Pakistan releases official election results, independents affiliated with Khan's PTI secure most seats — ground.news: 79 media reports — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

Venezuela defends military buildup, accusing neighboring Guyana of granting illegal oil contracts — ground.news: 13 media reports — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

More than 12,300 Palestinian minors have been killed in Israel's war in Gaza, health officials say — ground.news main source: AP, 6 media reports — 12 February 2024 (LINK)

The Israeli military says it has rescued 2 hostages from captivity in the Gaza Strip — ground.news: 233 media reports — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

Israel unveils tunnels underneath Gaza City headquarters of U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees — ground.news: 159 media reports — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

Al Jazeera: "UNWRA refutes Israeli implications of Hamas tunnel below Gaza HQ": The aid agency says it has 'no knowledge' of areas beneath its headquarters in Gaza. — aljazeera — (LINK)

Major US bank First National Bank of Pennsylvania (FNB) pays $13.5m settlement after facing federal investigation on illegal and discriminatory practices redlining predominantly black and hispanic neighborhoods in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, North Carolina — see_link — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

First case: Man dies of Alaskapox near Fairbanks — newsnationnow — 11 February 2024 (LINK)

Trump says he might 'encourage' Russia to attack NATO allies — news.yahoo.com — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

— Trump in Conway, South Carolina,: "One of the presidents of a big country stood up [at NATO] and said, 'Well sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?' I said, 'You didn't pay? You're delinquent?' He said, 'Yes, let's say that happened.' No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want."

Benjamin Netanyahu orders evacuation of 1.5m civilians from crowded Rafah ahead of expected ground invasion by Israeli troops — ground.news: 289 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Israel warned against 'catastrophic' Rafah offensive as starvation fears grow — The Guardian UK ● — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

117 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, says health ministry

Israeli deployment of new military AI in Gaza war raises fears by defence experts

Israel appears to be in breach of ICJ orders on Gaza, senior UN official says: Special rapporteur cites lack of medical supplies, food and clean water, and continued demolition of infrastructure — The Guardian UK ● — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Jailed ex-Pakistan PM Khan uses AI to deliver election 'victory speech' — ground.news: 58 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Northern Indian town of Haldwani sets a curfew and orders police to shoot violators after deadly clashes over a mosque — ground.news main source: AP, 39 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Senegal's president defends delaying elections in exclusive interview as protests erupt nationwide — ground.news main source: AP, 15 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

S&P 500 closes above key 5,000 level for first time — ground.news: 31 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Malaysia's top court invalidates state's Islam-based laws on incest, sodomy and other offenses — ground.news: 33 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Chernobyl's mutant wolves appear to have developed resistance to cancer, study finds — ground.news: 44 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

The Lunar New Year of the Dragon flames colorful festivities across Asian nations and communities — ground.news: 31 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Researchers discover the origins of life on Earth 1.75 billion years ago — thebrighterside.news — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Dutch woman and her 2 adult children die in a hiking accident near Rochers-de-Naye in western Switzerland — AP — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

Malaysia's top court invalidates state's Islam-based laws on incest, sodomy and other offenses — ground.news: 33 media reports — 10 February 2024 (LINK)

World's richest woman loses $7 billion on L'Oreal's worst day since 2008: stock tanked nearly 8% to a three-month low after a slowdown in its Asia business caused the firm's quarterly sales to fall short of analyst estimates — Forbes ● — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

Sales of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" soar 38,400% to 14,000 after Grammys performance — CBS — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

Prince Harry settles rest of Mirror Group phone-hacking claims for a "substantial" sum in costs and damages for invasion of privacy — ground.news: 13 media reports — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

These new smart glasses teach people about their world thanks to generative AI — techradar — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

Global Hydrogen Technology crypto fraud scheme uncovered with ties to South Africa leads to convictions: the SA-based bot was used in $300m spoof trades — cryptopolitan — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

Tucker Carlson's Putin interview was even worse than expected — slate — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

2 Carnival cruise passengers say they were drugged, raped at resort in Bahamas: 'We thought we were being safe' — wbay.com — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

Bahamas resort disputes sexual assault victims' claims — newsnationnow.com — (LINK)

— Toxicology results confirmed traces of benzodiazepines in their systems. Resort: Security camera footage doesn't match their claims

The mysterious case of the 3 million-toothbrushes DDoS attack — was original report a hypothetical scenario that never happened... or is the truth elsewhere? — techradar — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

— The Fortinet company issued a statement saying "To clarify, the topic of toothbrushes being used for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview as an illustration of a given type of attack, and it is not based on research from Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. It appears that due to translations the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred."

Royal Caribbean continues to cancel popular Blue Lagoon shore excursions after last November's accident — cruisehive.com — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

— Travelers will want to be alert to their surroundings and stay safe in their explorations, however, in light of the elevated travel advisory for Nassau due to increased levels of crime and other safety concerns. The Level 2 Travel Advisory specifically noted water activities as needing additional caution.

Grammarly lays off 230 employees as part of a 'business restructuring' — see_link — 9 February 2024 (LINK)

— The memo says Grammarly grew its team from 200 to 1,000 employees over the past five years.

