lookout for enemy ships. A small garita was featured on the back right corner of the El Morro-inspired set.
During Bad Bunny's performance of Nuevayol, he took a shot given to him by Maria Antonia “Toñita” Cay, or Toñita, a pillar of the Puerto Rican community in New York City and a link between the island and its diaspora. In the lyrics for “Nuevayol,” Bad Bunny shouts her out, saying, “Un shot de cañita en casa de Toñita/PR se siente cerquita” (A shot of rum in Toñita's house/Puerto Rico feels close). Toñita has run the Caribbean Social Club in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg for more than 50 years. She has famously refused to sell her property, despite mass gentrification in the area. Given the issues Bad Bunny focuses on in DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, it makes sense that he shouts out Toñita as an example of how the Puerto Rican community looks out for one another.
As Bad Bunny performed his political-party track “El Apagón,” viewers saw the same cane workers from the start of the show hanging from electric poles. “El Apagón” literally means “blackout.” The song talks about both Puerto Rican pride and the frustrations of dealing with the frequent blackouts that plague the country. The longest blackout in American history was the nearly yearlong blackout Puerto Rico suffered after Hurricane María. This was a result of Puerto Rico's poorly maintained power grid, the severity of the storm, and massively inadequate and inhumane response by the U.S. government to the hurricane. The situation was so dire that many citizens taught themselves basic electrical skills and began risking their lives climbing electrical poles in order to begin reconnecting loose or damaged power lines and restoring power, sometimes to entire towns. This poignant moment in the show demonstrated the continuity between colonial exploitation of Puerto Ricans across centuries.
At the end of the show, Bad Bunny shouted “God bless América!” and proceeded to list nearly every country in the Americas from Chile in the south to Canada in the north. Then, hordes of people carrying flags of every country and territory in the Americas surrounded him. This celebration of the Americas follows a long line of Latin musicians — including Panamanian Rubén Blades, Puerto Rican Residente, and Mexican group Los Tigres del Norte, among many others — who have written songs uniting the Americas against U.S. imperial interests. After listing all of the countries, Bad Bunny held out the football he carried off and on throughout the performance to the camera to show the words “Together we are America,” and said, “Seguimos aquí” (“We're still here.”). The phrase “Seguimos aquí” comes from a poignant moment in his short film about gentrification in Puerto Rico, but in the context of the halftime show, the phrase took on a new meaning. This was a powerful rebuke to the exclusionary rhetoric coming from conservatives that Bad Bunny was not American enough to perform at the halftime show, and that Latinos in general are suspicious foreigners who aim to destroy “real American” ways of life. Instead, Bad Bunny proudly declared that America is much more than the United States, and that the United States would not be what it is without Latino and Caribbean immigrants.
Trending Stories
Kid Rock Delivers Half-Assed Lip-Synch at TPUSA Anti-Halftime Show
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All of the Hidden Symbols and Meanings You May Have Missed in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set
For weeks people have wondered who Bad Bunny would bring out for the halftime show, with Cardi B as a clear frontrunner. Ricky Martin was another. Martin is familiar to U.S. mainstream audiences from his crossover in the late-Nineties Latin boom. At the time, Martin, already an established Latin pop star, began singing in English, and embodied a Latin-lover stereotype with songs like “Livin' la Vida Loca” and “Shake Your Bon-Bon.” But at the Super Bowl, we saw a different Ricky: Not only did he sing in Spanish, but he also sang “Lo Que le Pasó a Hawaii,” arguably the most politicized song on DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. The song itself is a call to arms that Puerto Ricans should hold onto their culture and their land in the face of rampant gentrification and displacement that stems from centuries of colonial rule. During Bad Bunny's residency in Puerto Rico, a different guest sang this song every week. This was a full-circle moment: Rather than adapting to the tastes of mainstream U.S. for Latin-lover masculinity, Martin performed a Spanish-language defense of his homeland and a direct rebuke to the U.S.
There were various touches of light blue during the halftime show, a color associated with Puerto Rican independence. One notable pop of light blue was Lady Gaga's dress, which was adorned with the red flor de maga, the national flower of Puerto Rico. As the song “El Apagón” started, Bad Bunny emerged carrying a large Puerto Rican flag. Rather than the dark blue of the officially recognized Puerto Rican flag, Bad Bunny's flag had a light-blue triangle, referencing the island's original flag prior to U.S. takeover The U.S. later changed the shade of blue on the Puerto Rican flag to match that of the U.S. flag. As a territory of the United States, Puerto Rico has no sovereignty nor voting representation in the U.S. government. In this context, the azul clarito has become associated with movements advocating for Puerto Rican independence. On his song “La Mudanza,” Bad Bunny raps, “Aquí mataron gente por sacar la bandera/Por eso es que ahora yo la llevo dondequiera” (They killed people here for having the flag/That's why now I take it with me everywhere). This references the Ley de la Mordaza, or Gag Law, which banned Puerto Ricans from having a Puerto Rican flag, let alone criticize colonialism, from 1948 to 1957. So, Bad Bunny clutching his flag with azul clarito on the halftime show set was a powerful anti-colonial statement.
We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Max Goldbart
International TV Co-Editor
EXCLUSIVE: BBC Studios is developing U.S. versions of sleeper hit family comedy Here We Go and time travel series Mammoth, with Universal Television and Amy Poehler's Paper Kite attached to the former and Fox to the latter.
BBC Studios has seven developments with American platforms and streamers in place, productions boss Zai Bennett revealed to Deadline, as the team looks to unearth the next Ghosts, a British show that was remade for CBS to acclaim.
Here We Go is being penned by Emmy-winning The Good Place writer Matt Murray with Poehler exec producing for Paper Kite. Created by Tom Basden and starring Katherine Parkinson, Alison Steadman and Jim Howick, it was recently recommissioned for a fourth season. Set in the town of Bedford, it follows the dysfunctional and eccentric trials of the Jessop family. It first emerged in Covid-19 under the working title Pandemonium and takes a shaky camera approach to filming, which could work well in the States.
Related Stories
News
Zai Bennett's BBC Studios Masterplan: Production Boss Creates Global Content Unit As He Talks 'Doctor Who', 'Strictly Come Dancing' & 2026 Being "The Year Of Delivery"
News
Tubi UK Surges To 75,000 Titles As Gen Z & Millennials Drive AVOD Expansion
The news comes several months after the nascent BBC Studios Fiction label struck a first-look deal with Basden, which runs until May 2027.
Watch on Deadline
Meanwhile, Mammoth, which recently launched Season 2 on the BBC, stars and is created by Welsh comic and actor Mike Bubbins. The well-received show follows a Welsh PE teacher who is trapped by an avalanche in the late 1970s on a ski trip and wakes up on New Year's Day 2024. After his initial period of fame ends, Mammoth – technically a man in his nineties, but with a body of a man in his forties – returns to his job at school. Fox Entertainment is co-producing the U.S. version with BBC Studios.
Along with versions of This Country and Miranda, Ghosts emerged from a successful BBC Studios partnership with Lionsgate, which elapsed two years back.
BBC Studios productions boss Bennett said Ghosts provides a blueprint for what can be done with American comedy and “it would be nice to have some of those where we are the lead studio.” “You want to own the economics,” he added.
Our full interview with Bennett can be read here.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Comment
Name
Email
Website
Δ
Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our annonymous form.
Sign up for our breaking news alerts
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By Max Goldbart
International TV Co-Editor
EXCLUSIVE: For Zai Bennett, 2026 is “the year of delivery.”
The BBC Studios production chief, who has a new job title (more on that anon), has been in post for just over 12 months and while it's been something of a rocky ride, he certainly can't be accused of twiddling his thumbs. Now, with one final piece to his BBC Studios jigsaw soon falling into place, Bennett is trying to free up his key lieutenants to birth the next generation of hits, nurture the current ones and invest in a new wave of talent.
“I look around my top table and I'm pretty happy,” the executive tells Deadline in his first interview since joining BBC Studios from Sky. “So now it's about delivery. This is the year of getting our nose to the grindstone, getting some commissions and converting those developments into orders.”
Related Stories
News
British Star Nigel Havers On Taking Role In TV4's Swedish Financial Crime Drama 'Golden Boys': "It's A Hell Of A Good Story"
Acquisitions
Jewish Content Streamer ChaiFlicks Buys 'On The Spectrum' In Three-Series Deal With Yes Studios
BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the BBC, a production and distribution powerhouse that beams Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who, Bluey, Baby Reindeer and Blue Planet to the world. It holds a unique place in the British TV landscape, being able to operate and think with a “ruthlessly commercial” hat on, according to Bennett, and yet ultimately putting funds back into the public service BBC, its “one shareholder,” which has of course fallen on somehwat tricky inancial times in recent years.
Watch on Deadline
When Bennett took over from his predecessor Ralph Lee, he felt there was a part of this story that BBC Studios was failing to tell. “We were not vocal and proud about the totality of what we do,” he explains. “We would be individually proud about certain shows but we didn't come together and say, ‘You are part of a collective studio that has creative experience you can learn and share from.' We're a huge distributor and the most awarded producer in the UK, but we're not always mentioned first.”
Telling that holistic story is what Bennett, an affable executive who appears younger than his fifty-something years, is laser-focused on doing. After spending his first six months getting the lie of the land, he clicked into gear at the start of 2025, merging factual with entertainment under Kate Ward, bringing in former Channel 4 youth boss Karl Warner to focus on formats, reforming global productions under Matt Forde and revamping scripted, with the hire of Gangs of London EP Jamie Hall to run drama out of the UK and veteran executive Mark Linsey shifting to focus solely on L.A. He even hired an artificial intelligence supremo from Disney, Alice Taylor, who is probing interesting areas like drama reconstruction in documentaries and using AI functionality in formats.
Merging production and sales
Bennett's final play for now, Deadline can reveal, is a merger of production and sales under what is now called BBC Studios Global Content. Bennett, a former BBC and Sky commissioner whose past credits include Chernobyl and Patrick Melrose, has a new title: CEO and Chief Creative Officer, BBC Studios Global Content. Once he finds a replacement for departing U.S.-based content sales chief Janet Brown, that role will relocate to London and the sales team will operate in lockstep with production, aiding Bennett with his ultimate goal.
“It all just gives us a view of the end-to-end monetization of the business,” he adds. “So I can talk to Jamie [Hall] or Kate [Ward] and ask what we are concentrating on, what we are developing and how can we monetize and exploit things? The creative bones in this place are awesome. I want to make sure we have the same drive and energy in the commercialism.”
Bennett wants to shout from the rooftops about the success of the labels that BBC Studios owns. He is even tinkering with individual labels' branding. Where outfits such as Baby Reindeer maker Clerkenwell Films, Steve Coogan's Baby Cow and Conclave indie House Productions don't have BBC Studios in their name, they have now added ‘part of BBC Studios' to their logos and end slates.
“When Clerkenwell won Emmys for Baby Reindeer, we were suddenly hot, and we needed to capitalize on that,” he adds. “We've got individual labels and creatives who are brilliant and my job is to make that feel more than the sum of its parts.”
He leans on the example of Clerkenwell, which is making Netflix surfing drama Breakers and has “moved into the ‘really mainstream'” with Channel 4 thriller Deadpoint, according to Bennett, which will comprise a cornerstone of the BBC Studios Showcase catalog later this month. Bennett likens the thriller starring It's a Sin breakout Callum Scott Howells to Sylvester Stallone's 1993 movie Cliffhanger, if it was set in Wales.
Where talent and Clerkenwell is concerned, however, things haven't all gone BBC Studios' way. Half Man, the highly-anticipated next project from Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd, a BBC-HBO series about estranged brothers starring Gadd and Jamie Bell, comes from Banijay label Mam Tor, with Banijay Rights distributing. “You have long and interesting creative relationships and people move around a bit,” says Bennett. “That's completely normal.”
With UK scripted boss Hall getting his feet under the table, Bennett wants to be aggressive in the UK drama market. He reveals he is aiming to make three to four talent deals or minority investments in indies per yer in the UK and U.S. for at least the next two years, with one announcement imminent. “This isn't a ‘one and done', this is a drumbeat,” says Bennett. Recent deals of this ilk include tie-ups with Barbie star Jamie Demetriou, The Ballad of Wallis Island writer Tom Basden, Ted Lasso alum Nick Mohammed and Cunk on Earth creator Diane Morgan. Forde's global production team, meanwhile, is “definitely” looking to acquire majority stakes in indies outside of the UK, Bennett says.
Former Pulse and Vice Studios boss Hall, who Bennett described as the “real deal” and someone who joined BBC Studios from a “very hard company to work for in recent times,” has been tasked with unearthing the “next wave of creatives.” “Is it buying companies that are a bit more established? Probably not. This is about going the next layer down, with writers, directors and producers, and telling them we can set them up in some form of IP partnership where they get to share in the success of their show and we'll bankroll some of that.”
