U.S. withdrawing all troops from Syria
The United States is withdrawing all of its roughly 1,000 troops from Syria, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing three U.S. officers.
The Pentagon earlier this month withdrew all U.S. troopers from the Al-Shaddadi base in northeastern Syria and from the Al Tanf garrison, a strategic outpost on the borders of Syria, Jordan and Iraq, in keeping with the r
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(260219) — CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Feb. 19, 2026 (Xinhua) — Yoshimura Sayaka (C) of Japan competes in the course of the curling girls’s spherical robin session 11 match between Britain and Japan on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, Feb. 18, 2026. (Xinhua/Ding Xu)
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 19 (ANI): The share markets within the nation opened on a optimistic observe on Thursday, supported by international inflows and continued shopping for curiosity from home buyers.
The Nifty 50 index opened at 25,873.35 with a achieve of 54 factors or 0.21 per cent, whereas the BSE Sensex opened at 83,969.82 with a achieve of 235.57 factors or 0.28 per cent.
Market consultants famous that optimistic world cues and sustained home shopping for are serving to the markets transfer greater, although world dangers stay.
Ajay Bagga, Banking and Market Expert, informed ANI, ‘Riding off optimistic FII flows and continued DII shopping for, Indian markets are as soon as extra looking for to interrupt by means of key resistance ranges. However, the extraordinarily overbought positioning and the worldwide threat from a US-Israel army motion on Iran retains us cautious concerning the outlook within the subsequent few days. Asian currencies are decrease at present within the face of a stronger US dollar. Oil costs spiked up on Wednesday because the US VP Vance’s feedback on Iran have been seen as pointing to an imminent US motion within the Middle East.’
In the commodity market, gold costs surged once more after a pointy decline on Wednesday and are at the moment buying and selling at Rs 155687 per 10 gm for twenty-four karat. Silver costs additionally recovered to Rs 242520 per kg after a steep fall on Wednesday.
In the broader markets, indices on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) have been buying and selling within the inexperienced. The Nifty 100 index was up by 0.10 per cent, whereas the Nifty Smallcap 100 gained 0.24 per cent and the Nifty Midcap 100 rose by 0.13 per cent.
Among sectoral indices on the NSE, Nifty Auto gained 0.27 per cent, Nifty IT surged 1.22 per cent, Nifty Metal rose by 0.65 per cent, Nifty Pharma gained 0.08 per cent, and Nifty PSU Bank was up by 0.35 per cent. However, Nifty FMCG, Nifty Media, and Nifty Realty have been buying and selling decrease.
Meanwhile, there might be no settlement-related actions resulting from a clearing vacation on account of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti. All transactions in each money and futures and choices (F&O) on February 18 and February 19 on the NSE and the BSE might be settled and mirrored within the demat accounts of buyers and merchants on February 20.
In the FIIs and DIIs flows on Wednesday, home buyers made a web funding of Rs 440 crore whereas international web funding surged to Rs 1154 crores.
Globally, US markets ended positively on Wednesday, whereas Asian markets have been largely buying and selling within the inexperienced on Thursday morning. However, markets in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan stay shut for the Lunar New Year vacation.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index surged by 0.89 per cent to the 57644 degree. Singapore’s Straits Times index additionally rose by greater than 1 per cent to 4990, whereas South Korea’s KOSPI gained 2.5 per cent to 56644.
The Federal Reserve’s newest FOMC assembly minutes have been seen as hawkish, with members in favour of holding charges and even open to a price hike if inflation rises. US bond yields have been greater as expectations of price cuts lowered. (ANI)
U.S. pop star Taylor Swift was topped the biggest-selling world artist of 2025, trade physique IFPI introduced Wednesday, the fourth consecutive 12 months and sixth time she has claimed its annual prize.
The 36-year-old’s success was turbo-charged by the October launch of her newest album, “The Life of a Showgirl”, which set a number of streaming data, in addition to the discharge of a docuseries about her record-breaking The Eras tour.
“2025 was another landmark year (for Swift), driven by exceptional worldwide engagement across streaming, physical and digital formats with the release of her 12th album … and the documentary of her tour,” IFPI stated.
The physique, which represents the recorded music trade worldwide, famous Swift had now received its high annual artist prize as many instances as all different artists mixed over the previous 10 years.
