Every time negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. appear to gain momentum, Moscow introduces a new allegation — drone attacks, assassination attempts, nuclear plots, sabotage — that threatens to stall or derail the process.

Ukrainian officials and Western analysts say the pattern is no coincidence.

A high-level Ukrainian official familiar with the course of the negotiations told the Kyiv Independent that the "nonsense" Russia is spreading is intended to influence the talks and divert attention from Moscow’s unwillingness to seek compromise.

As Russian negotiators show little flexibility on concessions, the Kremlin appears to weaponize the diplomatic track — testing Washington's reactions, seeking leverage, and undermining Kyiv's credibility.

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New York City police are investigating after officers were pelted with snowballs while responding to a massive snowball fight at Washington Square Park in Manhattan.

A video of the fracas shows two uniformed officers pacing a walkway in the park Monday as snowballs fly at them from all directions, hitting the officers and covering them in snow.

The officers, growing visibly frustrated, shoved at least two people to the ground as snowballs continued to whizz by. At one point, a person runs up behind an officer and mushes some snow onto his head. One of the officers can be seen rubbing his eye toward the end of the video.

In a statement Tuesday, the New York Police Department said multiple uniformed officers were struck in the face with snowballs and were "removed by EMS in stable condition" to a nearby hospital, but did not disclose additional information on their injuries.

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Feb. 25, 2026

In statement posted on X via the Cuban Embassy in the US, the Interior Ministry said that the Florida-registered vessel - with the registration number FL7726SH - was detected near Cayo Falcones, in the country's central Villa Clara province on Wednesday morning.

When a Cuban boat carrying five members of the ministry's border guard approached the vessel for identification, "the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire" and wounded the Cuban commander, the statement said.

"As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six injured," the statement added.

Those injured were evacuated and given medical assistance.

The Hungarian leader is escalating an energy dispute as he trails in the polls ahead of April elections.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Wednesday accused Ukraine of plotting to sabotage Hungary’s energy infrastructure and ordered troops to protect key sites.

“I have heard the briefings of the national security services and see that Ukraine is preparing further actions aimed at disrupting the operation of Hungary’s energy system,” Orbán said in a video posted on X.

The accusation adds fuel to a conflict Orbán has stoked with neighboring Ukraine as well as Brussels ahead of an April 12 parliamentary election in which he faces the prospect of defeat.

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All I’m getting from the news are food aid deliveries and more blockade news. Nothing on the ground.

What are every day Cubans going through right now? Does anyone know?

Tehran says deal is possible as long as Washington abides by agreed-on preconditions, but Trump’s view is unclear

Iran enters critical talks on its nuclear programme with the US on Thursday, insisting a deal is in reach as long as Washington sticks by its willingness to concede Iran’s symbolic right to enrich uranium, allow Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in country, and not to impose controls on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

The three preconditions for success are seen as critical by Iranian diplomats, but it remains unclear whether Trump accepts these parameters.

The US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is heading to Geneva for the talks along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, had already accepted these principles in the two previous rounds of indirect talks, Iranian officials claim. But it remains possible that Trump could overturn these terms, a step that will inevitably lead to a conflict between the two nations that could rapidly consume the whole of the Middle East.

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PDF.

Today’s leading AI models engage in sophisticated behaviour when placed in strategic competition. They spontaneously attempt deception, signaling intentions they do not intend to follow; they demonstrate rich theory of mind, reasoning about adversary beliefs and anticipating their actions; and they exhibit credible metacognitive self-awareness, assessing their own strategic abilities before deciding how to act.

Here we present findings from a crisis simulation in which three frontier large language models (GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4, Gemini 3 Flash) play opposing leaders in a nuclear crisis.

Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University, will resign from teaching at the end of the academic year, a spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian.

The news of his formal resignation comes “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government”, a Harvard spokesperson, Jason Newton, said in a statement.

Summers also resigned from his role as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a position he has held since 2011, according to the spokesperson. He will remain on leave until the end of the academic year.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed officials were in talks with the US on the requirements and scope of an Enhanced Border Security Partnership (EBSP).

The US has given the 42 countries in its Visa Waiver Program - a reciprocal agreement that allowed citizens to visit for up to 90 days without a visa - until the end of the year to conclude EBSP negotiations or risk losing visa-free travel status.

Any information handed over to the US may end up with the country's controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement border force - or ICE as it is commonly known - and concerns have been raised about the opaque process, data sovereignity and surveillance overreach.

New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) refused to clarify what safeguards were being considered to protect New Zealanders' private information or if it was aware of any ICE personnel stationed in New Zealand at present.

Biometric sharing programmes already exist between Five Eyes countries (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom) as part of Migration Five arrangements but typically operated on a 'hit/no-hit' basis where initial biometric checks provided minimal information, and further data requests were considered on a case by case basis.

But EBSPs could provide full automated access to other countries' national databases, according to critics and minutes from European Union member state negotiations.

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission raided Microsoft Japan’s offices on Wednesday as part of an investigation into whether it improperly restricted customers of its Azure platform from using rival cloud services, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Paywall? https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.politico.eu/article/made-in-europe-debate-france-uk-brexit-trade-rules/

According to Taiwan tech publication DigiTimes, most AI firms are unwilling to wait two years for HDD supplies to stabilize and are shifting to SSDs instead. To contain costs, they are choosing QLC NAND-based drives over the faster, more durable, and more expensive TLC variants.