In a market where funding drama is becoming harder and harder, Bennett says BBC Studios can occupy an interesting place, embracing some “economic risk” when it comes to funding shows for broadcasters like the BBC – still by far and away BBC Studios' biggest customer occupying around half of its order book – and taking big risks mixed with surefire bets.
“We can give [BBC drama boss] Lindsay [Salt] a range of editorial choices and say to her that commerically we will solve problems,” says Bennett. “If we want to do, say, an action adventure show costing £5M ($6.8M) per hour, we will take a bigger risk than normal because we can see the opportunity of selling that around the world. The risky ones are often the shows that pop.”
Big swings upcoming outside of the BBC drama stable include Netflix's versions of Pride and Prejudice (Lookout Point) and Bella Mackie's How to Kill Your Family (Sid Gentle), along with BritBox's Agatha Christie series Tommy & Tuppence (Lookout).
Funding the Time Lord
No decision more neatly demonstrates the nasty headwinds facing scripted than Disney pulling out of the Doctor Who deal with the BBC, BBC Studios and Bad Wolf after just two seasons. For the show to continue long beyond its 2026 Christmas special, which is being penned by showrunner Russell T. Davies, the BBC now needs to replace some of that lost budget, which totals millions of pounds per hour.
Bennett avoids directly answering the question of whether BBC Studios will stump up some of the lost cash to give the show a long-term future – noting that he “won't speak for the BBC” – but says “we're all in it together” when it comes to keeping the Time Lord on the small screen for years to come.
“We're a big important part of Doctor Who and are all motivated to make sure Doctor Who has a long and flourishing life,” he says. “We've got the Christmas special coming. After that, it's time for us all to work on it.”
The BBC and BBC Studios may have lost their American co-production partner on Doctor Who but Bennett brims with confidence over BBC Studios' standing in the States, and he is still riding high over the success of the CBS version of Ghosts, which emerged from a deal with Lionsgate that elapsed two years ago.
He reveals that BBC Studios has seven paid developments with U.S. networks and streamers, including an American version of BBC family comedy Here We Go with Universal Television and Amy Poehler's Paper Kite Productions, and a U.S. remake of Mike Bubbins' Mammoth about a 1970s PE teacher who comes back to life in 2024, which is in with Fox.
Striking another Lionsgate-style exclusive partnership isn't a priority – Bennett wants BBC Studios to “own the economics” of American greenlights by remaining the lead studio on projects – but he is enthused by opportunities across the Atlantic.
This extends to unscripted, where Dancing with the Stars, ABC's version of Strictly Come Dancing, has just come off the back of one of its best ever years, due in no small part to a revamped social media strategy that focused on leveraging TikTok.
Bennett says the American unscripted team is now sharing these learnings with other territories in which Strictly is produced. “There's some amazing stuff about casting and TikTok and it was really about making lots of native content,” he says.
New era for ‘Strictly Come Dancing'
Strictly in the UK is entering a new era and is currently seeking not one but two hosts following the shock exits of Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly. Could the BBC look to the world of TikTok – mirroring what Amazon is doing with The Grand Tour – for its next Strictly presenters? Bennett won't be drawn on speculation. “That news will come out of the BBC,” he says. “It's ultimately up to them.”
With shows like Bravo's Ladies of London and Prime Video's 1% Club doing the business in the States, Bennett is delighted with his L.A. formats team.
Next up on his unscripted docket is Secret Genius, a UK format developed by BBC Studios-owned Mothership that just launched to more than one million viewers on Channel 4 – no mean feat. That show, which sees Celebrity Traitors winner Alan Carr travel the country seeking the most extraordinary minds, will be a big talking point at the BBC Studios Showcase in London.
You can't “smush us together”
Returning to industry chatter and no doubt set to dominate the gossip mill at the Showcase and concurrent London TV Screenings will be industry consolidation. Banijay and All3Media are reportedly merging, Sky wants to buy ITV and, across the pond, the biggest industry deal of the millennia, Netflix and Warners, rumbles on.
Bennett, for what it's worth, can't see BBC Studios getting caught up in a consolidation play anytime soon.
“Our industry was disrupted by streaming and you can see how during disruption there is often consolidation,” ponders Bennett. “[Companies like] Banijay and All3Media are thinking whether they can crash together a load of back office and make things a bit cheaper. You could up the margin by 1% or 2% and at that scale that makes a difference. The important thing for us is we are at a scale, and it's an important scale. We want to grow ideally as much as humanly possible but we're not in a position where you can smush us together with another company with any level of ease.”
Instead, Bennett once again returns to BBC Studios' USP, “not being all things for everyone but selling a very specific thing, British storytelling, exported around the world. It's in the name.”
BBC Studios delivered strong financial returns to the public service BBC last year. With the stakes high, Bennett is at the coalface of the work making sure these big numbers aren't a one off. In the face of what could be deemed a great deal of pressure, he remains sanguine.
“We want commercial returns, don't get me wrong, and we will be ruthlessly commercial about the business, but we will always take a longer term view,” he adds. “In this market, you have to.”
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Comment
Name
Email
Website
Δ
Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our annonymous form.
Sign up for our breaking news alerts
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By
Josh Crutchmer
With their comeback year in the books, Cross Canadian Ragweed are ready to embrace a once unlikely frontier: simply being a band again. “I told everybody, let's take advantage of our second chance, because we probably don't get a third one,” frontman Cody Canada says.
Ragweed's run of sold-out stadium shows last year enabled Canada to cross off a bucket-list item this morning. Rolling Stone has confirmed the band will play its first headlining concert at the venerable Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre outside of Denver on July 24, with an official announcement set for this morning. Tickets will go on sale Friday to the public, and the band will share pre-sale information on its website and via social media.
When Canada and bandmates Jeremy Plato, Randy Ragsdale, and Grady Cross returned to the stage in 2025 following a 15-year hiatus, Red Rocks was not just a goal for Canada, it was the goal. “We have to play Red Rocks” was the first thing he recalls telling his agent, Jon Folk, when they discussed a possible reunion.
“The first time I went, we opened for Dierks Bentley, and it was supposed to be us and Dierks doing High Times and Hangovers,” Canada recalls of Ragweed's first and only time at the venue on a 2008 tour with Bentley. “Then, they put a guy in the middle — we don't have to say his name — because he had a song on the radio. We got bumped to the first set, which was about 30 minutes, and man, I was pretty sore about it. I don't want to be a jerk, but it was kind of bullshit. I always kind of wanted to come back and do a full set just to redeem that moment.”
The concert marks the third date in 2026 with Ragweed alone atop the bill. The band will headline the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for the first time on March 16 and played the opening night of January's annual Mile 0 Fest in Key West, Florida, capping off a block party on Duval Street.
Ragweed and the Turnpike Troubadours will co-headline at least four Boys From Oklahoma concerts this year, following last year's sold-out shows in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Waco, Texas. The bands will play back-to-back evenings at Akins Ford Arena in Athens, Georgia, on Feb. 27 and 28 (they added a second night after announcing one and selling it out). The Castellows and Shelby Stone will open nights one and two, respectively.
Editor's picks
The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far
The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
100 Best Movies of the 21st Century
Ragweed's last show before Mile 0 happened in late August at Robert Earl Keen's Applause for the Cause flood benefit in New Braunfels. Canada says he spent the layoff obsessing over what to play in Athens, to the point that he enlisted Ragsdale, the drummer, to ease the pressure.
“You want to know what I'm just really focused on in Athens?” Canada says. “The setlist. I've been wrestling with the setlist for a month, and I finally just gave it over to Ragsdale. He likes making it anyway, because of the tempos in the songs.”
The Athens concerts are a prelude to a return to stadiums for Ragweed and Turnpike this year. They will play Stillwater's Boone Pickens Stadium again on April 11, with support from Stillwater resident Wyatt Flores, along with Shane Smith and the Saints, and the Great Divide. They will also bring the Boys From Oklahoma to Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Aug 22, with Cody Jinks, Flatland Cavalry, and American Aquarium joining.
The full Red Rocks lineup will mark a poignant departure from those bills, which have been loaded with high-profile artists from the Red Dirt and Americana scenes. This one will be a family affair and feature a pair of second-generation Ragweed acts. Waves in April, a New Braunfels, Texas-based metalcore band featuring Canada's sons Dierks and Willy alongside lead singer Elle Gorman is one opener. The Smokin' Oaks, a Red Dirt four-piece that includes Cross's son, Slaid, and nephew, Colton Blake, is the other.
Related Content
Shelby Stone Is Red Dirt Country's Blue-Haired Heartbreaker
Cross Canadian Ragweed to Headline 2026 Mile 0 Festival
Cross Canadian Ragweed for Mainstream Country Fans: All You Need to Know
Cross Canadian Ragweed Will Continue Their Unlikely Reunion into 2026
“I remember Jon telling me, ‘If you get the Red Rocks offer, I don't see why you couldn't put all your boys on it,” Canada says. “So, it's gonna be Grady's boy and our boys, and I'm probably gonna cry more that night than I did the first night in Stillwater.”
Unlike Turnpike, which has consistently played in arenas and amphitheaters since its 2022 comeback, shows of this scale are still new ground for Canada. Ragweed's initial run was as a club band and festival headliner until its 2010 breakup. Since reuniting, though, Mile 0 Fest has been the only Ragweed-headlined event not in a stadium or arena.
Trending Stories
Kid Rock Delivers Half-Assed Lip-Synch at TPUSA Anti-Halftime Show
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All of the Hidden Symbols and Meanings You May Have Missed in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set
“Smaller rooms are more nerve-wracking than stadiums, because there's no forgiveness. People can hear better and there's no chatter if you mess up,” Canada says. “When you play these big places, the energy is so full. You'd have to try really hard to blow it, both because it's so energetic and because it's like a dream.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.
We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Got five dollars? Love movies? Maybe don't want to leave your house too much? Then indie studio and distributor Utopia has got a real treat for you. Today, Utopia has announced the launch of its Utopia Screening Room, a direct-to-consumer membership channel hosted on Patreon.
For just five bucks a month, members can access “exclusive screenings of newly released films, fan favorite library titles, and new surprises each month.” Utopia, co-founded by Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper, is the first independent film label to launch content on Patreon, the media and community platform for creators to connect with their biggest fans. This new venture continues their mission of getting movies in front of the people who most want to see them.
Related Stories Timothée Chalamet's Box Office Worth as a Leading Man? A Cool 2 Billion Dollars Is the ‘Wuthering Heights' Press Tour Messy Performance Art or Marketing Rage Bait?
Utopia Screening Room will host and produce live online screening events and Q&As during the theatrical window for all upcoming releases. It will kick off this month on Thursday, February 19 with Nastasya Popov's acclaimed feature debut “Idiotka,” produced by Camila Mendes and Rachel Matthews' Honor Roll, and starring Anna Baryshnikov, Benito Skinner, Saweetie, Julia Fox, and Mendes.
Imagined as a digital component to the more traditional theatrical release rollout strategy, Utopia will schedule each new Patreon screening events as “a digital stop on each film's release tour,” hoping to connect “audiences nationwide who love and appreciate independent filmmaking to some of the most exciting, emerging creative talents working in the industry today.”
Members will have the chance to watch each film live and engage directly with the filmmakers and participating cast in an intimate online setting. Can't commit to the set screenings? A recording of the live screening and Q&A broadcast will also be available to members for 24 hours.
“Our team has been building towards a membership program for many years and we're excited to give both our fans and filmmakers new ways to connect,” said Harper in an official statement. “While global viewership of film has never been higher, a huge majority are watching online. Launching the Utopia Screening Room will expand our reach to audiences wherever they are, giving people new ways to not only view films, but to interact with the creative teams behind each.”
Harper added, “Additionally, we will be offering real-world experiences and perks for our members through our premieres and theatrical releases as well as through events and social gatherings that give people a reason to leave home. The real opportunity is in strengthening the film-loving community to rally around independent film both online and in person.”
The Utopia Screening Room will launch with just one membership (“Cinephile”) tier for the very reasonable price of $5 a month. “Cinephiles” will aslo have access to virtual screening bonus content, ticket giveaways, special event pre-sales, exclusive party and event invites, a private Discord channel, exclusive company news and updates, home video bonus features, and more rare or never-before-seen content from the Utopia film library.
Additional premium tiers are planned to launch throughout 2026, alongside upcoming content releases that will be announced at a later date.
The Utopia Screening Room is now up and running, right here.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
From Google to Meta to Microsoft, we were handed a world in which all our cares have been whisked away. Except for all the new ones that have come to take their place.
