The U.K. and Japan have slumped into recession while the U.S. keeps defying gloomy expectations (fortune.com)
Texas ban on university diversity efforts provides a glimpse of the future across GOP-led states (apnews.com)
The dim lighting and vacant offices were the first clues....
Trump Privately Expresses Support for a 16-Week Abortion Ban (www.nytimes.com)
Archived at ghostarchive.org/archive/fPvml
Alexei Navalny appears healthy in video-link court hearing on day before his death – video (www.theguardian.com)
Biden–Harris Admin Invests $60 Million to Expand Clean, Renewable Geothermal Energy (cleantechnica.com)
American Express, Visa, Mastercard move ahead with code to track gun store purchases in California (www.cbsnews.com)
Major credit card companies are moving to make a merchant code available for firearm and ammunition retailers in order to comply with a new California law that will allow banks to potentially track suspicious gun purchases and report them to law enforcement, CBS News has learned....
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers in the U.S. to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay (www.nbcnews.com)
Investigators will try to find out why a private jet crashed onto a Florida interstate and killed 2 (apnews.com)
The Federal Aviation Administration said the Bombardier Challenger 600 jet had five people were aboard when the crash happened around 3:15 p.m. Friday near Naples, just north of where the interstate heads east toward Fort Lauderdale along what is known as Alligator Alley....
Proposed Wage Theft Legislation Would Strip Violators of Their Ability to Do Business in New York (www.propublica.org)
“Each year, more than $1 billion is stolen from the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers by unscrupulous employers, often targeting the workers with the fewest resources to fight back,” Rosenthal said. “If businesses refuse to do the right thing and pay their workers what they are owed, New York State should hold them to...
Bao Fan: Missing China billionaire banker resigns from all roles (www.bbc.com)
Chinese billionaire banker Bao Fan, who has been missing for almost a year, has resigned from all roles at his firm, China Renaissance Holdings....
Melissa Barrera Incites More Controversy With New Social Media Posts, Sparking Heated Debate at WME (variety.com)
Melissa Barrera is under fire over new social media posts, prompting her reps at WME and Sugar23 to explore dropping the actress as a client.
'White Lives Matter' member gets 18 years for firebombing church that planned drag events (www.nbcnews.com)
Aimenn Penny told the FBI that he would have felt better if his Molotov cocktails had burned an LGBT-friendly church to the ground.
The US hasn't seen syphilis numbers this high since 1950. Other STD rates are down or flat (apnews.com)
Bayer settles lawsuits from cancer patients over Roundup weed killer in $10 billion agreement (www.cnn.com)
Pentagon ex-UFO chief says conspiracy theorists in government drive spending (www.theguardian.com)
Cancer vaccine with minimal side effects nearing Phase 3 clinical trials (abcnews.go.com)
Each shot would be completely personalized to the patient....
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman marries partner Oliver Mulherin in seaside ceremony (www.nbcnews.com)
Feds charge eBay over employees who sent live spiders and cockroaches to couple; company to pay $3M (abcnews.go.com)
The Steiners, the newsletter’s publisher and editor, have also sued the e-commerce giant in federal court, describing how cyberstalking and upsetting deliveries of anonymously sent packages upended their lives....
Thousands of schools at risk of closing due to enrollment loss (www.the74million.org)
Districts from Philadelphia to Los Angeles have large numbers of schools that lost at least 20% of their students during the pandemic....
Student loan repayment problems frustrate borrowers, prompting federal response (www.nbcnews.com)
Polar bear dies from bird flu as H5N1 spreads across globe (www.theguardian.com)
A polar bear has been killed by bird flu as the highly contagious H5N1 virus spreads into the most remote parts of the planet....
Prosecutors Ask Appeals Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claims in Election Case (www.nytimes.com)
Federal prosecutors asked an appeals court on Saturday to reject former President Donald J. Trump’s claims that he is immune from criminal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election and said the indictment should remain in place even though it arose from actions he took while in the White House....
From FedEx to airlines, companies are starting to lose their pricing power (www.cnbc.com)
After years of unbridled consumer spending on everything from home improvement to dream vacations, some companies are now finding the limits of their pricing power....
Gunman opens fire in a Prague university, killing 14 people in Czech Republic's worst mass shooting (apnews.com)
A student opened fire Thursday at a university in Prague, killing at least 14 people, officials said, and injuring more than 20 in the Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting....