(Politico) - Slightly more Americans think Democrats, not Republicans, are the party most committed to reducing energy prices, a new POLITICO poll has found .. @politico.com #$XLU www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Trump's attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which have included gutting its workforce and dropping enforcement actions, have cost consumers nearly $20B in the last year alone. It's a new golden age for corporate crooks. And Trump is happily letting them rip us off.

JD Vance is such a sophisticated figure. He posted this, and then deleted it—insulting both the Armenians and the Turks in rapid succession.

Located about 20 minutes south of Nashville, I had often imagined that I might one day like to live in Franklin, Tennessee, a true slice of Americana. That was until I encountered Gabrielle Hanson.

There is NOTHING ‘America First’ about selling out some of our most pristine waters so a Chilean mining company can come in, take our minerals, ship them to China for processing, then sell them off. All while polluting the Boundary Waters in the process.

Ouch

"[C]oncerns over surveillance have grown across higher education. One conservative group secretly recorded staff at six UNC System schools, and another group launched an effort to review course syllabi across the system." www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...

Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych appeared for training on the Olympic track wearing his ‘helmet of memory,’ with photographs of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia’s war, despite a ban from the IOC. ❤️‍🩹

Shots fired. “Because, as you can imagine, if by chance the German partner were to call into question the joint aircraft project, we would be forced to call into question the joint tank project.” - Macron in Le Monde www.lemonde.fr/economie/art...

UNC is close to finalizing its policy which outlines permissible circumstances to *SECRETLY RECORD FACULTY IN THE CLASSROOM.*

Let me correct this for you Reuters.

“The president’s gross, flagrant, and constant vulgarity and immaturity.” Paul Horwitz prawfsblawg.com/another-way-...

NEW: Federal judges are increasingly furious at what they see as a pattern / playbook of defiance by the Trump administration to court orders in immigration cases — in Minnesota and around the country. Here’s a look at what they’re seeing: www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

"In an email from department chair Kristi Sweet, Peterson was given two options: either remove “modules on race and gender ideology, and the Plato readings that may include these,” or be reassigned to teach a different philosophy course." www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Some recent examples of academic freedom being infringed in the US: "Faculty members in the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Science were asked to sign a three-page memo pledging not to 'indoctrinate' their students..." www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

v1.116 is rolling out now! For all the overthinkers and perfectionists out there, we're launching Drafts.

Some recent examples of academic freedom being infringed in the US: "Faculty members in the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Science were asked to sign a three-page memo pledging not to 'indoctrinate' their students..." www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

⚡️ EU chief diplomat calls Olympics crowd boos of JD Vance a sign of 'European pride.' "Well, I guess we have heard a lot of not-so-nice words from the United States regarding Europe," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

‘I saw the writing on the wall’: Austria offers safe haven for US academics as Trump wages war on universities

Well. Those who say we can’t defend Europe without the United States seem to be making their calculations without the United States. www.reuters.com/world/us-tur...

Record Arctic January sea temperatures heighten security risks ft.trib.al/nXHFDUa

State-sponsored hackers targeting defence sector employees, Google says

Claims of neutrality are an admission of bias in and of themselves No research is undertaken in a neutral space as funding, hierarchies, job perpectives, privileges, power and hegemony all come into play when deciding what will be research and how

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

The EU executive wants to cut Chinese firms out of the bloc's lucrative public contracts at home and abroad by overhauling its budget rules, according to three European Commission officials.

The perpetrators of cyber-attacks in Poland are thought to be from the FSB, Russia’s state security service. An expert says it is their first disruptive assault in 12 years

US immigration court blocks deportation of Tufts graduate student from Turkey, her attorneys say trib.al/FvpFxNq

We're asking ICE to do nothing

JUST IN: DOJ is trying to help Steve Bannon erase his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. Motion has no career prosecutor on it, just signed by US Attorney Pirro. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ChatGPT ads will display for users on the the free and low-cost "Go" plans.

“Palantir hired four ex-🇬🇧 Ministry of Defence officials last year, with its latest recruit joining months before the US spyware giant won its biggest ever contract with the department.”

In Danish: Contributing to this story on how several news outlets wrongly linked a Danish politician to the Epstein files after confusing her with a Norwegian ambassador of the same name. www.berlingske.dk/kultur/mona-...

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz has internal polling showing it trailing the opposition by at last 10 points.

“Everywhere that this has happened has been kind of a real dumpster fire,” said the Republican Orange County executive. “It’s been greeted with controversy, protests, violence, and it’s not something that we want." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/n...

What a fantastic picture of the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial -- reflective of this uncommon stretch of frigid, icy weather. Thanks to Seth Hoffman (@hocofoto) for sharing this amazing capture with us on Instagram.

Machado ally ‘kidnapped by heavily armed men’ after prison release trib.al/xHKct9i

Ghislaine Maxwell should be sent back to a maximum-security prison until she’s ready to publicly answer questions and name names under oath to Congress.

This rehash of my reporting on the ICE bounty hunter program notes that one of the firms I revealed in December, French firm Capgemini, has now canceled its contract www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

When we talk about European payment sovereignty, names like Digital Euro or WERO dominate the headlines. But the real heavyweight champion isn’t a project in development—it’s already here, it’s MADE IN POLAND, and it’s crushing records. It is BLIK www.blik.com/en www.ft.com/content/fcc2...

French authorities have just taken down hundreds of Russian disinformation websites aimed at sowing division and installing far-right candidates in the coming elections. Most of these sites were imitations of popular and trusted news outlets, populated with Ai content.

⚡️Ukraine, France move toward joint arms production with new agreement. Ukraine and France took a step toward joint arms production on Feb. 9, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin signed a letter of intent in Kyiv.

Trump has imposed sanctions on 8 ICC judges and 3 prosecutors. “The sanctioned ICC staff,” Reuters noted, “now sit on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list, alongside suspected al Qaeda terrorists, Mexican drug traffickers and North Korean arms dealers.” wapo.st/3MsWi3c

New in PN: The blowback to Trump's racist video reveals his weakness "What has changed is not Trump’s racism (which is the same as it ever was) but his poll numbers (which have dropped precipitously)." www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-obam...

Tech firms lobby EU commissioner Michael McGrath in advance of law targeting addictive apps

The Hong Kong court that sentenced the pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison on Monday also issued heavy sentences to six former employees of his now-shuttered newspaper, setting a new standard for the city’s limits on press freedom.

Winter Olympian Gus Kenworthy says he has received death threats over anti-ICE protest

The #MSCreport 2026 is out now! 🐘 The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics. More than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now ⚠️ Under Destruction. Read our brand-new Munich Security Report: securityconference.org/en/publicati...

A chunk of the cryptocurrency market seems to run on emotions tied to social identity. I discuss this in my paper published in @rastjournal.bsky.social. Link to full paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I have been a regular reader and subscriber to the Washington Post since 1974, and have stuck with the publication through rough times. This week was more than I can stomach.

England’s poorest areas have 70% more vape shops and bookmakers than wealthier ones