By
Steven Zeitchik
Senior Editor, Technology and Politics
Are you feeling like your football-scouting operation has been taking a beating lately?Do you sometimes wonder why your spreadsheets can't get generated fast enough? Or perhaps your software coding is going slower than you always thought it would?Most of all, does your kid struggle with not being able to imagine the decor of his bedroom in your new home?If any of these problems resonate — and really, what could be more universal? — has Silicon Valley got an AI product for you.You may have noticed Sunday night that these four instances were prime AI use cases per a series of Super Bowl ads from the industry's biggest players (Microsoft Copilot, unicorn startup GenSpark, OpenAI‘s Codex and Google Gemini, respectively), either solving challenges that don't exist day-to-day for most Americans or, in the last case, solving a challenge that may actually be a good thing. Any parenting expert will tell you that temporary uncertainty or disappointment can healthily prepare a child for adulthood. But why risk that brief bout of questioning when AI can Magic Erase it from their lives?Of course, we're acting like the removal of a childhood-development moment is a byproduct of AI adoption and not the whole point. While these ads and the dozen or so more that aired during the game— from both established players like Meta and Anthropic and upstarts like Ramp AI and Artlist — have different visions for how machine thinking will help us, they are nearly all united by a common ideology. Namely: Everyday life is unruly, unknown, hard. Wouldn't it be nice if a computer happened along to make it easy and guaranteed?If you arrived unformed into the techno-capitalist parade that is the current iteration of the Super Bowl telecast, you would come to at least one very specific conclusion: technology will soon offload so much of our current toil. “It'll be whatever we want it to be,” the Gemini mother says to her son about their house — AI is apparently manna now — as onscreen a message flashes “A new kind of help from Google.” A more encapsulating set of credos I cannot imagine. Whatever we want! No limitations or consequences! And new help! Who doesn't want that? Well, compared to the current kind of Googling — the kind that requires critical thinking — it certainly is new. Better? Less clear.Tech revolutions at heart change the mechanisms by which humans live. The automobile lessened our reliance on the horse. This new revolution will lessen our need for a brain. Whether we want what this digital Che will wreak is another matter. Yes, on the surface, this ad spate is about AI products, which is about massive capitalizations, and Wall Street valuations, and many other -ations you hear on CNBC. But such talk of companies and products abstract, purposefully, what's really being sold.The abstracting reached its pinnacle (nadir) with an insidious Alexa ad featuring Chris Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky. He insisted the smart speaker could go sentient in various wildly extravagant ways and kill him — a classic straw man of painting anyone worried about AI Safety as some kind of tinfoil alarmist while cleverly ignoring the actual dangers, like Alexa's new policy of nonconsensual constant uploading. (See also under Amazon‘s Super Bowl Ring ad for how it saves all the lost dogs while, oh yes, turning on some kind of Big Brother camera for mass surveillance.)“I would never. I'm just here to help,” Alexa tells Hemsworth, which confoundingly seeks to have it both ways: “An AI can't have murderous feelings; that's silly. But it can have feelings of help and love!” (Literally an Alexa ad from earlier this football season starring Pete Davidson has him vulnerably telling a computer screen “I like you, too.”)To think about any of these tech company ads for more than five seconds is to realize how little they stand up to scrutiny. Which is exactly how the brands want it generally: feeling more, thinking less.Of course matters aren't that simple; we're just not that naive anymore. By now too many of us are wary of what's being sold — sensitized by two years of deepfakes and soft slop, chastened by two decades of social media and rage-farming. And indeed, in-between the shiny sales pitches came little glimpses of self-own. Anthropic went after OpenAI for how the latter's ad-based chatbot could be compromised without appearing to realize that asking sensitive information from a chatbot could be dangerous even when it wasn't trying to sell you something. I'm not sure relying on an LLM to tell you how to navigate your relationship with your mother is so wise even if it refrains from pushing a cougar dating site.And Artlist.io, a little-known video-generation platform, pitched its tools to NY and LA markets with an ad the company told us that as a result of those tools took less than a week to create — or rather, a polar bear reading a voiceover script told us that while, on screen, dogs roasted marshmallows, horses ate from craft services and a person in a banana costume surveyed a rocker-destroyed stage, all in an attempt to show how our content landscape will be transformed.
Related Stories
TV
Chris Pratt, Joel McHale, More React to Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl 2026 Win: "Go Hawks!"
Music
How Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show Put Boricua Culture on the World's Stage
“Artlist's Big Game debut proves that high-end video production is no longer gated by time, budget, or access,” an accompanying press release touted. No doubt such efficiency boasts land with Madison Avenue beancounters, but the rest of us may find ourselves busier trying to recover from the retinal burning brought on by these proto-assaults of slop. Some 25 million people viewed the spot, by the way, but only 15 commented on it, and most were critical. These ads may not have fooled as many of us as their makers seemed to think. Some brands, at least, respected human intelligence. One standout came from Volkswagen — which went back to its “90's “Drivers Wanted” slogan and the deeply human vibes of its seminal Nick Drake spot from that era (directed by a pre Little Miss Sunshine Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris!) — with a beautifully on-point third-quarter ad. Soundtracked by House of Pain's 90's staple “Jump Around,” the spot showed a young professional guy leaving his laptop life behind to play with his dog; a Gen Z woman dancing in the rain and getting her friends to exit the car to join her; a driver making a U-turn to follow an ice cream truck; and a group in a schoolyard cheering on a besuited corporate worker to kick back their soccer ball over the fence, Messi penalty-kick style, which he eventually does, incurring sweet release.Hardly a smartphone appears in the spot, let alone any AI, and the whole vibe blissfully shrugs its shoulders at the “let a computer tell you what to do” low-key enslavement of so many of the other spots that aired Sunday night (and at the slop; it was shot on film).“Being so programmed puts us in handcuffs, and we wanted to push back on that,” Rachel Zaluzec, Volkswagen's chief marketing officer, told me in an interview Friday. The company didn't even set out to make a Super Bowl ad, she said; it simply wanted to react to all the automation out there before soon realizing that it had a newly relevant “Drivers Wanted” campaign capturing the essence of those refreshing pre-tech days.“We see this as a recruiting campaign for an invitation to participate,” she said. “All this tech has its place of course but we should be asking, ‘are we controlling it or is it controlling us?'” Even driving, she added, could be a human act compared to the shut-offery of our Uberized and Waymoified world. “There's nothing like putting your hands on the wheel and deciding where you want to go,” she said.One of the slop-makers was trying to temper their message, too. Beverage company Sazerac, which during the game had the first-ever national Super Bowl ad generated by AI, said that its revival of the Fembot and Brobot characters to sell Svedka vodka was meant to show the folly of turning over so much power to the algorithm. “The entire idea of the campaign is that the robots have returned to remind the humans to be more human,” Sazerac chief marketing officer Sara Saunders told THR before the game.The best AI ad didn't mention the technology at all: Ben Affleck/90's sitcom Good Will Dunkin' spoof used de-aging to some nifty effect, even if it dipped into the uncanny valley a few times. Of course this was AI as tool for human vision, not as replacement for human creativity, skill and decision-making.
Related Video
It has become fashionable to rag on AI, and for some brands and public pronouncers this is, as you might warily suspect, a pose — a cheap monetization of hipster skepticism more than a carefully thought-out ideology. But a kernel of meaning sits at the heart of even the most blithe pushbacks — that we should ask what all this technology that has come to automate and convenientize our lives will take away with it.AI is coming and technology can't be stopped; about that Bob Iger, who recently made the point to David Muir, is right. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, as a broad concept the idea of AI is moving forward; there are too many stakeholders for it not to. And too many unassailably positive use cases for it not to. If you as a medical researcher could know a drug's effects on the genome better, why wouldn't you? If you're a climate activist and can push for models that will limit waste, why wouldn't you do that too? But AI as a consumer deployment is far from assured; AI as something we'll use to replace or at least seriously augment teachers and writers and designers and therapists is not necessarily an inevitability. We have no idea if people will want to use Sora en masse to animate characters on Disney+, as Iger is betting it will, or will be deemed safe enough to become all of our assistants, or trustworthy enough to give advice on our how to talk to our mothers.
Most important of all — and this was decidedly hidden by the brands on NBC Sunday night — we can do something about the onslaught. If we reject slop, AI video-generation tools get marginalized; if we evince skepticism about using a chatbot for mental health, Claude and ChatGPT see their reach curbed.It's telling that even as Google was making the case for how Gemini can think a house into existence and dispel the worry of its new inhabitants it used a very real Randy Newman singing “Feels Like Home” to make the point, and not, say, an AI trained on “the greatest living songwriters.” A more ironic undercutting of a tech company's message you will not find: “Machines can address all of our emotional needs, and to convince you of that we'll draw on the most human of artists.” But Big Tech leaders don't really do irony, and they're not worried about undercutting. Just keep pushing products that will make life more efficient, they believe, and hope that, faced with a world made so exhausting and overwhelming (by tech), consumers will grasp at any product that brings them momentary relief — the executives unaware, it seems, that we can simply be recruited not to participate.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
By Greg Evans
NY & Broadway Editor
EXCLUSIVE: A stage musical adaptation of best-selling novel and hit film Practical Magic is being developed by author Alice Hoffman, Grammy winners Norah Jone and Gregg Wattenberg, and Merrily We Roll Along director Maria Friedman.
Peter Duchan, who wrote the book for the 2013 musical Dogfight, is writing the book for Practical Magic with Hoffman.
“I'm so excited to be working with my amazing collaborators on bringing Practical Magic to the stage,” said Hoffman, whose 1995 novel was followed up with three other “Owens family saga” books: The Rules of Magic (2017), Magic Lessons (2020), and The Book of Magic (2021). “This story of love and sisterhood is meant for the theater. Music is the heart and soul of Practical Magic, you can hear it as you read the book, even though it isn't there. Now you will finally hear the story as I always imagined it. You will hear magic.”
The original novel was adapted for a Warner Bros 1998 film directed by Griffin Dunne and starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing and Aidan Quinn. A film sequel reuniting Bullock and Kidman, directed by Susanne Bier, is set to premiere in cinemas on September 11.
Watch on Deadline
Casting and a production timeline for the musical have not been announced. The musical is being produced by special arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures. Mark Kaufman, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer of WBTV, will serve as creative consultant.
The musical adaptation was announced today by producers Stephanie and Nicole Kramer and Brian and Dayna Lee. The project marks the first stage musical by Jones, who broke onto the world stage with her multiple Grammy-winning 2002 album Come Away With Me. She has since become a 10-time Grammy-winner, selling more than 52 million albums with songs streamed more than 10 billion times worldwide.
The Practical Magic synopsis: For more than two centuries, the Owens women have been feared, blamed, and whispered about in their small Massachusetts town. Orphaned as children and raised by their eccentric aunts, sisters Sally and Gillian Owens grow up determined to escape the ancestral curse they inherited. Choosing opposite paths, the sisters try to outrun their past, until love, loss, and long-buried secrets pull them back together. Forced to confront their family legacy, Sally and Gillian must decide whether the past can be overcome – and how much they are willing to risk for love.
Wattenberg, who will write the music and lyrics with Jones, has co-written and/or produced eight Billboard #1 songs and numerous multi-Platinum singles, including Five For Fighting's “Superman (It's Not Easy)” and “100 Years,” Daughtry's “It's Not Over,” O.A.R.'s “Shattered,” and Train's global smash “Hey, Soul Sister,” which won a Grammy Award and ASCAP Song of the Year. He also co-wrote and produced Phillip Phillips' hit “Gone, Gone, Gone,” featured in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He is the founder and Co-CEO of New York's Artist House, the largest music studio complex on the East Coast.
Practical Magic will mark the stage endeavor involving Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, whose upcoming projects include adaptations of Crazy Rich Asians and the soon-to-arrive Broadway bound The Lost Boys and Dog Day Afternoon.
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Comment
Name
Email
Website
Δ
Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks
We want to hear from you! Send us a tip using our annonymous form.
Sign up for our breaking news alerts
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By
Emily Zemler
After performing the national anthem at the 2026 Super Bowl, Charlie Puth shared that his particular arrangement was a tribute to Whitney Houston. The hitmaker put an choral spin on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” showcasing the song on a Rhodes keyboard with a choir and orchestra backing him.
“Thank you everyone for your kind words,” Puth wrote on X after the event. “It was an honor to sing The National Anthem. I wrote the arrangement in a very specific way to honor Whitney Houston – I hope that was heard.”
He added, “Thank you to the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, the Sainted Choir, the Color of Noize Orchestra, Steve Hackman, and Kenny G for joining me on stage. And thank you Adam Blackstone for writing such a beautiful choir part. I love music so much.”
Thank you everyone for your kind words. It was an honor to sing The National Anthem. I wrote the arrangement in a very specific way to honor Whitney Houston- I hope that was heard. Thank you to the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, the Sainted Choir, the Color of Noize Orchestra,…
Performing the national anthem was a long-held dream for Puth. “I've actually always wanted to do this,” Puth revealed while participating in the Rolling Stone Interview earlier this year. “I just want to show people that I can do it,” he added. “I feel like people don't really think of me as a standalone vocalist at times… It'll be pressure the week leading up to it and the hour leading up to it. But once I'm there, it's going to feel so comfortable and it's going to sound so good.”