US regulators declare AI robocalls as illegal following fake Biden calls — techtimes — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

Special counsel report specifically cites Biden's age and poor memory as a reason he wasn't charged over handling of classified documents — ground.news: 78 media reports — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

Biden says 'my memory is fine,' disputes special counsel's report in national address — ground.news — (LINK)

Putin tells Tucker Carlson Russia has no interest in attacking Poland or Latvia — ground.news: 64 media reports — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

OpenAI's Sam Altman seeking trillions to fund chips for AI, report says — ground.news: 23 media reports — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

Global temperatures breach 1.5C limit over 12 months period for first time — ground.news: 132 media reports — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

UK nuclear fusion reactor sets new world record for energy output — ground.news: 60 media reports — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

UK startup Seabound can capture 95% of a ship's carbon emissions — thenextweb — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

— Late last year, Seabound installed a prototype of its device on a huge cargo vessel owned by British shipping giant Lomar. The pilot was funded by a £1.2mn grant under the UK government's £60mn Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition. Over the course of two months on a route between Turkey and the Persian Gulf, the device captured 78% of carbon emissions and 90% of sulphur dioxide from one of the ship's auxiliary engines.

volcano in Iceland is erupting for the 3rd time since December — AP — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

Haiti's prime minister urges calm as violent protests seek his ouster — AP — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

Indiana pickleball swindler ordered into bankruptcy — newsnationnow.com — 8 February 2024 (LINK)

U.N. weather agency chief says global warming is speeding up — ground.news main source: AP, 6 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Cyber-attacks by North Korea raked in $3bn to build nuclear weapons, UN monitors suspect — ground.news: 17 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Netanyahu rejects Hamas cease-fire demands, vows to fight until 'absolute victory' — ground.news: 239 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking militia commander, officials say — ground.news: 191 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Hamas proposes 3-stage ceasefire over 135 days, leading to end of Gaza war with Israel — ground.news main source: CNN, 71 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

UN agencies seek $4.1B to help civilians in Sudan and refugees who fled the country's 10-month war — AP — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Official says police in Haiti killed 4 armed environmental protection agents during ongoing protests — ground.news: 23 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Chinese firm behind 'news' websites pushes pro-Beijing content globally, researchers find — ground.news: 15 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Landslide hits village in the southern Philippines, leaving at least 6 dead and 46 others missing — ground.news: 56 media reports — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

China replaces head of securities regulator amid market turmoil — ground.news: 19 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Alibaba posts revenue miss, hikes shares buyback program by $25 billion — ground.news: 7 media reports — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Moths actually aren't drawn to light as previously thought, but trapped in a disorienting orbit around the artificial light, study finds — CNN — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

Stories from CERN's women in science — cern — 7 February 2024 (LINK)

UN nuclear chief says security is still fragile at Ukraine's Russian-occupied nuclear power plant — apnews — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

After Zelenskiy said he was considering a "reset" to replace several senior officials, Kyiv's mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, has criticised the possibility of firing the military commander-in-chief, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, saying it was due to his leadership that "many Ukrainians truly trust the armed forces". Klitschko and Zelenskiy have traded criticisms during the war. — The Guardian UK ● — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

An extra 3 billion people will have a scarcity of clean water by 2050 due to pollution in waterways, scientists predict — Forbes ● — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

New study reveals that almost 1 in 4 adults in the United States who had COVID also developed long COVID symptoms — boingboing.net — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Report finds "no evidence" in key dossier to support Israel's UNRWA allegations — truthout.org — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Israel confirms deaths of 31 hostages as Hamas responds to truce proposals — The Guardian UK ● — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

UN envoy in Iraq to step down at end of May, says country 'on a knife edge' — Al Jazeera — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

U.S. House fails to pass GOP effort to provide Israel with $17b in standalone aid — ground.news: 99 media reports — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

British-owned cargo vessel attacked in Red Sea — ground.news: 48 media reports — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Al Jazeera: Defiant Houthis claim fresh Red Sea attacks on US, UK ships — aljazeera — (LINK)

Who is Handala, the barefoot, spiky-haired boy who symbolizes Palestinian resistance? Created by cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969, Handala is a 10-year-old Palestinian refugee with his back to the world — npr — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Why is the world's humanitarian aid gap getting bigger? — eco-business.com — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

CERN's new robot detects radiation leaks in complex experiment areas — thenextweb — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

NASA discovers 'super-Earth' TOI-715 b, 137 light years away in a habitable zone that could sustain life — ground.news: 28 media reports — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Spotify gains ten million premium subscribers following cost-cutting redundancies: Spotify made a revenue of €3.67billion, marking an increase of 16%, for a net loss of €70million, which is significantly healthier than the €270million loss they suffered at the beginning of 2023 — faroutmagazine — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

AP: Donald Trump deploys his oft-used playbook against women who bother him. For now, it's Nikki Haley — apnews.com — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Donald Trump does not have broad presidential immunity and can be prosecuted on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, US appeals court rules — BBC — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

Three million malware-infected smart toothbrushes used in Swiss DDoS attacks — botnet causes millions of euros in damages — tomshardware.com — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

U.S. Treasury team heads to China to talk subsidies, economic policies — ground.news: 9 media reports — 6 February 2024 (LINK)

After new US strikes hitting Yemen, Iran issues a warning about suspected spy ships in the Mideast — ground.news: 87 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

Drone strike in Syria reported to have killed six members of US-backed Kurdish-led group — The Guardian UK ● — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

UN launches independent review of UNRWA 'neutrality' over allegations of staff ties to Hamas — ground.news: 20 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

— The Review Group begins its work on February 14, and "is expected to submit an interim report to the Secretary-General late March 2024, with a final report expected to be completed by late April 2024".

