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Expelled AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam on Friday claimed that the ruling DMK has a chance to return to power through the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election. The former Chief Minister, who quit the NDA recently, sprang a surprise by meeting Chief Minister M K Stalin on the Assembly premises at the Secretariat here and greeted him. Later, when reporters asked about his sudden meeting, Panneerselvam said he met Chief Minister Stalin and greeted him upon completing five years in office.

Thiruvananthapuram, Marking a milestone in Kerala's inland waterways development, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the first phase of 280-km Akkulam-Chettuva Water Way at Chilakoor Beach Park in Varkala on February 26. The Water Way, spanning across different districts, is a major component of the state government's flagship West Coast Canal Renovation project, which is set to accelerate Kerala's sustainable and inclusive development by unlocking immense opportunities in multiple verticals including logistics and tourism, an official release said here on Friday. V Joy, MLA, will preside over the function scheduled at 4.30 pm, where Minister for Electricity K Krishnankutty will be the chief guest.

Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor’s specification that £2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated system Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes. The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s a staggering amount and I was speechless,” Yokoyama said.

Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa has announced on social media that he has been freed after "almost nine months of unjust imprisonment". His comments come shortly after the country's interim President, Delcy Rodríguez, signed an amnesty bill approved by its National Assembly that could lead to the release of hundreds of political prisoners. Rodríguez's interim government has faced pressure from the US to speed up the release of Venezuela's remaining political prisoners after delays to the law.

Just before sunset on Thursday, Nisreen Nassar crouched over her makeshift oven, burning wood and scraps of plastic to bake bread for her family so they could break their fast. Four months after the United States-brokered “ceasefire” came into effect in October, and as US President Donald Trump convened the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Thursday, she wasn’t expecting to be sheltering with her family in an abandoned school and cooking on an open fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “Our preparations and expectations for Ramadan this month were that it would be better than previous ones during the war.

In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court on Friday decided to depute judicial officers in West Bengal to adjudicate claims of voters listed under the “logical discrepancy” category in the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise, acknowledging that this was an extraordinary decision in view of the extraordinary circumstances. A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant noted the “trust deficit” and an “unfortunate blame game” between the elected state government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) and underlined the significance of completing the SIR exercise before the state elections a few months later. “We are left with hardly another option but to request the chief justice of the Calcutta high court to spare some serving judicial officers, along with former judicial officers with impeccable integrity, in the rank of additional district judge or district judge, who can then, in each district, be requested to revisit or dispose of claims under the category of logical discrepancy,” the bench comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Panchol said.

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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have cast a long shadow over the British monarchy, even as King Charles III has taken strong action recently against his younger brother. The case has the potential to shake confidence in a central pillar of the British establishment. On Thursday morning, Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was arrested on suspicions of misconduct in public office amid reports that he had shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.

An increase in demand for sports supplements likely driven by New Year's resolutions helped lift retail sales by more than expected in January. Sales volumes across Britain rose by 1.8% over the month, news figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. Continuing strong sales from online jewellers after a recent spike in gold prices also helped drive the increase.

French utility company EDF says operations in Somerset will start a year later as delay costs firm ‚¬2.5bn Britain €™s first new nuclear plant in a generation at the Hinkley Point C site will face further delay, at a cost of ‚¬2.5bn to the French utility company EDF. EDF said the first reactor at the site in Somerset will begin operations a year later than planned in 2030 €“ almost 13 years after construction work began €“ after a series of delays to the project. The latest delay will wipe almost £3bn from the French state-owned developer €™s accounts and take the total cost of building the nuclear plant to £35bn, or almost double the estimate of £18bn when it was given the green light in 2016.

In an extraordinary order, the Supreme Court on Friday directed deployment of serving and former district judges to assist the Election Commission in the controversy-ridden special intensive revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal. Ruing the "unfortunate blame game" between the EC and the TMC-led government, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi passed a slew of fresh directions to ensure completion of the special intensive revision (SIR) process in the state. The bench ordered deputation of judicial officers for adjudication of claims and objections of persons put under logical discrepancy list.

What if the next war over Arunachal Pradesh is not fought on a mountain, but on a motherboard? The signs are on the wall. At the recently concluded India AI Summit, Lt. Gen. Dinesh Singh Rana, commander-in-chief, Strategic Forces Command, spoke of India using AI to anticipate and foil a Chinese incursion into the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit sales Aston Martin has again warned its profits will be lower than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances. The luxury carmaker, majority owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024. Analysts had been expecting the struggling company to post a loss of £184m at its annual results, due to be published next Wednesday.