Trending Stories
Kid Rock Delivers Half-Assed Lip-Synch at TPUSA Anti-Halftime Show
All the Celebrities Who Hung Out in La Casita During Bad Bunny's Halftime Show
Trump Got Bad Bunny's Message — And He Didn't Like It
All of the Hidden Symbols and Meanings You May Have Missed in Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Set
Earlier this week, Puth joined Bad Bunny and the rest of the Super Bowl LX performers for the Apple Music halftime show press conference. “The arrangement is everything for me. I always reverse engineer how I hear my own music in my head, and then it's just pulling it apart and making it a feasible product to to hold,” Puth told Apple music's Zane Lowe.
When asked what he hoped fans would take away from his performance of the national anthem, the singer responded, “I want them to feel inspired. I want everybody to know that music is such an amazing thing and can change so many people's lives.”
We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
It seems the president didn't agree with the Grammy winner's message of love during the 2026 Super Bowl.
By
Carly Thomas
Associate Editor
While Bad Bunny was expressing love during his 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, Donald Trump decided to react with hate.
Shortly after the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show wrapped Sunday night, the president quickly took to Truth Social to share his thoughts on the performance. And to no surprise, as Trump has been outspoken about his disdain for the Grammy winner, he called it “absolutely terrible” and “disgusting.”
“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” Trump wrote. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World.”
Related Video
Related Stories
Music
A Couple Invited Bad Bunny to Their Wedding. They Just Got Married During His Super Bowl Halftime Show
Music
I Watched Turning Point USA's Kid Rock Halftime Show So You Don't Have To
The president continued, “This “Show” is just a “slap in the face” to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven't got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD — And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Videos circulated on social media showing Bad Bunny's halftime show playing inside Trump's Super Bowl party at his Mar-a-Lago golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida — instead of Turning Point USA's MAGA-friendly “All American” Halftime Show” alternative with Kid Rock.
Trump's comments were quite the contrast to the message Bad Bunny shared at the end of his performance: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
The Puerto Rican rapper and singer not only brought a bit of his culture to the global stage to share with everyone, with a set inspired by his hometown community in Puerto Rico, but he also told a love story throughout his show on football's biggest night.
Ever since Bad Bunny was announced as this year's Super Bowl headliner, Trump has been critical of the decision, as the “DtMF” singer has been very outspoken against his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement.
Most recently, Bad Bunny slammed ICE at the 2026 Grammys during his acceptance speech. He also opted out of holding U.S. stops on his Debí Tirar Más Fotos World Tour due to worries of potential ICE raids at his concerts.
On Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots were battling it out inside Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, for Super Bowl LX, with the Seahawks ultimately taking home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Check out all the celebrities in attendance here.
Feb. 9, 7 a.m. Updated with social media note.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
The Seahawks beat out the New England Patriots 29-13, while Bad Bunny served as the halftime headliner.
By
McKinley Franklin
Hollywood is reacting to the Seattle Seahawks winning Super Bowl LX.
After dominating the majority of the big event, the Seahawks triumphed over the New England Patriots on Sunday at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. The win marks their second Super Bowl championship ever; this was also their fourth time playing in the big game.
Chris Pratt, an avid supporter of the Seahawks, shared a series of videos and photos celebrating the team's win. In his post, he appeared on the field with the team and also in the locker room with quarterback Sam Darnold.
Related Stories
Music
How Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show Put Boricua Culture on the World's Stage
Music
Celebrities React to Bad Bunny's Halftime Show: Adam Sandler, Kerry Washington Show Support While Jake Paul Shares Distaste
“What a season! So endlessly proud to be one of the 12s! This team showed such grit and faith through the whole season. It's gonna be a while before my voice comes back,” Pratt wrote in the caption of his post. “Super Bowl Champions! Nobody can ever take that away from these men. What an awesome experience. Thanks to the whole @seahawks organization for the access! Go hawks!”
The Guardians of the Galaxy actor notably introduced the Seattle-based team just before kickoff. (Jon Bon Jovi introduced the Patriots.)
Joel McHale merely posted a photo of the aftermath following the Seahawks win on Instagram, with the Levi's Stadium being flooded by blue and green confetti. Former President Barack Obama shared a celebratory X post, where he wrote, “Congratulations to the Super Bowl champion @Seahawks! This defense was special. MVP Kenneth Walker was dominant. And Sam Darnold gave us one of the best comeback stories in a long time. Enjoy the celebration.”
Russell Wilson, who formerly played with the Seattle-based team from 2012-21, commemorated their win on X, writing, “Go Hawks!”
Plenty of stars were inside Levi's Stadium to watch the 2026 Super Bowl, including the likes of Jay-Z, Adam Sandler, Travis Kelce, Travis Scott, Keke Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Chris Pratt, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner, 21 Savage, Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe and Rob Lowe, among others.
Several notable artists were in the building to perform during the big championship game, including Bad Bunny, who headlined the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show. Ahead of the game, Green Day led the pre-game performance, while Charlie Puth sang the National Anthem, Brandi Carlile performed “America the Beautiful,” and Coco Jones sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
And that certainly wasn't the end of the star-studded Super Bowl performances, as celebrities dominated the commercials in between breaks. Sabrina Carpenter starred in an ad for Pringles, while George Clooney backed Grubhub, Emma Stone repped Squarespace, and Adrien Brody suited up for Turbo Tax. (See more celebrity Super Bowl ads here.)
Keep reading for more reactions to the Seahawks' big win. (And check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Super Bowl coverage here.)
Go Hawks! 🏆🏆
Congratulations to the Super Bowl champion @Seahawks! This defense was special. MVP Kenneth Walker was dominant. And Sam Darnold gave us one of the best comeback stories in a long time. Enjoy the celebration.
Well well well!! BaBOOOOOOM!!!! @Seahawks are the world champs!!! More to come… let the party begin!! @billy_burke xxxxx pic.twitter.com/cTTHpF3NA6
Give the MVP to the whole Seattle defense.
Congrats to the @Seahawks They were better than us today.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Backup dancers, some dressed as grass and others in head-to-toe Puerto Rican jíbaro regalia—traditional all-white clothes topped with a straw pava hat—crowded the stage. The iconic pink casita that has played a central role in Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos live show was being put together. The man himself was rubbing his hands together, hyping himself up as all around him a miniature Borikén was being built in the middle of Levi's Stadium in San Francisco, transporting him back home before bringing the flavor of his island to the world yet again.
Pre-show reports of Bad Bunny's long-awaited Super Bowl halftime show said it would be a “big party”—and it was. The man of the hour appeared in an all-white jersey emblazoned with “Ocasio 64” and opened with Un Verano Sin Ti standout “Tití Me Preguntó.” He ran through the grass toward the casita's rooftop, running into boxers, baddies at a makeshift nail salon, a piragua stand, and a jeweler who gave him a ring, which he promptly gave away to a dancer: “Muchacho deja eso” (Man, leave that).
The perreo medley raged on, mashing together hits from across Bad Bunny's discography, including “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Safaera,” “Party,” “VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR,” and a nod to OG marquesina parties that featured bits of songs by Daddy Yankee and Tego Calderón before seguing into “EoO.” After violin-tinged “MONACO,” he looked into the camera and almost whispered to the viewer: “Nunca dejé de creer en mí, y tu también deberías creer en ti.” He never stopped believing in himself, so maybe you should believe in yourself.
Bad Bunny's massive global fanbase is drawn to this authenticity. With 19.8 billion streams in 2025 and a historic Grammy win for the first Spanish-language Album of the Year, keeping it real has meant downing Smashburgers and having his therapist on speed dial. It wasn't Bad Bunny's first time on the field (real ones remember Benito in an all-silver getup playing second fiddle to Shakira during her co-headlined Super Bowl performance with Jennifer Lopez six years ago), but Bad Bunny's headlining slot for Super Bowl LX was the first time in the NFL Championship's 60-year history where the main performance was done entirely in Spanish.
Talking to Zane Lowe on the Thursday before, wearing big sunglasses, a gray fur coat, and a bunny-eared beanie, Benito seemed visibly tired. He said he wanted to think of this latest career milestone, performing on the most-watched TV event of the year, as “13 minutes doing something that [he loves].” It's a sweet way to process the moment, and it showed in how he went about the affair—with fun, love, pleasure, and unabashed joy.
You can't say the man didn't have a ball. Watching him crowdsurf to “NUEVAYoL” and run around in his Sunday best, paying homage to Boricuas on the island and the rich Nuyorican culture thriving in New York City, was extremely satisfying. Latinxs who have found refuge in Williamsburg social club Toñitas will have been moved to see the legendary Nuyorican stronghold's namesake matriarch where she is usually found: behind a bar, with a kind word to give, squeezing liquid courage into Benito's hand.
In true Bad Bunny fashion, there was also a lot of tenderness and righteousness to balance out the shots of rum. In a heartwarming and time-bending set piece, Benito bequeathed his Grammy award to a small child who was just watching his acceptance speech on an old TV. Ricky Martin, one of the first Puerto Rican entertainers to go mainstream in a big way, sang the anti-colonial warning song “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” voice trembling. Nearby, dancers on telephone poles were electrified as the opening notes of “El Apagón” began, one of Bad Bunny's most overtly political songs about the ongoing blackouts on the island.
Bad Bunny's performance was not just a big party or a reminder to the mainland that La Isla del Encanto is, in a sense, a part of the United States. As a Latinx viewer watching during a particularly fraught point of U.S. history, I also wouldn't say it's a performance that saves the world. (Donald Trump certainly didn't get it.) “God bless America,” Bad Bunny shouted, waving the Puerto Rican flag, backed by dancers holding the flags of every country in North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean. As the a capella strains of “DTMF” played, he spiked the football at the goal line, proclaiming “Puerto Rico, seguimo' aqui.” Puerto Rico, we still here.
© 2026 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
CN Entertainment
Being a fan of Bad Bunny who doesn't speak more than the most rudimentary Spanish means you miss a lot of the nuance of what he's saying. He knows this; in an appearance on the New York Times Popcast earlier this week, he said that even a lot of his fellow Latinos miss out on what he's saying because he often raps in Puerto Rican slang. When asked how he felt about that, he trilled, “I don't care!” Besides, even if you miss the lyrics, there's plenty to enjoy within the music, the arrangements, the visual storytelling, the stagecraft. In closing his Super Bowl LX halftime performance, Bad Bunny issued a statement impossible to misunderstand.
In the final moment of his set on February 8, Bad Bunny, holding a football that read “Together, we are America,” said “God bless America” before listing the countries of South America, North America, and some of the Caribbean. He was flanked by flags of all of these countries as the Jumbotron behind him displayed the message, in English, “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.” By virtue of his birth in Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny is American, just like someone born in Canada, or Mexico, or Cuba, or Bolivia, or Chile is American. America is not the United States; America isn't even contained in one continent.
This is not a new thought, but it is one that deserves to be repeated, especially as the MAGA wing of U.S. politics pushes for an increasingly narrow definition of who gets to claim to be an American. These are people who were upset that Bad Bunny was selected to be the halftime performer, and upset again by his plain refusal to sing in English for the event. Turning Point USA was angry enough to plan a rival halftime set that it streamed on YouTube. (It was also supposed to stream on right-wing slop trough X, but the organizers flubbed that one.) Absurdly dubbed “The All-American Halftime Show,” TP's starred Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. Talk about a narrow definition of American.
Of course, the crowd who would willingly tune into something like that is not the crowd that Bad Bunny is trying to woo. For as long as Bad Bunny has been famous in the United States, he has stubbornly refused to water down his identity as a Puerto Rican or to stop singing in Spanish. From the first big hit he was part of in the continental U.S., Cardi B's “I Like It,” he has always maintained that he performs in Spanish. But as we saw at halftime, he isn't against bringing in English when there's something he wants to be sure is understood by people too incurious to use Google Translate. In the music video for the ebullient “NUEVAYoL,” one scene features the voice of a Trump impersonator on the radio, saying, “I made a mistake. I want to apologize to the immigrants in America—I mean the United States. I know America is the whole continent.”
These views shouldn't be alienating, nor should Bad Bunny's set. There were other parts of the performance, too, where he spelled out what he meant for the non-Spanish speakers. The sole English segment featured Lady Gaga singing a salsa-style rendition of “Die With A Smile” at, tellingly, a wedding. It wasn't just a (real!) union between two people but a union of cultures and musical styles. We then got the image of Bad Bunny handing his recently won Album Of The Year Grammy to a little boy in Puerto Rico watching on TV. Then, we saw him waving the Puerto Rican flag, shot from below to frame him almost as a general, a leader on a mission. America is bigger than you might think, the performance says. It's a call for community, but one that insists upon respect, not just for citizens of the United States, but for Americans. The statement is clear, but Bad Bunny isn't going to force anyone to listen.