IFPI fingers out the Global Artist of the Year Award after calculating an artist’s or group’s worldwide gross sales throughout streaming, downloads and bodily music codecs in the course of the calendar 12 months and covers their whole physique of labor.
Swift beat out Korean group Stray Kids, which got here in second — its highest-ever rating and the third consecutive 12 months within the world high 5.
Fresh from his Super Bowl halftime present, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny positioned fifth within the rankings, his sixth consecutive 12 months within the chart.
American rapper Tyler, The Creator marked his first look on the chart, in twelfth place, with IFPI noting he had “continued to generate strong vinyl sales across his catalogue”.
Meanwhile, Japanese rock band Mrs. Green Apple entered the rankings for the primary time one place under him, following what IFPI referred to as “the success of their anniversary album ’10′”.
© 2026 AFP
Stephen Colbert is not backing down in a unprecedented public dispute together with his bosses at CBS over what he can air on his late-night speak present.
On “The Late Show” Tuesday, Colbert mentioned he was stunned by an announcement from CBS denying that its attorneys instructed him he could not present an interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico — which the host mentioned had occurred the evening earlier than.
He then took a duplicate of the community assertion, wrapped it in a canine poop bag, and tossed it away.
Colbert had as a substitute proven his Talarico interview on YouTube, however instructed viewers why he could not present it on CBS. The community was involved about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr making an attempt to implement a rule that required broadcasters to provide “equal time” to opposing candidates when an interview was broadcast with considered one of them.
“We looked and we can’t find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview, not only for my entire late-night career, but for anyone’s late-night career going back to the 1960s,” Colbert mentioned.
Although Carr mentioned in January he was fascinated by eliminating the exemption for late-night speak reveals, he hadn’t carried out it but. “But CBS generously did it for him,” Colbert mentioned.
Not solely had CBS been conscious Monday evening that Colbert was going to speak about this challenge publicly, its attorneys had even authorised it in his script, he mentioned. That’s why he was stunned by the assertion, which mentioned that Colbert had been supplied “legal guidance” that broadcasting the interview may set off the equal time rule.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Colbert mentioned. “For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one.”
He mentioned he was “just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.” CBS is owned by Paramount Global.
Colbert is a short-timer now at CBS. The community introduced final summer time that Colbert’s present, the place President Donald Trump is a frequent goal of biting jokes, would finish in May. The community mentioned it was for financial causes however others — together with Colbert — have expressed skepticism that Trump’s repeated criticism of the present had nothing to do with it.
This week’s dispute with Colbert additionally remembers final fall, when ABC took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a comment made in regards to the killing of conservative activist founder Charlie Kirk, solely to reinstate him following a backlash by viewers.
As of Wednesday morning, Colbert’s YouTube interview with Talarico had been seen greater than 5 million occasions, or roughly double what the comedian’s CBS program attracts every evening. The Texas Democrat additionally reported that he had raised $2.5 million in marketing campaign donations within the 24 hours after the interview.
© Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.
(260218) — LIVIGNO, Feb. 18, 2026 (Xinhua) — Yu Seungeun of South Korea competes in the course of the snowboard girls’s slopestyle last on the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Livigno, Italy, Feb. 18, 2026. (Xinhua/Xia Yifang)
TOKYO (TR) – A video supplied by Fuji News Network (Feb. 16) exhibits the aftermath of a collection of hit-and-run incidents involving an American male and a stolen truck.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Monday arrested the American man, aged in his 40s, in reference to a repeated hit-and-run incidents involving the stolen truck on February 14.
After the truck stolen was stolen from Marunouchi, Chiyoda Ward, it collided with a automotive in Bunkyo Ward.
In the clip, the community exhibits a Toyota automobile with a smashed from in Bunkyo.
“Suddenly, the truck in front of me started backing up, and we collided,” a girl says. “The driver was a white man, and when he passed me while fleeing, he was laughing.”
It then continued to hit and run automobiles one after one other in Taito and Koto wards. After the incidents, the American deserted the truck in Edogawa and fled on foot. He was later apprehended at a close-by comfort retailer.
No one was injured in any of the incidents.
The American denies the costs. “I hit the cars, but I was hallucinating,” he mentioned.
