Wiki News Live
Today:
Winter Olympics Photo of the Day: On Target
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Alexander Hassenstein / GettyVanessa Voigt of Team Germany lines up alongside competitors in the women’s biathlon 10-kilometer pursuit, shooting at targets on Day 9 of the 2026 Winter Olympic games at Anterselva Biathlon Arena, on February 15, 2026. Previously:

Top Stories:
Angelical Salutation of Every Girl in History
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Angelical Salutation of Every Girl in HistoryA poem

World:
Words Without Consequence
NEWS | 16 February 2026
An LLM’s words shape our beliefs, decisions, and actions, yet no speaker stands behind them. That work was driven by a single aim: to understand how words come to mean something in relation to the world. In human speech, responsibility is not a single obligation but one’s accountability to a multitude of obligations that accumulate gradually. In such cases, the act is not carried out by words and then described; it is performed in the act of saying the words under the appropriate conditions. And they train users to accept moral language divorced from consequence.

Current Events:
Their Mutated Genes Were Supposed to Be Harmless
NEWS | 16 February 2026
In the most common forms of thalassemia, people who show symptoms have mutations in both copies of the related genes. As many as one in 25 Americans of European descent is a carrier for cystic fibrosis, but many are not aware of their status. And usually it doesn’t,” Michael Boyle, the president and CEO of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, told me. Questions about carriers’ health problems go beyond well-known diseases such as sickle cell and cystic fibrosis. Knowing you’re a carrier for cystic fibrosis might help guide your family-planning decisions, for instance.

News Flash:
A Prequel TV Series That Surprises Viewers
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. The prequel series illustrates a reversal to innocence after the relentless ruthlessness of Game of Thrones; it’s a great example of how to capture viewers who probably thought nothing more could surprise them. Also Project Hail Mary, just because there are no bad space movies, just like there are no bad heist movies. Best novel I’ve recently read, and the best work of nonfiction: Best novel is Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know. “The state of the humanities today creates a crisis,” the report concluded.

Sponsored:
SmartSync Data Sync App
SPONSORED | 16 February 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
The Most Sought-After Head of Government in Europe
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Over the thrumming of cappuccino machines and the clinking of coffee mugs, Nielsen told me he was having none of it. (The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.) Revitalization, to the Trump administration, hinges on American dominance in the Western Hemisphere—which includes Greenland despite its historic ties to Europe. He repeatedly emphasized the progress being made by the working group formed after the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington last month with Vance and Rubio. “We are willing to talk also about the concerns he has about security,” Nielsen said.

Breaking:
The Rise of Stephen Miller
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Since Donald Trump’s first term, Stephen Miller has risen into an architect and enforcer of some of the president’s most controversial policies. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss the senior aide’s rise, and how he’s become one of the most powerful figures in the Trump administration. Miller “has always believed that there is a role for provocation and performance in politics,” Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins, who has previously written about how Miller’s childhood and college experience influenced his work, argued last night. Between Trump’s first and second terms, Miller’s “ideology has been rather consistent. It’s that he’s more visible, more powerful, in this second term,” Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent at The New York Times, continued.

Trending:
Trump Administration Announces That We Don’t Know Where the Sun Goes at Night
NEWS | 16 February 2026
“President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.” — The New York TimesA new ruling from the Trump administration says that when the sun disappears at night, we don’t know where it goes. All remaining top scientists have been taken from their positions and tasked with getting to the bottom of this. The National Institutes of Health has orders to devote every whiteboard in every conference room to this pressing question. It’s very frightening when the sun goes away, now that we have decided we don’t know where it goes at night. You can just decide that you don’t know things, it turns out, even if you do know them.

This Just In:
An Enduring Assumption About Love
NEWS | 16 February 2026
For as long as people have been looking for love, many have been convinced that they know exactly what it looks like. Chemistry, timing, shared experiences, and the slow work of falling in love with someone tend to matter far more than the traits that some people screen for on a dating-app profile. This Valentine’s Day, explore stories that challenge the idea that love is about finding the “right kind” of person. “Nostalgia for a dating experience they’ve never had” : Young people are tired of swiping, Faith Hill wrote in 2024. Young people are tired of swiping, Faith Hill wrote in 2024.

Today:
The Clash of Civilizations Was an Inside Job
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order turns 30 this year. Three decades after Clash, rivalries among the great powers, rather than a new clash among faith-based civilizations, continue to dominate the globe. We are not witnessing a clash of civilizations, let alone “The West against the Rest,” to invoke another famous Huntington line. Finally, a word on our present moment: When The Clash of Civilizations came out, the culture war in the West was in its infancy. What then focused his mind was the clash within the United States—and by extension the rest of the West.

Top Stories:
10 Standout Indie Movies to Watch for This Year
NEWS | 16 February 2026
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was the last in its longtime home of Park City, Utah. This is perhaps in part because the institution of Sundance is changing, as the potential for indie movies’ success seems less certain than ever. Josephine, directed by Beth de Araújo, is named after its 8-year-old protagonist (played by Mason Reeves), who witnesses a violent assault. Such heavy developments could come off like the material of after-school specials, but de Araújo never loses sight of Josephine’s raw sensitivity. Elia Saikaly / Sundance InstituteThe Last First: Winter K2 (Apple, release date TBD)Several documentaries at Sundance this year investigated the relationship between the world’s natural wonders and human interference.

World:
This Is What It Looks Like When Nothing Matters
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Today, you can feel the same thing throughout online culture. The 4chan logic that turned even the most hideous news and ideas into empty entertainment pervades everything on the internet now—more proof that lol, nothing matters. This, of course, brings us directly to the Epstein files. (The photo was obviously fake; Mamdani’s mother, the filmmaker Mira Nair, was mentioned in one email in the Epstein files, which suggested that she had attended a party at the townhouse of Ghislaine Maxwell.) If the Epstein files were intended as an act of government transparency and accountability, then it seems that they have mostly been a failure.

Current Events:
Kristi Noem’s Audience of One
NEWS | 16 February 2026
Since Alex Pretti’s killing three weeks ago, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been trying to distance herself from Minneapolis—politically and geographically. One person familiar with the discussions told us that Noem’s position is no longer secure, even though the president has not yet moved against her. “The President continues to have full confidence in the Secretary.”The shutdown will hinder Noem’s efforts to pivot away from Minneapolis. Her team has already canceled her upcoming travel plans to New Orleans, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other destinations because the travel is not considered mandatory, three officials told us. Noem’s team blames career DHS officials for moving too slowly, and they say that she’s added an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that has hampered border-wall construction and the expansion of ICE’s detention capacity.

News Flash:
Why Europe Is Talking About Nukes
NEWS | 16 February 2026
But in the 1960s, the Scandinavian nation scrapped the program under pressure from the United States, whose nuclear arsenal has shielded Europe for about 80 years. Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, reminded me of this history in an interview today. Practically, this would mean leveraging the capabilities of Britain and France, currently the only two European states with nuclear weapons. “That’s the meaning of it.”The security provided by the United States underwrote Sweden’s pacifism. “We became extremely against nuclear weapons,” the prime minister said.