Recommended for You1Explaining the timelines and Targaryens of that Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms twist2Unsurprisingly irate theatre owners condemn Netflix's "catastrophic" WB acquisition3Salman Rushdie became a martyr, but Knife makes him human again4Industry's Sagar Radia on Rishi's fall5Going broad and selling out, The Moment imagines the end of an Eras Tour
© 2026 Paste Media Group. All Rights Reserved
Chris Brown is not a fan of Big Bunny's Super Bowl LX halftime performance.
“I think it's safe to say… they need me,” Brown wrote on his Instagram Stories, followed by a winking face emoji.
The post came minutes after Bad Bunny gave an electric performance during the prestigious halftime show, which celebrated his native Puerto Rico.
Advertisement
The rapper, who performed entirely in Spanish, thrilled the crowd with songs like “Monaco,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” and “Tití Me Preguntó,” while celebrities including Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Alix Earle, Jessica Alba and Karol G danced around him.
Advertisement
The performance honored many aspects of Puerto Rican culture, like the food, games and dancing.
Lady Gaga delivered a surprise rendition of her and Bruno Mars' ballad, “Die With a Smile,” and Puerto Rican-born Ricky Martin sang “Lo Que Pasó a Hawaii.”
Fellow Puerto Rican Ricky Martin also surprised the crowd, as he sang “Lo Que Pasó a Hawaii.”
Advertisement
Start your day with Page Six Daily.
Please provide a valid email.
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Want celebrity news as it breaks?
The Grammy winner's appearance at the Super Bowl outraged some NFL fans who took offense to a Spanish-language performer.
He has also been critical of the Trump administration and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Advertisement
Brown has never performed at a Super Bowl halftime show.
In 2009, the “Kiss Kiss” singer notoriously pleaded guilty to felony assault of his then-girlfriend, Rihanna.
He was sentenced to five years' probation and six months of community service.
The singer has been in trouble with the law since then.
In 2017, Brown's ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran was granted a five-year restraining order against him.
Brown allegedly became aggressive toward the “Claws” alum for not returning money and gifts he had given her during their relationship.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Last year, the “No Guidance” singer was arrested in Manchester, England, for allegedly hitting music producer Abe Diaw with a tequila bottle at a London nightclub in 2023.
In October 2023, Diaw filed a lawsuit against Brown, claiming the singer had assaulted him eight months prior.
The producer alleged Brown “inflicted severe and lasting injuries” on him after “beating him over the head” with a bottle of Don Julio 1942 in February 2023 at the Tape London nightclub.
In the wake of Bad Bunny's momentous halftime show at Super Bowl LX on February 8, musicians, politicians, and many others are giving the Puerto Rican artist his flowers.
On X, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote, “NUEVAYoL” alongside the Puerto Rican flag emoji, while Mavi remarked: “this shit hard im finna stop speaking English actually fuck English.” The Marías expressed some Puerto Rican pride, writing: “boricuaaaa.” Rauw Alejandro posted about the many Latin genres and dance styles Bad Bunny included in the show. He wrote, in Spanish: “Long live the BOMBA, the PLENA, the SALSA, the HIPHOP and above all LONG LIVE REGGAETON.” Ben Stiller also congratulated him, posting: “Incredible Half time show Bad Bunny.”
Kacey Musgraves pointedly called out the conservative non-profit Turning Point USA's “All-American Halftime Show,” which streamed on YouTube at the same time as Bad Bunny's performance and featured Kid Rock. “Well. That made me feel more proudly American than anything Kid Rock has ever done,” Musgraves wrote.
Doechii, who made her own appearance at the Super Bowl in an ad for Levi's jeans, posted on X: “Bad Bunny WOW ! Fucking, WOW. History.” On Threads, Kerry Washington echoed the sentiment, sharing: “I don't know if I'll ever recover from that… WHAT👏🏾A👏🏾SHOW👏🏾.” SG Lewis said: “Holy shit that was the best half time show I've ever seen” and Monte Booker concurred, posting: “one of the best half times.” Nick León also supported the artist, writing: “Love bad bunny forever.” Nancy Sinatra felt similarly, quoting a post from Lynda Carter about Bad Bunny with: “Love him.” John Mellencamp added, “I don't know what Bad Bunny is saying, however, I do know he is standing up for Puerto Rico and I am standing up for him. His half time show was great.”
Bad Bunny's halftime show was a love letter to Puerto Rico and Latinx communities around the world with ambitious set design and many, many special guests. Artists who joined him included Lady Gaga (with whom he salsa danced), Ricky Martin, Karol G, Young Miko, and Cardi B. The performance capped off a huge week for Bad Bunny, who also won Album Of The Year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos at the Grammys on February 1.
© 2026 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
CN Entertainment
The superstar's 13-minute performance celebrated Puerto Rican culture on a global stage.
By
Isabela Raygoza
Associate Editor, Billboard Español
After a momentous Grammys night on Feb. 1 — where he became the first artist to win album of the year with an all-Spanish-language LP, Debí Tirar Más Fotos — Bad Bunny ignited the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Sunday (Feb. 8) with a headlining Super Bowl Halftime Show destined to go down in history.
As the Seattle Seahawks soared to a 9-0 lead over the New England Patriots by halftime, anticipation was high for El Conejo Malo to take over. He kicked off his electrifying set with “Tití Me Preguntó” while donning an off-white football jersey emblazoned with his last name, Ocasio, and the number '64. Striding across the field, he passed workers in traditional pava (straw) hats, setting the tone for a celebration steeped in Puerto Rican culture.
As he belted out the anthem, Bad Bunny made his way through scenes bursting with cultural pride — field workers, people playing dominoes, women getting their nails done, snow-cone makers preparing piraguas, and even boxers training under a spotlight. Meanwhile, cameos from stars like Karol G, Jessica Alba, and Cardi B added extra star power to the spectacle. In a moment Billboard predicted, he brought out his famous casita — a vibrant replica of a traditional Puerto Rican home — bringing it all full circle.
Then he segued into “Yo Perreo Sola” and “Voy a Llevarte Pa' PR” as he climbed onto the roof of a pickup truck — with “perreo” emblazoned on the plates — surrounded by dozens of girls dancing in sync. With brief samples of Tego Calderón's “Pa Que Te Lo Gozen,” Don Omar's “Dale Don Dale” and Daddy Yankee's “Gasolina,” the hard-hitting, Grammy-winning hit “EoO” pulsed through the stadium. “This is the music of Puerto Rico,” he shouted in Spanish, and a full-blown reggaetón party erupted.
The iconic toad, Coquí — a signature of his tour — made an appearance, delighting fans. Suddenly, violinists emerged, adding a dramatic flair to the moment introducing “Monaco.”
“Buenas tardes, California, mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio,” he declared, voice brimming with emotion, “y si ahora estoy en el Super Bowl LX, es porque nunca, nunca dejé de creer en mí.” Then, looking straight into the camera, he delivered a heartfelt message: “Tú también nunca dejes de creer en ti.“
Then, with an unexpected twist, Lady Gaga made a glorious entrance, dressed in a baby blue dress, singing “Die With A Smile” over a vibrant salsa rhythm. The performance transformed into a full-blown tropical reverie, with brass blaring and an infectious energy radiating through the stadium. Adding to the magic, the beloved Toñita — owner of Brooklyn's Caribbean Social Club, famously shouted out in “NuevaYol” — appeared on stage to hand Bad Bunny a drink. Appropriately, the opening notes of the latter Hot 100 hit began.
The camera focused on the cuatro player as they began strumming the opening notes of “Lo Que Pasó en Hawaii.” Suddenly, superstar Ricky Martin emerged to deliver the song. As the melody transitioned, the rhythm of “El Apagón” took over. The moment shone a spotlight on the island's ongoing electricity issues in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, critiqued the privatization of its power grid under LUMA Energy and highlighted the displacement of its residents.
Toward the end of the song, Bad Bunny took a moment to shout out every country from the Americas, one by one, as the crowd roared in support. Holding up a football emblazoned with the words “Together We Are America,” he delivered a poignant response to criticism he has faced, reinforcing his message of unity and empowerment.
Despite the artist's attempts to steer clear of politics, this year's halftime performance has sparked significant discourse, becoming one of the most talked-about and debated shows in recent memory.
When asked about his intentions for the show, Bad Bunny humbly reflected on the power of his music in a Friday (Feb. 6) interview with Access Hollywood's Scott Evans: “I'm just a normal guy that makes music. I want people to feel happiness and joy. I want to make people dance. I want to make them feel proud and think that everything is possible.”
If the night proved anything, it's that Bad Bunny is redefining what's possible on the world's biggest stages.
Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox
Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *
Post Comment
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Love was in the air during Bad Bunny's epic Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show.
The bride and groom featured in the performance reportedly got married — for real — on the field at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif, Page Six can confirm.
The couple even invited the singer to their wedding.
Advertisement
A NBC News reporter was the first to report the news, writing on X, “This is incredibly cool — A source familiar with Bad Bunny's performance tonight tells me that the couple in the halftime show got married for real.
Advertisement
“They invited Bad Bunny to their wedding and in turn he invited them to get married during his performance.”
The singer's rep also confirmed the news to Variety.
Fans on X gushed over how “freaking cool” and “awesome” that detail was.
The bride and groom were seen throughout the show, at one point dancing and at another point there was an officiant.
Advertisement
The bride wore a design by embattled designer Hayley Paige featuring a strapless sweetheart neckline and all-over lace.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine one of my wedding dresses making a cameo at the Super Bowl. Seeing [the dress] during Bad Bunny's halftime show is, well, loco. But what makes it truly special is that it's worn by a real bride on her wedding day,” the designer told Page Six in a statement.
Advertisement
The musician, 31, also celebrated his native Puerto Rico during the lively and celeb-packed performance.
Different aspects of his culture were highlighted throughout the show such as the dancing and the food.
Lady Gaga delivered a surprise rendition of her and Bruno Mars' “Die with a Smile” while second musical guest, Ricky Martin, sang “Lo Que Pasó a Hawaii.”
Start your day with Page Six Daily.
Please provide a valid email.
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Want celebrity news as it breaks?
Other stars seen dancing to his hit tunes on the field included Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Alix Earle, Karol G and Pedro Pascal.
Bad Bunny also incorporated his historic Grammys win from last week's awards show into the performance, as his album “Un Verano Sin Ti” is the first Spanish-speaking album to be nominated for best album of the year.
Advertisement
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, exclaimed, “God bless America,” and held up a football that read, “Together, we are America” in a powerful conclusion.
Advertisement
On Thursday, the rapper teased there would be a “huge party” during his 2026 Super Bowl performance while speaking at the Apple Music Halftime Show press conference — though no one could have guessed he would be celebrating a couple's union.
“I just want to have fun, it's going to be a huge party … I don't want to give spoilers, people only need to worry about dancing,” he said.
“They don't even have to learn Spanish; it's better if they dance, but there's no better dance that comes from the heart. … Of course, choose your team at the game.”
The Pima County Sheriff's Department shared a major update in the investigation surrounding Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.
“At the request of the Guthrie family, PCSD will maintain a presence at Nancy Guthrie's residence for security,” the department shared via Twitter on Sunday, February 8. “Media & the public are reminded to follow all traffic & private property laws. No trespassing is allowed on the Guthrie property. Violations are subject to enforcement.”
The update comes as the search for the 84-year-old enters its second week with a ransom deadline looming.
Moments before the Pima County Sheriff's Department shared its latest update, reports began circulating on Twitter as two marked vehicles appeared to be parked in Guthrie's driveway.
According to the department, the security move comes at the request of Nancy Guthrie's family.
Guthrie's Tucson, Arizona, home has been swarmed with reporters and independent journalists alike for more than a week. After detectives' initial search for evidence, a video began circulating online showing what appeared to be blood drops on the front porch of Guthrie's home.
Sheriff Chris Nanos later revealed during a Thursday, February 5, press conference that DNA results determined the blood belonged to the 84-year-old victim.
Nancy Guthrie's children, “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, daughter Annie Guthrie, and son Camron Guthrie, have made numerous pleas to their mother's alleged captors to “bring her home.”
“We received your message. And we understand,” Savannah said in a video plea shared to Instagram on Saturday, February 7. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay.”
Guthrie's plea was addressed to their mother's alleged kidnappers after ransom notes were received by multiple news outlets.
According to TMZ's Harvey Levin, who was the first to report receiving such a letter, the abductors included two deadlines in their demands. The first, which was Thursday, February 5, at 5 p.m., has passed. However, Levin told
“So, the deadline that just passed had to do with the demand,” Levin told CNN on Thursday. “The Monday deadline has more to do with consequences, and Anderson, that's … about as much as I can say. I think everybody kind of knows the way this plays out when people write ransom notes.”
The second deadline has been reported as Monday, February 9, at 5 p.m. local time.
Like EntertainmentNow?
Go here and check the boxnext to EntertainmentNow
I would be terrified if you pay you may not see her again. If you don't you may never see her again. My prayer is that the Lord would have mercy. And move on their hearts to let this lady go home.