The director of the Berlin Film Festival on Wednesday rejected accusations from greater than 80 movie business figures that the competition had helped censor artists who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.
In an open letter revealed on Tuesday, Oscar-winning actors Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton have been amongst dozens who criticised the Berlinale’s “silence” on the difficulty and stated they have been “dismayed” at its “involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza”.
In an interview with Screen Daily, the Berlinale’s director, Tricia Tuttle, stated the competition backs “free speech within the bounds of German law”.
She stated she acknowledged that the letter got here from “the depth of anger and frustration about the suffering of people in Gaza”.
However, she rejected accusations of censorship, saying that the letter contained “misinformation” and “inaccurate claims about the Berlinale” made with out proof or anonymously.
The row over Gaza has dogged this 12 months’s version of the competition since jury president Wim Wenders answered a query on the battle by saying: “We cannot really enter the field of politics.”
The feedback prompted award-winning novelist Arundhati Roy, who had been as a result of current a restored model of a movie she wrote, to withdraw from the competition.
Tuttle stated the competition represents “lots of people who have different views, including lots of people who live in Germany who want a more complex understanding of Israel’s positionality than maybe the rest of the world has right now”.
German politicians have been largely supportive of Israel as Germany seeks to atone for the legacy of the Holocaust.
However, German public opinion has been extra important of Israeli actions in Gaza.
Commenting on the row to the Welt TV channel, German Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer defended Wenders and Tuttle from criticism, saying they have been working the competition “in a very balanced way, very sensitively”.
“Artists should not be told what to do when it comes to politics. The Berlinale is not an NGO with a camera and directors,” Weimer stated.
Gaza has regularly been a subject of controversy on the Berlinale in recent times.
In 2024, the competition’s documentary award went to “No Other Land”, which follows the dispossession of Palestinian communities within the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
German authorities officers criticised “one-sided” remarks about Gaza by the administrators of that movie and others at that 12 months’s awards ceremony.
© 2026 AFP
Irish rockers U2 launched their first assortment of latest songs in almost a decade on Wednesday, that includes a collaboration with singer Ed Sheeran and a Ukrainian musician and soldier.
The standalone “Days of Ash” EP is “an immediate response to current events and inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom”, based on the band’s web site.
“These EP tracks couldn’t wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay,” frontman Bono stated in an announcement.
“Yours Eternally” is a collaboration with Sheeran and Taras Topolia, a Ukrainian musician-turned-soldier.
“Ask anyone in East Germany or Poland or Latvia if they think Putin will stop at Ukraine,” Bono informed “Propaganda”, the band’s fan journal.
The EP additionally sees the band pay tribute to Renee Good, an American girl who was shot lifeless by a federal agent as she protested towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in January.
In the opening monitor “American Obituary”, Bono sings: “Renee Good born to die free.”
The band stated they’d launch a brand new album later this yr.
Formed within the Seventies, U2 grew to become one of many world’s most outstanding rock bands via hits like “With or Without You” and their vocal human rights campaigning.
Bono, 65, is well-known for his activism to eradicate poverty and combat AIDS, and has been outspoken towards wars in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza lately.
“Song of the Future” honors a teenage woman who died whereas protesting in Iran in 2022, whereas “One Life at a Time” criticizes Israeli settler exercise within the occupied West Bank.
The newest EP builds on U2’s 2017 album “Songs of Experience”, which included tracks urging activism and tolerance, launched after Donald Trump’s first election as U.S. president.
© 2026 AFP
OSAKA, Feb 19 (News On Japan) –
The Osaka prefectural authorities introduced on February 18th that it’ll set up a provisional Osaka Addiction Countermeasures Center in preparation for the 2030 opening of the Osaka IR, an built-in resort that can embody a on line casino, because it steps up efforts to deal with playing and different types of habit.
In the preliminary price range proposal for the following fiscal yr launched on February 18th, Osaka allotted 560 million yen for habit countermeasures, roughly 5 instances the quantity within the earlier fiscal yr. Starting in April, the prefecture plans to launch a pilot program providing 24-hour free consultations utilizing generative AI, together with coaching programs to develop specialised personnel, whereas additionally drafting a primary plan for the brand new middle.
The provisional Osaka Addiction Countermeasures Center is scheduled to open in fiscal 2029.
Source: ABCTVnews
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