Black comedy thriller. A student at University finds himself drawn into the world of a charming, aristocratic classmate. More

Mumbai, The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Friday raised concerns over a "disturbing pattern" in recent times, where matrimonial prosecutions are initiated by women against their spouse and family members as a "pressure tactic". A single bench of Justice Pravin Patil, while quashing an FIR filed by the Wardha police against a man, his parents and relatives based on the complaint of his estranged wife alleging cruelty and harassment, noted that the provisions of section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code are being misused nowadays and cases are registered over trivial issues. The court, in its order, said most matrimonial cases nowadays are initiated with oblique or collateral motives.

UK ex-prince leaves police station after arrest related to Epstein files The UK’s former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was filmed leaving a police station on Thursday night, following his arrest related to the Epstein files.

Danny Rohl takes charge of his 20th Scottish Premiership match on Sunday Danny Rohl has "total" belief Rangers can win the Scottish Premiership but has called on his players to back it up with "consistency". Rangers have picked up 46 of a possible 57 points since Rohl took charge in October and last Sunday's 4-2 win over Hearts moved the Ibrox side to within two points of the Scottish Premiership leaders. However, Celtic, who are a point behind Rangers, have a game in hand on the top two.

The United States and Iran are once again on the brink, with a calibrated military build‑up and fragile back‑channel diplomacy unfolding in parallel. In a wide‑ranging conversation on Hindustan Times’ Point Blank, Executive Editor Shishir Gupta and Senior Anchor Aayesha Varma unpack how close the region is to a potential strike, why this moment is uniquely dangerous, and where India fits into the rapidly shifting equation. US President Donald Trump has publicly declared that the world will know within 10 days whether Washington reaches a deal with Tehran or “takes things further” – a deliberately ambiguous formulation that keeps both diplomacy and force on the table.

Experts say there are already sufficient US military assets in the Middle East to begin an aerial bombing campaign against Iran, potentially in conjunction with Israel, though it is less clear what this would achieve. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and other warships in a strike group have been in the Arabian Sea for nearly a month, with nine squadrons of aircraft including F-35 Lightning IIs and F/A-18 Super Hornets. A second carrier strike group, led by the USS Gerald R Ford, was last confirmed to be in the Atlantic west of Morocco on Tuesday.

Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK. Find out how to listen to other BBC stations Who are the people shaping MAGA ideology in the US? Tucker Carlson’s story tells a larger one about just how much conservative media has changed in the United States, and the direction of conservatism itself.

United States President Donald Trump's announcement of releasing government files on “aliens” and unidentified flying objects (UFO) did not sit well with a Congressman of his own party, who sought to remind that even with this new release, the Epstein files “are not going away”. Thomas Massie, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, quoted the White House's post on X (formerly Twitter) about the alien files statement by Trump, and wrote: “They’ve deployed the ultimate weapon of mass distraction, but the Epstein files aren’t going away… even for aliens.” Thomas Massie is a Republican politician who represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, which stretches across Northern Kentucky and 280 miles of the Ohio River, in the US House of Representatives of the US Congress. Also read: Trump orders UFO, alien files released, faces backlash over Epstein documents; ‘distracting from mess’ He was elected to the Congress in November 2012 before which, he served as Lewis County Judge Executive.

UK Athletics has pleaded guilty to the corporate manslaughter of Paralympian Abdullah Hayayei. Hayayei died aged 36 after a metal cage fell on him while training at Newham Leisure Centre, London in July 2017. UK Athletics pleaded not guilty to the charge in March 2025 but entered a fresh plea on Friday at an Old Bailey hearing.

India is set to put a final stamp on several trade deals and free trade agreements (FTAs) in 2026, starting with the operationalisation of interim trade pact between India and the United States in April. In the same month, New Delhi's free trade agreements (FTAs) with the UK and Oman are likely to be implemented, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday. Following this, India's trade pact with New Zealand is expected to be implemented in September, Goyal said, PTI reported.

Agreement across continent that Mountbatten-Windsor €™s detention has put monarchy in unprecedented danger Neither the shock nor the historical significance of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was lost on the European press. And if there was one thing that correspondents and leader writers around the continent could agree on, it was that the former prince €™s detention had plunged the British monarchy into a place of unprecedented danger and vulnerability. €œDespite all the scandals that have shaken the British royal family over the decades, it €™s no exaggeration to say that the arrest of King Charles III €™s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor represents a momentous watershed for the Windsor monarchy, € El País said in a leader on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi began Friday with an intensive round of engagements, including a high-level interaction with AI startup founders and seven back-to-back bilateral meetings with global leaders and top technology executives. In the morning, PM Modi chaired a roundtable with 16 CEOs from leading AI and deeptech startups. Track latest updates from AI Summit here The discussions focused on India's innovation ecosystem, access to capital, research and development support, skilling, and pathways to scale globally from India.

Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. Plus, how anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement Federal investigators examined Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer who worked at the St Thomas airport to which the late convicted sex offender flew regularly by private plane before traveling by boat or helicopter to his private island, newly released documents reveal. As part of that investigation, which did not result in any charges, investigators also issued subpoenas related to three additional CBP officers working at the Cyril E King airport (STT) on St Thomas, documents show.

Canada on Wednesday revised immigration priority categories to bring skilled workers in a variety of fields, including certain military recruitments. The new categories mirror Prime Minister Mark Carney's aim of broadly reducing the number of permanent residents in Canada. A press release cited returning immigration "to sustainable levels" as the reason for the change in immigration categories.

Conservative United States podcaster Tucker Carlson has claimed Israeli authorities briefly took his passport and interrogated one of his crew members at the airport after the presenter conducted an interview with US ambassador Mike Huckabee, according to media reports. In The Daily Mail and The New York Post, published on Wednesday, Carlson said that shortly after the interview with the diplomat, Israeli officials confiscated his passport and took one of his colleagues off to an interrogation room. “Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about,” Carlson reportedly said.

Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962, but he was known also for a succinct and profound quote, with which he elevated the idea of space travel to a metaphysical level. “To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible," John Herschel Glenn Jr said after the second and last time he traveled to space in 1998. On his spaceflights, he said, he prayed every day — a seeming dichotomy as science and the concept of God are seen as adversarial ideas.

Gloria Allred says allegations involving sharing of state trade secrets were prioritised over sexual assault claims against trade envoy A lawyer representing several victims of Jeffrey Epstein has said she does not believe there will be €œany real justice € for those trafficked and abused by him and his high-profile associates, despite the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Gloria Allred, who has worked as a women €™s rights lawyer for five decades, said that while the UK had acted quickly on the allegation that the former prince had shared confidential documents with the disgraced financier while he was a trade envoy, there appeared to be far less progress on sexual assault allegations against him. Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 €™s Today programme, she said: €œThe state has acted quickly to make this arrest but there still has not been any action on the part of the police on allegations that Andrew has committed crimes against women.

In 1974, Lt. Colonel Randall Lanning manned the launch controls that could deploy nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet attack. He looks back at one night that's still etched in his memory.

Police in Chhattisgarh Raipur arrested two men after one of them was seen torching their motorcycle at a petrol pump with a lighter he was using to light up a cigarette and was asked not to. The two men reportedly reached the Sangita Fuels petrol pump near Karma Chowk in the Urla area at around 7:40 pm on February 18 to refuel their two-wheeler. Police Commissionerate Raipur shared a CCTV footage of the incident along with the update of their arrest and wrote on X, “कानून के साथ खेल, तो जाओगे सीधा जेल [Whoever plays with law and order, will land in jail]”.

In a big takeaway from the AI Summit 2026, at least 75 countries are signing the 'Delhi Declaration' - reportedly a non-binding pledge or declaration on goals for AI development. A senior IT ministry official said Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is expected to hold a press conference over the same on Friday evening. Track latest update from AI Summit here Meanwhile, the government on Thursday announced New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments, with Vaishnaw describing them as a significant outcome of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 and a shared voluntary framework adopted by leading global and Indian AI companies.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reacted strongly to the shirtless protest by the workers of the Indian Youth Congress at the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi on Friday. A group of Youth Congress workers on day 5 of the AI Summit entered the venue at Bharat Mandapam and were seen carrying or wearing T-shirts with slogans against the PM, India-US trade deal and Epstein files. Follow AI summit updates The BJP termed the incident as ‘national shame’ and said that the Congress party's ‘topless’ protest under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi is an act designed to embarrass India on the world stage.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, explained his jiu-jitsu martial arts analogy used in Parliament while criticising the India-US trade deal. The Congress leader, in a video on his social media handles on Friday, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "trapped" in political "grips" and a "choke" that are not visible to the public. "A lot of people have asked me why I used a Jiu-Jitsu analogy in my Parliament speech.

City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’ A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade cameras installed by local authorities to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said. The episode was detailed in a Facebook post on the city of Catania’s official page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.

Water samples are taken from the Potomac River in Maryland in January. A massive pipe that moves millions of gallons of sewage ruptured and sent wastewater flowing into the Potomac River northwest of Washington, D.C. Nathan Ellgren/AP hide caption In January, part of a decades-old sewer line in Maryland collapsed by the Potomac River. Over the following days, the broken pipe dumped more than 200 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac near Washington, D.C.