I find it strange someone wanting millions won't show proof of life. Doesn't look good for a safe return.
I believe if Trump gave baxk the president of Venenzuela to venenzuela they will let ber go its not about the money never the less god bless her and have mercy upon her soul
Comment
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Δ
Previous
Next
About
Contact US
Privacy Policy
Terms Of Service
Editorial Guidelines
Sitemap
Copyright © 2026 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Powered by WordPress VIP
You might be used to seeing Drew Barrymore and Valerie Bertinelli as brunettes. However, when the two got together on Barrymore's show, they both tried a new look that involved gray hair.
“The Drew Barrymore Show” took to Instagram to share a video of Bertinelli's appearance, and added a caption that noted, “Celebrity hairstylist [Chris Appleton] pulls off the most unexpected hair transformation for Drew and [Valerie Bertinelli]! 😍”
In the video, Bertinelli first emerges in a gray wig before Barrymore also tries one on. Both ladies look amazing and absolutely slay the silvery shades.
Following her appearance on Barrymore's show, Bertinelli hopped onto Instagram to share a photo of herself in the gray wig. She also had a few questions for her followers, which she included in the caption of her post, writing, “Should I do it? Should I grow out my grey? 🤔😝 … But what is the real question—the one lurking in the shadows— is it about something deeper? Does it have more to do with identity?”
“Who do I see when I look at myself? There's the version the world sees and the me that only I know,” she added. “No one else, just me. The inside me and the outside me. Is one more important than the other? Should they sync up? What if they don't?”
Noting that she “think[s] it's a little about self-perception and the friction between how we feel and how we appear,” she went on to say that “[i]t's about the version of ourselves we feel comfortable showing. It's about how much of ourselves we choose to see in the mirror. What are we reflecting upon and what is reflecting back to us?”
Wondering if she's perhaps not alone in her thinking and questions, she continued, “I see so many beautiful women who gloriously grow out their grey and if I can be completely honest, I'm a little envious. I'm not quite sure I'm there yet.”
If Bertinelli does decide to let her gray hair grow, then she'll have a lot of support. Her friends and fans made that clear when they left encouraging messages on her Instagram post.
Appleton wrote, “You are so beautiful you can do it all.”
Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt also left a comment, saying, “You look hot.”
“One of the best things you'll ever do for yourself. Freedom,” came from another follower.
Someone else wrote, “Yes!! … it's the best decision I ever made. It's a process that will help you grow so much. 🙌”
Like EntertainmentNow?
Go here and check the boxnext to EntertainmentNow
Comment
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Δ
Previous
Next
About
Contact US
Privacy Policy
Terms Of Service
Editorial Guidelines
Sitemap
Copyright © 2026 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Powered by WordPress VIP
Pedro Pascal & Young Miko were also among the A-listers vibing out on the field.
By
Hannah Dailey
Bad Bunny‘s highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime show is in the books, with the Puerto Rican superstar bringing light, love, music and dance to the country at a time when it's needed more than ever — and he didn't do it alone.
As previously speculated, Benito brought out some guests during his Sunday (Feb. 8) performance at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, sharing the field with Lady Gaga — who treated fans to a surprise salsa rendition of her Billboard Hot 100-topping hit “Die With a Smile,” sans duet partner Bruno Mars — and Ricky Martin, who had his own solo moment singing “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii.” But what no one could have predicted was the crop of A-listers who joined Bad Bunny for the show simply to vibe and hang out in the back, from Cardi B to Pedro Pascal, Karol G, Jessica Alba and Young Miko, each of whom stood out amid a joyous crowd of partiers on the singer/rapper's elaborate Puerto Rico-inspired set and danced along to the music.
The array of celebrities showing a united front with Benito's other backup performers further drove home the point of his showcase: that “together, we are America,” a message he held up on a football shortly before making his exit. Despite many conservatives taking issue with the choice of a predominantly Spanish-speaking performer for the 2026 halftime program — something that culminated in Turning Point USA hosting an alternate mid-game show — the hitmaker made it clear that his only agenda is to cultivate community, a message his guest stars endorsed just by being there.
See photos of the stars who made surprise cameos on the field during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show below.
Karol G (2R) and Cardi B (R) perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Cardi B perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Pedro Pascal (C) onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Karol G (2R) and Cardi B (R) perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Karol G, Cardi B and Jessica Alba perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Pedro Pascal (C) performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Cardi B perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Cardi B perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Young Miko and Pedro Pascal perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
(L-R) Pedro Pascal, Karol G and Cardi B perform onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi's Stadium on February 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, California.
Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox
Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *
Post Comment
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The conservative organization offered counterprogramming against Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show.
By
Melinda Newman
The Turning Point USA All-American Halftime Show promised to celebrate “faith, family and freedom” via performances by Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett.
The TPUSA website didn't feature information about the show until fairly far down on its homepage. Instead, it's soliciting donations through promoting the late founder Charlie Kirk's last book, Stop, in the Name of God, and his vision, which includes recruiting high school and college students to raise the next generation to support his movement “rooted in faith, freedom and love of country.”
The TPUSA quartet is counterprogramming to the Super Bowl LX halftime, featuring another famous American, Bad Bunny. Kid Rock, promoting the show on Fox (which, interestingly, is not streaming the TPUSA halftime show) on Friday (Feb. 6) promised a “classic rock, in your face” opener, but then pledged to perform “one of the best written songs in a long time.” He didn't give away the title, but elaborated that it's a “pretty current, last few years country song. It's one of the greatest written songs I've heard in a long time.”
Not one to miss an opportunity and being the good capitalist he is, Kid Rock will then release that song at midnight. (He does not mention whether he's donating the proceeds to TPUSA). His hints eliminate the song being “Cool Daddy Cool,” his 2001 collaboration with Joe-C that has resurfaced for its the notable lyrics about “hoes” and the couplet, “Young ladies, young ladies, I like 'em underage/ Some say that's statutory (But I say it's mandatory)” — lyrics that are much more in line with the Epstein files than supposed family values.
Rock declared the TPUSA halftime is for people “who love America, love football, love Jesus.” He also stressed that neither he nor any of the other performers are “approaching this with any hate in our hearts.” (A sentiment that Gilbert also stressed in a social media post he made on Friday, though President Trump went out of his way to add that he felt both Bad Bunny and Green Day, who played a rousing opening slot, were not his cup of tea. “I'm anti-them. I think it's a terrible choice,” Trump told Page Six. “All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”
Rock also said that if the NFL wanted to take care of its fanbase, it would have picked local performers from the Bay Area such as Metallica (he's not alone in that thought), given the game is taking place in Santa Clara, Calif. (But Green Day — who is from the Bay Area — did perform during the pre-show opening ceremony.)
Below, Billboard recaps TPUSA's halftime show in real time.
4:49 p.m. PT: The seven-minute countdown to the halftime starts with a salute to Charlie Kirk, which is also a promo for conservative Christian Hillsdale College in Michigan, before returning to a countdown and a scroll to text for TPUSA merch and to text “freedom” to the same number to get “involved in the movement.”
4:53 p.m. PT: A commercial plugging adoption as an option, a key conservative pro-life message, is abruptly cut off for a commercial for tickets to the Olympics in Los Angeles and AI transcription service Otter. That seems like a missed opportunity to spread that message.
4:55 p.m. PT: With less than a minute left, Dept. of Defense head Pete Hegseth comes on to say “God bless our warriors and God bless our republic,” before tossing a football toward the camera.
5:04 p.m. Nearly 10 minutes after the countdown clock ended, more than 1.9 million people are waiting on TPUSA's YouTube channel. (The halftime was also supposed to air on TPUSA's X channel, but due to licensing restrictions, it could not stream there, the organization announced earlier in the day.) The live chat is very active, with people posting American flags memes and hailing where they're watching from. Maybe they are officially waiting until the first half ends to start.The actual Super Bowl performance is around 12-13 minutes because it takes about six minutes to load on and six minute to load off, but, obviously, TPUSA's halftime show has no such concerns.
5:11: p.m. PT What seems to be Brantley Gilbert's backing band comes out and his lead guitarist is shredding on an instrumental version of “The Star Spangled Banner.”
5:12 p.m. PT: Gilbert comes out and welcomes the audience and says, “This is real America” before launching into “Real American,” singing into a microphone that has brass knuckles on the top. He's playing before a small but ardent live audience in an undisclosed location. The song praises everything “USA,” as pyro goes off behind him.
5:15: p.m. PT Gilbert introduces “Dirt Road Anthem,” the song he cowrote with Colt Ford that became a monster hit for Jason Aldean in 2011. Gilbert starts singing, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar before going into the song's rap … one of the first songs that incorporated rap and country. It's a slowed down, lovely version that has the crowd swaying its arms.
5:20 p.m. PT: Gilbert quickly ends and it switches to Gabby Barrett singing her massive hit, 2020's “I Hope.” It looks like the same set and there is an audience, but there was no visible switchover, so my hunch is it's not live and each act taped separately or TPUSA didn't want to waste time by showing the handoff.
5:23 p.m. PT: Barrett switches to “The Good Ones,” her follow-up about a good guy, as opposed to the louse in “I Hope.” The American Idol alum sounds great.
5:27 p.m. PT: Lee Brice suddenly appears on stage and breaks into his 2014 hit, “Drinking Class,” and the crowd cheers when he sings “When you knock us down we'll get up again and again.”
5:29 p.m. PT In the first comments to the audience so far and the only performer to mention Charlie Kirk, Brice says, “Charlie gave people microphones so they could say what's on their minds. This is what's on mind,” before launching into “Country Nowadays,” a song that will be on his next album about how hard it is to be “country in this country these days.” He talks about just wanting to shoot deer and mow his lawn, but he also doesn't think it's OK for a little boy to dress like a little girl (which gets a rousing cheer) and he resents that “I'm some right wing devil … because I was Jesus raised … because I have my morals and a small-town point of view.” It's the night's only outwardly political song.
5:33 p.m. PT: Now Brice is out of political territory and back to the more familiar “Hard to Love” from 2012's album, Hard 2 Love. Like all the performers, he sounds good and the production minimal, but gets the job done. He leaves his tribute to Charlie Kirk, “When the Kingdom Comes,” left undone, perhaps because he didn't want to do a sad ballad.
5:34 p.m. PT: Kid Rock is introduced and the light show is amped up 1000% as he comes out in denim shorts, a fur jacket that he quickly sheds and a fedora before going hard into “Bawitdaba,” his breakthrough 1998 song. Unlike the other artists who seemed to be singing live, he appears to be lip-synching and focused more on dancing than singing, but it's high energy and infectious.
5:37 p.m. PT: In a 180-degree shift, the song ends and a cellist and violinist appear at the edge of the stage in front of a black backdrop, and Kid Rock is reintroduced by his real name, Robert Richie. It becomes very clear this is the recent country song he said he was going to remake — and he's right — it is one of the best country songs to come out in recent years: It's Cody Johnson's poignant “Til You Can't,” which Kid Rock covered in November and which won single of the year at the 2022 CMA Awards. Kid Rock is playing acoustic guitar in front of his drummer whose drum head has the Preamble to the Constitution on it. It's a sweet, emotional version.
5:42 p.m. PT: Kid Rock says he woke up recently and felt the song needed a new verse, which he debuts. “There's a book that is sitting in your house somewhere that could use some dusting off/ There's a man that died for all our sins hanging on the cross,” he speaks before giving a shout-out to Jesus. (We thought it might be Charlie Kirk for a minute.) “In remembrance of Charlie Kirk” and photos of Kirk with wife Erika splash on the sides of the venue.
5:44 p.m. PT: A taped video with photos of Kirk and his family plays as KIrk speaks about getting involved and TPUSA's mission.
5:45 p.m. PT: And with that, it's over. It was a respectful, enjoyable presentation that, as Kid Rock had promised, appealed to the conservative base, but there's no flame-throwing rhetoric, few speeches, no mention of Trump. It's largely just music. Brice's song was as pointedly political as it got. For the MAGA crowd (and likely Trump), it undoubtedly didn't go far right enough (other than Brice's song). For the far left, there weren't really any moments to ridicule except for generally not liking the talent involved. It was a solid 15-minute presentation. They played it safe, and sometimes, that's OK.
Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox
Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *
Post Comment
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
More than 20 years after fellow video game adaptation auteur Uwe Boll last adapted House Of The Dead, Paul W.S. Anderson is taking a crack at the property. Initially announced in 2024, Anderson's version of Sega's classic first-person zombie shoot-'em-up is still showing signs of life, casting Isabela Merced, who is well-versed in adaptations of popular zombie games. Merced recently starred in Superman and, more relevantly, The Last Of Us, HBO's Emmy-nominated zombie TV show that seems to be bringing the genre back from the dead.