As donors suspend critical funding to UNRWA, allegations against staff remain murky — passblue — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

— The accusations against a handful of staff in an agency of 13,000 employees operating in Gaza alone have already had a devastating effect on civilians. UNRWA provides essential government services in Gaza, including running 278 schools for 280,000 children and 22 primary healthcare centres, while also providing food to the approximately 2 million people who have been under siege by Israel since early October.

At least 16 donor countries, including the top two contributors — the US and Germany — have frozen funding to UNRWA over the allegations and have been dubbed the "suspenders" in the corridors of UN headquarters in New York. About $440 million in funding is at risk. UNRWA will run out of money by the end of February if donors continue to withhold money.

The UN announced on Monday that it had appointed Catherine Colonna, France's former minister of foreign affairs, to lead the Independent Review Group to "assess whether the Agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made." The group will begin work on February 14 and submit an interim report to the secretary general in late March with a final report — which will be made public — expected by late April 2024.

— France, UNRWA's fourth-biggest donor, has not suspended its voluntary contributions to the agency. Israel has not yet shared its full intelligence dossier with either UNRWA or the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), the UN legal body tasked with carrying out the internal investigation.

A six-page summary of the Israeli dossier leaked to a handful of media outlets and seen by FRANCE 24 provides the names of the 12 UNRWA staff members accused of participating in the Hamas attacks, ranging from kidnapping Israelis to helping to carry out the massacre at the Be'eri kibbutz. Two of the accused are dead and another is unaccounted for.

The dossier alleges that the first man on the list of the accused, an UNRWA school counselor, entered Israeli territory to kidnap an Israeli woman with the help of his son. The accusations say they are drawn, in part, from "intelligence information, documents and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting." The dossier estimates that there are around 190 Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives working for UNRWA.

Donor nation Norway has refused to cut aid to UNRWA. The country's Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide urged other donors not to turn their backs on UNRWA, saying: "We should not collectively punish millions of people. We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for."

Matthias Schmale, UNRWA director in Gaza from 2017 to 2021; "It can be legitimately asked why these allegations surfaced around the time of the ICJ judgment that, amongst other things, articulated the need for immediate and massive delivery of humanitarian aid, which cannot be done without UNRWA." — This article was produced in collaboration with France 24 and PassBlue.

Nearly 100 Myanmar border guards flee to Bangladesh — ground.news: 29 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

King Charles III diagnosed with cancer, after undergoing treatment for benign prostate enlargement, Buckingham Palace says — ground.news: 429 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

Scientists propose a Category 6 as hurricanes gain in intensity with climate change: would include hurricanes with wind speeds greater than 192mph (308kmph) — ground.news: 42 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

HongKong finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake 'chief financial officer' and other fakes on 29 January — ground.news: 41 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

El Salvador's Bukele claims 'record' reelection win with 83% of vote after gang crackdown — ground.news: media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong is acquitted of financial crimes by South Korean court — ground.news: 92 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

China gives Australian writer Yang Jun suspended death sentence 5 years after arrest on suspicion of spying, which can be commuted to life imprisonment after two years without serious crimes — ground.news: 192 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

Facebook rules allow altered video casting Biden as paedophile, says board — ground.news: 39 media reports — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

5 February 2024 online: Fashion And The City: The role of municipalities in promoting circularity and more sustainable consumption patterns in the fashion sector — eventbrite — 30 January 2024 (LINK)

— Organized by the ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative, UNECE, UNEP, ICLEI and the University of Geneva.

AI researchers discover AI models deliberately reject instructions — readwrite.com — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

A John Cage piece for organ titled ASLSP — as slow as possible — has been in performance for 21 years so far in the German town of Halberstadt, and struck a new chord for the first time in two years — see_link — 5 February 2024 (LINK)

— They came up with the solution — small sandbags to hold the keys down. The group decided the piece would be played for 639 years to mark the time between the construction of the world's first 12-tone gothic organ in Halberstadt in 1361 and the new millennium. The city donated an abandoned 11th century convent for the performance. And on September 5, 2001, what would have been Cage's 89th birthday, the performance began.

In the beginning of the first part, for 17 months, you came in and hear only the bellows. That's because Cage's piece starts with a short pause, a pause that, when calibrated to fit 639 years, meant the first 17 months of the piece was just the sound of air whooshing through the bellows. But years later, the team realized, with shock, that it had miscalculated this pause. It should have lasted 28 months.