A week after the Supreme Court nudged music composer AR Rahman to consider formally recognising the Dagarwani lineage behind the song Veera Raja Veera, Rahman on Friday agreed to acknowledge the rendition of the Junior Dagar Brothers in the credits of the track from the film Ponniyin Selvan II. Recording the concession, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi directed that the modified credit line be reflected across all social media and OTT platforms within five weeks. The additional credit will read: “Composition inspired by the Dagarwani tradition Dhrupad, first recorded as ‘Shiv Stuti’ by late Ustad Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar and Ustad Nasir Zahiruddin Dagar, popularly known as Junior Dagar Brothers.” The statement was made by senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi, on behalf of Rahman, without prejudice to the copyright infringement suit pending before the Delhi high court, filed by Dhrupad vocalist Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar, who is a successor of the Junior Dagar Brothers.

Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin €™s plans to invade, and why most of Europe €“ including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy €“ dismissed them. As the fourth anniversary of the invasion approaches and the world enters a new period of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe €™s politicians and spy services continue to draw lessons from the failures of 2022 William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine.

If anyone thought that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would be leaving a police cell and going to court, they were seriously wrong. That's because he is now under investigation for misconduct in public office. The offence, essentially an allegation of corruption, is one of the most difficult crimes to investigate, charge, prosecute and convict.

US renews threat of military action as Iran, Russia announce naval drills The United States administration is intensifying its build-up of a vast array of military assets in the Middle East, as President Donald Trump says Iran has “10 to 15 days at most” to agree a deal over its nuclear programme and stock of ballistic missiles. As well as the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, which is reportedly joining the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea, key force multipliers such as E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft have been deployed. In a letter to the United Nations Security Council, Iran said that while the country does not seek “tension or war and will not initiate a war”, any US aggression will be responded to “decisively and proportionately”.

A large banner featuring the face of US President Donald Trump was hung outside the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, DC, on Thursday in a display of power over the law enforcement agency that once investigated him. The banner was hung between two columns on one corner of the building and read, “Make America Safe Again,” a slogan long used by the Trump administration to tout its efforts to clamp down on illegal immigration and violent crime. It was also seen as a symbol of a shift from the department's tradition of independence from White House control, Associated Press reported.

Israel is severely restricting Palestinians’ access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan, with many hundreds queueing at the Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah hoping and waiting to get in. But Israeli authorities say they will allow no more than 10,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank into one of Islam’s holiest sites for the day, and only with permits, a fraction of the worshipers who have visited to mark the occasion in previous years. Only children under the age of 12, men over 55, and women 50 years or older are eligible.

January increase of 1.8% beats forecasts and was also driven by shoppers snapping up jewellery online Retail sales in Great Britain rose 1.8% in January, the largest monthly increase in almost two years, according to official data, as heavy discounting and post-Christmas sales drew consumers back to bigger ticket purchases. The rise easily beat forecasts of a 0.2% rise and was partly driven by sales of artwork and antiques sales in January, alongside continued strong sales from online jewellers, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. It was the biggest monthly rise since May 2024.

Several members of opposition Congress's youth wing on Friday staged a shirtless protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India AI Impact Summit venue Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. A video of the protest by the Indian Youth Congress (IYCP) has gone viral on social media, showing several protestors walking into the venue while holding their t-shirts in their hands. The agitators also shouted anti-Modi slogans, echoing the party’s protests against the India-US trade deal in the parliament recently.

US ambassador to India Sergio Gor on Friday said that PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump would meet each other, but he did not commit to a timeline just yet. Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, Gor was asked when the two leaders would meet. “Stay tuned, I'm sure it'll happen at the right moment,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying.

A judge has issued an order to temporarily block the deportation of four Chagossians who travelled to the Chagos Islands to protest against a deal to hand over the territory to Mauritius. The Chagossians arrived on a remote part of the archipelago on Monday after sailing from Sri Lanka, with the aim of establishing a permanent settlement on their "homeland". British authorities served the four men with eviction papers, which warned them they could face fines or jail if they did not leave.

Trump’s Board of Peace faces its first test on Gaza Members of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace have expressed optimism about peace and rebuilding in Gaza at its inaugural session. Despite multibillion dollar pledges, there are doubts about how it will manage the enclave’s unresolved issues.

Families of political prisoners await prison releases as Venezuela signs amnesty law Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriquez signed an amnesty law that could free hundreds of people jailed over protests and political unrest dating back decades. The law marks a shift for the country, which has long denied holding any political prisoners.

As the trial related to the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar is expected to begin later this year, the Canadian government has sought to block some details from being revealed as that could prove “injurious to international relations and national security”. An application in this regard has been made by the Attorney General of Canada, according to a report in the outlet Global News. The plea to keep some information confidential is that it is “sensitive”, the report said citing court documents.