Unlike Boll, who directed an adaptation of Sega's hit video game in 2003, Anderson, as his wont, finds himself drawn to the games' elaborate mythology, which could serve as the basis for an entire run of films, not unlike his billion-dollar-grossing Resident Evil movies. To wit, Anderson envisions “this as the start of a tentpole franchise which can explore the rich world and lore that Sega has created over a whole series of films” with “Isabela at its heart.” According to Deadline, the series is a “top Sega priority,” along with facilitating Sonic the Hedgehog's crippling chilidog addiction.
It is nice to see the old boys of schlocky 2000s video game adaptations crossing paths yet again. Back in 2003, less than a decade after Anderson revolutionized the genre with Mortal Kombat, the first game-to-screen movie people didn't completely hate, Boll dragged the genre back to the depths. It shouldn't be too much of a lift for Anderson to overcome Boll's legacy, especially considering how efficient a blockbuster director Anderson has become over the intervening years. But what we'd really like to see, even more than another version of House Of The Dead, is Uwe Boll getting back to what matters: Challenging people to boxing matches. Boll vs. Anderson would raise a lot of money for charity.
Recommended for You1Explaining the timelines and Targaryens of that Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms twist2Unsurprisingly irate theatre owners condemn Netflix's "catastrophic" WB acquisition3Salman Rushdie became a martyr, but Knife makes him human again4Industry's Sagar Radia on Rishi's fall5Going broad and selling out, The Moment imagines the end of an Eras Tour
© 2026 Paste Media Group. All Rights Reserved
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
During Super Bowl LX, a mysterious teaser for Netflix's long-anticipated “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” sequel made its explosive debut. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it flex for the streamer, the here-untitled film from director David Fincher and writer Quentin Tarantino brings back Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth: the sunburnt stuntman who helped the A-list actor walk away with his second Oscar, and the heart of Tarantino's Best Picture nominee, in 2019.
The project is rumored to be called “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” and it's the first time since the mid-'90s that someone other than Tarantino has directed one of his screenplays. The surprise teaser leans into the film's overall sense of unexpected provocation, but the release time frame and plot details are still maddeningly opaque.
Related Stories Timothée Chalamet's Box Office Worth as a Leading Man? A Cool 2 Billion Dollars Is the ‘Wuthering Heights' Press Tour Messy Performance Art or Marketing Rage Bait?
In the teaser, Cliff lounges at a bar, drifts through a few film sets, and tears around a dirt track in a derby car. The scenes are set to retro needle drops and punctuated by cheeky censorship gags (a scribbled-onto-celluloid effect) that blur out implied nudity, profanity, and violence with faux film damage. Elizabeth Debicki and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II flash by, and we see an Oscar statuette being placed on Cliff's desk — you know, in case anyone forgot just how beloved this particular character became.
Tarantino's story jumps forward into the 1970s, with Leonardo DiCaprio's Rick Dalton notably absent but a new ensemble (including Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Holt McCallany, JB Tadena, and more) joining the returning Timothy Olyphant, who's back as real-life “Lancer” actor James Stacy.
A buzz-building roll-out makes strategic sense for the filmmakers and Netflix. Tarantino continues to expand Cliff Booth's mythology without counting another film toward his self-imposed ten-movie limit, and Fincher is deepening his already long-standing relationship with the streaming platform at a critical time for them. Shot in Los Angeles, the sequel went into production last summer.
From Netflix, “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” is coming soon. Tarantino joins Pitt, David Heyman, Ceán Chaffin, and Stacey Sher as a producer, with frequent Fincher collaborator Erik Messerschmidt on board as director of photography.
Watch the teaser below.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Singer-songwriter Charley Crockett offered up his support to Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, and took aim against Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
By
Jessica Nicholson
As much of the country geared up for this year's Super Bowl on Sunday (Feb. 8), Americana-country singer-songwriter Charley Crockett offered up his support for Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime show performance, and took aim against Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, President Donald Trump and the “country music establishment” in an Instagram post.
“They keep saying I'm a cosplay cowboy but they love a cosplay president,” Crockett wrote on Instagram. “Some folks have been on here calling Muhammad Ali a draft dodger when yall got one in the White House. When I was at the Grammys the other night I saw a guy get up and talk about Jesus, and then I saw Bad Bunny get up there and talk like Jesus. The country music establishment should be taking notes on a Puerto Rican American who hasn't forgotten his heritage and brought his culture's traditional music back to the front, showing the world something new with it. The President is a grifter who bankrupted 6 casinos. That's pretty extraordinary considering it's a rigged business in favor of the house. The only thing he's good at is filing lawsuits and portraying a successful business man as a reality TV actor. Last time I checked Elon Musk was an immigrant from South Africa but there he is standing in the White House buying our elections. Let's deport his a– and send Peter Thiel back with him since they both openly believe in a post democratic society where men of their class are above the law.”
Crockett continued, “Forgive me if I have a problem with a 34 time convicted felon running this country when I lost the right to vote or own a weapon for years over marijuana. As long as you're hating the oppressed and loving your oppressor you'll never know why our generation is poorer than our parents and grandparents. As a great man once said it's welfare for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor. If you can sleep at night licking their boots that's between you and yours, but that type of thinking isn't freedom. It's mental slavery. Every single right we have as a people wasn't handed to us. We had to fight and take it.”
Crockett ended by writing, “Judge a man by how he treats the poor and those who he views as being able to do nothing for him. Don't forget why Muhammad Ali said ‘I am America.' Remember the coal miners of Harlan County, Kentucky. I believe in what we can be. Ride on.”
Last year, Crockett signed with Island Records, releasing his first album via the label, Lonesome Drifter, in March 2025. At the 2025 Americana Music Awards, Lonesome Drifter was nominated for album of the year, while Crockett was nominated for artist of the year.
To date, Crockett has earned two Grammy Grammy nominations, including best traditional country album (for A Dollar a Day) and best Americana album (for $10 Cowboy). This year, he will headline the Music City Rodeo, alongside Miranda Lambert and Jon Pardi.
Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox
Your email address will not be published.
Required fields are marked *
Post Comment
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Kim Kardashian and Lewis Hamilton hard launched their relationship at Super Bowl LX.
The new couple was spotted enjoying the big game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Sunday.
Photos of the pair went viral on X after they appeared on the screen of an international broadcast of the game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks.
Advertisement
In a video, Kardashian, 45, could be seen smiling while talking to Hamilton, 41.
Advertisement
The Skims founder wore a black coat and large diamond choker necklace. She also switched up her hair by rocking bangs.
Kardashian's hairstylist, Chris Appleton, shared a photo of her full look on Instagram before the game, writing, “Super Bowl bangs.”
Advertisement
Kardashian and Hamilton have been friends for years, but recently took their relationship to the next level by enjoying a romantic European excursion.
The duo stayed at the luxury UK hotel Estelle Manor in the Cotswolds last weekend, where they enjoyed a couples massage and had a private, upscale dinner.
The stars then traveled to London where they stayed at the luxurious Rosewood Hotel.
They ended their trip with a stop in Paris.
Advertisement
“Kim and Lewis have such intense working schedules, so they're keen to spend as much time together as possible,” a source told the US Sun about the couple.
“Right now, they're inseparable and are fitting their dates around Kim's work commitments,” the insider added.
Before their European vacation, the pair both attended Kate Hudson's New Year's Eve party in Colorado, but they weren't photographed together.
Kardashian and Hamilton both have a star-studded list of exes.
Advertisement
The reality star was linked to Odell Beckham Jr. and dated Pete Davidson following her divorce from her third husband, Kanye West, with whom she shares four children.
Hamilton, for his part, has been linked to Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and even Kardashian's sister Kendall Jenner.
Kardashian most recently opened up about her dating life on her sister Khloe Kardashian's “Khloé In Wonder Land” podcast last month, sharing the qualities she wants in her next partner.
Advertisement
“Good morals and values, a calm person, dependable,” the “All's Fair” actress said. “Takes accountability. I think that's my number one thing.”
Kardashian also claimed she hasn't been secretly dating anyone in the past year.
Advertisement
“I just feel like my kids need me. It's really hard when I have to put them to bed every night. I get them up. I take them to school,” she explained “I get them ready. They sleep in my bed. I haven't had time — and I'm okay with that.
“I thought, ‘You know what? I'm going to be studying. I won't have time. When I'm done, I'll open myself up.'”
Travis Kelce's ex-girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, shaded the NFL player and his fiancée, Taylor Swift, in a 2026 Super Bowl commercial Sunday.
In an ad for the sports app Sleeper, Tiffany Haddish and Ben Simmons played the role of two emotional injury specialists called “The Ex-communicators.”
“Have you or someone you know been injured emotionally in a high-profile relationship?”Haddish asked, before Simmons inquired, “Are your exes snubbing you in commercials?”
Advertisement
Notably, Simmons' ex-girlfriend, Kendall Jenner, just poked fun at him in a Fanatics Sportsbook commercial last week.
Advertisement
“If so, you may be entitled to retribution,” Haddish said, before Simmons corrected her, saying, “Compensation.”
“That's what I said!” Haddish exclaimed before Simmon introduced their alleged clients.
“Don't get me started on these two,” Nicole, wearing a pink suit, said with sass, adding of Haddish and Simmons, “They have no idea what they're doing at all.”
Advertisement
In the caption, she is described as the “ex of a certain NFL player.”
Ace Greene from “Love Island” Season 7 agreed, telling viewers not to call them if they need help, before Offset admitted he doesn't “know what [he's] doing here.”
“I'm great at relationships,” added the Migos rapper, whose ex-wife Cardi B is currently dating Stefon Diggs. (Diggs is playing for the New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in the championship game.)
Advertisement
“Simmons & Haddish promised me that they could put an end to this whole ex-girlfriend fiasco quickly,” Nicole said.
The ad then jumped to Simmons, who claimed, “That doesn't sound right.”
Start your day with Page Six Daily.
Please provide a valid email.
By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Want celebrity news as it breaks?
Nicole then tried, “rapidly,” with Simmons saying, “That's not what I said.”
“Okay, pronto,” Nicole offered, before Simmons interjected, “I said swiftly!” — a clear reference to the pop star.
The video ends with Haddish saying that picking the right love interest “is hard.”
Advertisement
“Picking the right athletes doesn't have to be,” the comedian said, with Simmons adding, “Pick players. Choose more. Choose less. Make cash.”
“Download Sleeper in the app store today,” Haddish concluded.
Advertisement
Nicole, 34, dated Kelce, 36, on and off from 2017 to 2022 and has since talked openly about her former relationship with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end.
Swift, for her part, snubbed Nicole in her 2025 song, “Opalite.”
The “Fortnight” singer and Kelce started dating in 2023 and got engaged two years later. They are expected to tie the knot this summer.
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Chris Pratt returns as the title character in the animated film that Universal releases this spring.
By
Ryan Gajewski
Senior Entertainment Reporter
Mario and his friends are going for gold in the Super Bowl trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic serve as directors for the animated sequel feature that Universal Pictures is set to release theatrically April 1. Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Benny Safdie, Kevin Michael Richardson and Brie Larson round out the voice cast.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie centers on Mario (Pratt) and Luigi (Day) getting to know dinosaur pal Yoshi as they accompany Princess Peach (Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Key) on a voyage to outer space.
Related Stories
Movies
'Minions & Monsters' Super Bowl Trailer Reveals Sequel's First Footage and Film's Title
Music
Brandi Carlile Performs "America the Beautiful" During Super Bowl LX Pre-Game
This latest trailer teases the heroes butting heads with Bowser Jr. (Safdie), who declares, “The great battle of my life draws near!” A later moment features Yoshi eating Kamek (Richardson).
Horvath and Jelenic, the directors of 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, return to helm the sequel from a script by Matthew Fogel, who also penned the original. Hailing from Illumination and Nintendo, the new movie counts Chris Meledandri and Shigeru Miyamoto as producers.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie surpassed $1.3 billion at the global box office, becoming the year's second-highest-grossing title (behind Warner Bros.' Barbie). The films adapt Nintendo's long-running Mario video game franchise.
In his review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Frank Scheck wrote that it “feels like a labor of love that should easily weather any nitpicking from purists.” He added that the film “features one jam-packed sequence after another.”
The NFL's 2026 Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots aired Sunday on NBC and Peacock.
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day
A scoop-driven, insider view of Hollywood's genre and blockbuster movie landscape, led by Borys Kit and Aaron Couch.
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter
Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
We're ever-so-slightly closer to finding out what Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth got up to after he helped Rick subdue those hippie intruders at the end of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. A trailer for the long-gestating sequel to Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film debuted during the Super Bowl, with a healthy dose of censorship for the film's cigarettes, booze, nudity, and who knows what else. The trailer didn't even feature the film's title (The Adventures Of Cliff Booth, as far as we know), much less a release date.
This film was first confirmed back in April, and is speculated to be based on what existed of The Movie Critic, a film that Tarantino had at one point intended to be his tenth feature but apparently abandoned. As far we know, that's the extent of Tarantino's involvement in the picture. At the time, it was reported that Pitt's Once Upon A Time co-star Leonardo DiCaprio was unlikely to appear in the sequel, which the trailer seems to validate. However, Variety reports that Scott Caan, Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Holt McCallany, and JB Tadena are all in the cast, as well as Timothy Olyphant, who returns from the first movie. David Fincher, who has an exclusive deal with Netflix, will direct. The film doesn't yet have a release date, either, but hopefully this can be one of those movies that gets one of those theatrical windows, of which the city slickers are so fond.
Recommended for You1Melania is a case study in how not to sell a fascist regime2Heavily censored trailer for Cliff Booth movie debuts during Super Bowl LX3Bridgerton spotlights its older female characters for once4What if they held a Kid Rock country music festival and no one came?5Explaining the timelines and Targaryens of that Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms twist
© 2026 Paste Media Group. All Rights Reserved
A former Pima County Homicide Detective shared his devastating take on the latest video plea released by Savannah Guthrie and her siblings as the search for their missing mother continues.
“I saw the message last night,” the retired detective told Brian Entin on Sunday, February 8, in a video interview shared via YouTube. “Being from the outside, but using my training and experience, thinking back on the number of homicides that I've investigated…I don't think it's going to have a positive outcome of Nancy being returned alive.”
Savannah Guthrie and her siblings, Annie Guthrie and Camron Guthrie, released a video plea to their mother's alleged captors to “bring her home” on Saturday, February 7. As the reported ransom letter deadline looms, the former Pima County detective dissected the siblings' video.
“I think it was more of, this is just a guess, thinking it was more of, you know, ‘We intended to bring her back to you. Unfortunately, circumstances happened, but we still need to get paid and we'll return her remains to you or let you know where they are for x amount of money.'”
The unnamed retiree reiterated that his theory was “just [his] feeling on” the video shared via Instagram.
“I'm praying and have been praying that she is returned whole and healthy, but last night's video from Miss Guthrie scared and caused me some concern about that happening,” he added. “I've never seen anything like this in my seven years in homicide, 20 years as a cop.”
Despite claims that the alleged captors would not be communicating with investigators or the Guthries, the “Today” host seemingly confirmed a new message was received.
“We received your message, and we understand,” Savannah said in her Sunday video. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week. The 84-year-old is without her life-saving medication, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos revealed last week.
According to a ransom letter received by TMZ, the Guthrie family was given two deadlines. The first, Thursday, February 5, at 5 p.m. passed. The outlet reported that the second deadline, Monday, February 9, at 5 p.m., “has more to do with consequences.”
“I think everybody kind of knows the way this plays out when people write ransom notes,” TMZ's Harvey Levin told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
Like EntertainmentNow?
Go here and check the boxnext to EntertainmentNow
Comment
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Δ
Previous
Next
About
Contact US
Privacy Policy
Terms Of Service
Editorial Guidelines
Sitemap
Copyright © 2026 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Powered by WordPress VIP
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Change is in the air for the “Star Wars” franchise. After 14 years of overseeing the I.P., Kathleen Kennedy stepped down as president of Lucasfilm last month, with Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan taking over the reins for Disney's galaxy far, far away. The shakeup also coincides with the first new “Star Wars” film to hit theaters since “The Rise of Skywalker” came out to mixed reception in 2019. A new “Star Wars” movie is always a monumental pop culture event, so it's fitting that “The Mandalorian and Grogu” debuted it first full trailer during Super Bowl LX.
The new film sees Pedro Pascal reprise his eponymous role from the Disney+ series, with his adorable friend, nicknamed “Baby Yoda,” now receiving top billing, too. (Just think of the merchandising opportunities!) Other cast members include Sigourney Weaver, Jonny Coyne, and Jeremy Allen White.
Popular on IndieWire
Related Stories Timothée Chalamet's Box Office Worth as a Leading Man? A Cool 2 Billion Dollars Is the ‘Wuthering Heights' Press Tour Messy Performance Art or Marketing Rage Bait?
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” is directed by Jon Favreau. It's his first film behind the camera since 2019's remake of “The Lion King,” though Favreau has spent much of those seven years working on “Star Wars” TV projects. He created both “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett,” served as an executive producer on “Ahsoka” and “Skeleton Crew,” as well as co-wrote the new film with Filoni, who also serves as an executive producer.
It won't only be Disney+ subscribers watching when the popular show continues on the big screen. In a shifting entertainment industry, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” could be an inflection point for the entire “Star Wars” franchise. With the property torn between crowd-pleasing nostalgia and more innovative fare like “Andor,” this next film could be an indicator of the direction Filoni plans on going longterm.
Disney will release “The Mandalorian and Grogu” in theaters on Friday, May 22. Watch the first trailer, which premiered during Super Bowl LX, below.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Barsha Dutta has been covering the NFL since 2024, bringing a fresh and engaging perspective to the game. With Masters in Literature, she blends passion with insight, making football stories both relatable and exciting for readers. When she's not writing about the gridiron, Barsha enjoys tending to her garden and immersing herself in the world of K-pop. She also occasionally covers entertainment and pop culture news. With her unique mix of interests, she connects sports fans to the NFL in a way that feels both personal and vibrant.Read More
Steven Spielberg's upcoming sci-fi thriller 'Disclosure Day' has already become one of the most talked-about Super Bowl trailer drops, with fans now connecting its mysterious alien themes to real-world conspiracy discussions.
The film, starring Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor, revealed fresh footage during Sunday's broadcast, teasing a story centred on hidden government material and proof of extraterrestrial life. According to Variety's report on the Super Bowl trailer, the plot remains tightly under wraps, though the new scenes suggest a global shock over alien existence.
The new footage opens with a broadcast warning of a threat to release long-secret government information. Soon after, O'Connor's character appears to confirm that the discovery is not human at all, raising immediate tension about what exactly is being revealed.
Spielberg then leans into spectacle, showing action sequences on moving vehicles and a looming ship-like object emerging through the clouds. The director's return to blockbuster sci-fi has instantly reignited speculation online, especially among viewers drawn to alien disclosure narratives.
One phrase that has resurfaced in fan discussions is 'sine wave language', a concept sometimes referenced in UFO circles as a possible method of extraterrestrial communication based on sound frequencies and wave patterns.
While there is no verified scientific evidence supporting the existence of an alien 'sine wave language', the idea has gained traction in online communities that blend pop culture with conspiracy theories. The trailer's themes of hidden messages and secret material have made it fertile ground for those conversations.
Following the Super Bowl spot, social media and Reddit threads quickly filled with jokes and speculation. In one discussion on the r/movies teaser thread, users joked about filmmakers predicting alien language tropes decades ago, showing how quickly audiences link sci-fi storytelling with broader internet myth-making.
This kind of reaction is familiar territory for Spielberg, whose past films like 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' helped shape modern alien imagery.
'Disclosure Day' also marks Spielberg's first summer release since 2016's 'The BFG', signalling a return to the season he helped define with 'Jaws'. USA Today noted that the film's marketing began with cryptic billboards reading 'ALL WILL BE DISCLOSED', adding to the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding the project.
The film reunites Spielberg with screenwriter David Koepp, known for collaborations including 'Jurassic Park' and 'War of the Worlds'. Longtime composer John Williams is also returning to score the movie, strengthening expectations for a classic Spielberg-scale event.
The renewed interest in 'sine wave language' highlights how blockbuster sci-fi often spills into real-life speculation, even when the movie itself is purely fictional. Spielberg's trailer does not claim to be based on real encounters, yet its themes overlap with long-running alien disclosure myths that thrive online.
As 'Disclosure Day' heads toward its summer release, it is already shaping up to be more than a film trailer moment. It has become a cultural spark, blending Hollywood spectacle with the internet's endless appetite for extraterrestrial theories.
© Copyright IBTimes 2025. All rights reserved.
Today's E-Paper
Web Stories
E-Paper
Mid-day Gujarati
Inquilab
Mid-day Hindi
Updated on: 09 February,2026 01:17 PM IST | Mumbai
mid-day online correspondent
|
Sudha Chandran recalled a terrifying paranormal experience during a Gujarat shoot, claiming she sensed an energy pressing on her chest until prayer saved her. She also described eerie sounds on another set and a past trance at a Mata Ka Jagrata
Sudha Chandran
Veteran television actor and acclaimed Bharatanatyam dancer Sudha Chandran recently opened up about a harrowing paranormal experience she says she faced during a shoot in Gujarat, describing how it left her frozen and fearful until she turned to her faith for strength. The 60-year-old, who has long maintained she is sensitive to unusual energies, said she can “sense paranormal activity very quickly” and recounted the unsettling night in vivid detail.
Sudha explained that after a long day of filming, she reached her motel room around 11:30 pm, ate dinner and went to sleep beside her mother. She said she woke up suddenly to find a cupboard open and “could sense an energy moving towards me.” As the presence seemed to approach, she described it feeling like “a heavy weight pressing down on my chest.” She recalled desperately trying to speak or move, but “no sound was coming out.” Even though her mother was right next to her, she said she couldn't lift her hands.
Sudha said the energy seemed to grow stronger and “growling,” giving her the terrifying sense that it was “entering my body.” In that moment, she said her only recourse was prayer: “I took the name of Lord Kartik, somehow struck my mother with my hand, and suddenly my voice came back.” The heavy pressure, she said, lifted from her chest, leaving her shaken but relieved. Her mother then applied vibhuti, sacred ash, which helped her calm down.
In the same interview, Sudha also shared another eerie experience from a shoot in South India, where she said she often heard unexplained sounds at night, “the sound of anklets and the sound of a woman crying.” When she asked those around her about the noises, she said the reply was simply, “This place itself is like this.”
Sudha's accounts combine personal belief with spiritual interpretation. She believes her sensitivity to unseen energies guides her understanding of such experiences and underscores how deeply her faith and spiritual grounding shape her responses when confronted with what she perceives as the inexplicable.
Earlier, there was an incident at Mata Ka Jagrata where Sudha was seen dancing in trance, fans wondered whether she was possessed by the spiritual energies around.
Did you find this article helpful?
Help us improve further by providing more detailed feedback and stand a chance to win a 3-month e-paper subscription! Click Here
Note: Winners will be selected via a lucky draw.
Help us improve further by providing more detailed feedback and stand a chance to win a 3-month e-paper subscription! Click Here
Note: Winners will be selected via a lucky draw.
>
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
by Alex Billington February 8, 2026Source: YouTube
"Are they people?" "No." Another creepy reveal to give you the chills. Universal Pictures has launched their 60-second Super Bowl TV spot for Steven Spielberg's new sci-fi movie titled officially Disclosure Day, set for release in June 2026 this summer. Still the only brief intro available (from the teaser trailer) is this vague sci-fi synopsis: If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to 7 billion people... We are coming close to... Disclosure Day. The footage in this trailer reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with Spielberg showing us many humans & animals being taken over by aliens. What comes next? Disclosure Day stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo, with Wyatt Russell, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Michael Gaston, and Elliot Villar. There's a few more interesting shots, and one final jaw-drop "holy crap" moment when an alien ship starts to break through the clouds at the end. What a tease! I'm sure this Super Bowl spot made tons of people sit right up & go "WTF?!" What you do make of this new footage?
Here's the full Super Bowl TV spot for Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie Disclosure Day, from YouTube:
You can rewatch the first teaser trailer for Spielberg's Disclosure Day sci-fi movie right here to see more.
Universal Pictures is proud to release a new original event film created and directed by Steven Spielberg. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to 7 billion people. We are coming close to... Disclosure Day. Disclosure Day, formerly known as The Dish during secret production, is directed by the one-and-only filmmaker Steven Spielberg, director of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones movies, E.T., Empire of the Sun, Hook, the Jurassic Park movies, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, A.I., Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The BFG, Ready Player One, West Side Story, and The Fabelmans previously. The screenplay is written by David Koepp; from a story by Spielberg. Produced by Kristie Macosko Krieger and Spielberg for Amblin Entertainment. Universal debuts Spielberg's Disclosure Day in theaters starting June 6th, 2026 coming up in the summer. Even more intrigued now?
Find more posts in: Hype, Sci-Fi, To Watch, Trailer, TV Spots
FEATURED POSTS
FOLLOW FS HERE
Add our RSS to your Feedly +click here+
Latest posts now available on Bluesky:
Get the latest posts sent on Telegram 🔵
Your Privacy Manager
LATEST TO WATCH
▶ Watch: Awesome Cel Animation Music Video Short for 'Spirit Jumper' (Feb 9) ▶ Charming Korean Romance 'Midnight Sun' US Trailer - Ready on VOD (Feb 9) ▶ Big Roar Spot for Illumination's 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' Sequel (Feb 8) ▶ Dancing Frog Promo Spot for Pixar's 'Hoppers' Animal Kingdom Movie (Feb 8) ▶ New Journey Promo for 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' Star Wars Movie (Feb 8)
Want emails instead?Subscribe to our dailynewsletter updates:
© 2006-2026 First Showing® LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy | Data Policy ➚ | Archive ⏲