The boundaries between satire and nationalism are ever more blurred, writes Alex Heaton Stuart Heritage rightly observes the satire that is inherent in For He is an Englishman, the “patriotic” song from HMS Pinafore, cropping up in popular culture ( ‘The rallying cry of the rich and horrible’, 17 February ). For a more xenophobic but equally tongue-in-cheek exploration of the same vein of nationalism, screenwriters need look no further than A Song of Patriotic Prejudice , by Flanders and Swann. In this paean to the English, every other nation of the UK is rubbished through caricature, and the rest of Europe dismissed in a few lines (“The Germans are German, the Russians are red, and the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!”). Continue reading...

Readers respond to the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office I note that Andrew Mountbatten-Thingy has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Picture the scene… “Don’t you know who I am?” Continue reading...

Editor's note: Seeking Alpha is proud to welcome The Earnout Investor as a new contributing analyst. You can become one too! Share your best investment idea by submitting your article for review to our editors. Get published, earn money, and unlock exclusive SA Premium access. Click here to find out more » Dragos Condrea/iStock via Getty Images The global defense infrastructure supercycle is in full swing. Germany has approved a EUR 108.2 billion defense budget for 2026, up from EUR 86 billion in 2025. A 25% jump in a single year for a nation that couldn't field a fully equipped brigade as recently as 2022. This is not simply a one-off stimulus in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Merz's coalition exempted military spending from Germany's constitutional debt brake, unlocking up to EUR 400 billion in additional borrowing over five years specifically for rearmament. The procurement plan already drafted by the Federal Ministry of Defense totals EUR 377 billion, with EUR 182 billion earmarked for German and European manufacturers. Berlin aims to hit NATO's new 3.5% of GDP defense target by 2029, and if it actually does, that would be six years ahead of the alliance's guideline. This is industrial mobilization on a scale not seen in Europe since the 1940s, and Germany is just the most dramatic example, while others follow suit. It is clear that we are in the early innings of this trend, which only shows signs of acceleration above the highs of the last couple of years. EU member states collectively spent EUR 343 billion on defense in 2024, then hit an estimated EUR 381 billion for 2025. Defense investment specifically, which accounts for the procurement and R&D portion, surged 42% in 2024 alone. NATO allies then went further at The Hague, committing to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defense plus 1.5% on broader security by 2035. That's a decade-long structural commitment. For an ETF like SHLD that combines traditional U.S. defense contractors with Europe...

We can do without another boring adaptation of repressed middle-class sexuality, whoever happens to play Cathy, says Josh Guiry . Plus a letter from Chris Goldie Angelika May rightly states that a considerable portion of working actors are privately educated ( Wuthering slights: why are film-makers afraid of casting Yorkshire actors as Cathy Earnshaw?, 17 February ). She neglects to mention, however, that Jessica Knappett, Wuthering Heights’ sole Bradford actor, is also privately educated. Angelika points out that “northern characters, particularly women, are coded as working class”, to which I say, there’s northing wrong with that. Working-class culture, humour and identity should be celebrated. The key is to avoid what Angelika goes on to describe as “comic, chaotic or intellectually limited”. These stereotypes are deeply rooted in the British class system, and to overcome them, working class artists must smash the structures which uphold them. Continue reading...

‘When you see a player upset, normally it’s for a reason’ Head coach reacts to Vinícius Júnior’s racism claims Liam Rosenior has called for players and coaches found guilty of racism to be banned from football for life and said experiencing abuse on a football pitch “is the worst feeling you can ever possibly imagine”. The Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior left the pitch after alleging that Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni racially abused him during their Champions League match on Tuesday . Prestianni has denied racist abuse and Benfica have said he was a “victim” of a “smear campaign”. The Argentinian faces a 10-game ban if found guilty by Uefa. Continue reading...

Manuel Milan/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Repsol ( REPYY ) ( REPYF ) is owed €4.55B (~$5.37B) by Venezuela, including debt for oil and gas supplies, arrears in payment of interests, and financing for its Petroquiriquire joint venture with state oil firm PDVSA, the Spanish company said in its annual report Thursday. Repsol ( REPYY ) ( REPYF ) has been active in Venezuela for more than 30 years and is one of the companies allowed to run oil and gas operations in the country under a general license recently issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. While recouping the outstanding debt has long been an important issue, CEO Josu Jon Imaz said it is not a top priority for now . "It's time to recover a normal commercial operation, which means being paid for the production we have," and Repsol ( REPYY ) ( REPYF ) is working to increase the amount of gas it produces and supplies in Venezuela by 10% to ~640M cf/day, Imaz said on the company's earnings conference call, according to Reuters. The company also can increase oil output by 50% in 12 months and triple it within three years, the CEO said; its production in Venezuela last year averaged 71.3K boe/day. "If Venezuela recovers normal production levels, if the economic development of the country evolves in the right way, I'm sure we're going to find frameworks and solutions to talk about the past," Imaz said, referring to the debt. The comments came as Repsol ( REPYY ) ( REPYF ) reported Q4 adjusted earnings rose to € 661M from € 587M in the year-earlier quarter and swung to a net profit of € 722M from a € 36M loss a year ago, when it booked significant charges. The company guided for FY 2026 total production of 560K-570K boe/day. More on Repsol Sell Repsol: Buy Total Instead For Its Superior Profitability Repsol: Still One Of The Best Integrated Energy Stocks In Europe Seeking Alpha’s Quant Rating on Repsol

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, February 19, 2026 at 11 a.m. ET Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com Continue reading

Email beau.dure@theguardian.com or hit him on BlueSky Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing Beau Dure will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how the men’s teams fared yesterday: With NHL players returning to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, these Games were expected to be a relative stroll for Canada and USA. However, both star-packed teams struggled in Wednesday’s men’s ice hockey quarter-finals. Continue reading...

Late last year, Google briefly took the crown for most powerful AI model in the world with the launch of Gemini 3 Pro — only to be surpassed within weeks by OpenAI and Anthropic releasing new models, s is common in the fiercely competitive AI race. Now Google is back to retake the throne with an updated version of that flagship model: Gemini 3.1 Pro , positioned as a smarter baseline for tasks where a simple response is insufficient—targeting science, research, and engineering workflows that demand deep planning and synthesis. Already, evaluations by third-party firm Artificial Analysis show that Google's Gemini 3.1 Pro has leapt to the front of the pack and is once more the most powerful and performant AI model in the world. A big leap in core reasoning The most significant advancement in Gemini 3.1 Pro lies in its performance on rigorous logic benchmarks. Most notably, the model achieved a verified score of 77.1% on ARC-AGI-2. This specific benchmark is designed to evaluate a model's ability to solve entirely new logic patterns it has not encountered during training. This result represents more than double the reasoning performance of the previous Gemini 3 Pro model. Beyond abstract logic, internal benchmarks indicate that 3.1 Pro is highly competitive across specialized domains: Scientific Knowledge: It scored 94.3% on GPQA Diamond. Coding: It reached an Elo of 2887 on LiveCodeBench Pro and scored 80.6% on SWE-Bench Verified. Multimodal Understanding: It achieved 92.6% on MMMLU. These technical gains are not just incremental; they represent a refinement in how the model handles "thinking" tokens and long-horizon tasks, providing a more reliable foundation for developers building autonomous agents. Improved vibe coding and 3D synthesis Google is demonstrating the model’s utility through "intelligence applied"—shifting the focus from chat interfaces to functional outputs. One of the most prominent features is the model's ability to generate "vibe-coded" animated SV...

The Atlantic Busted Fabricating Dead Kid Measles Story Last Thursday, The Atlantic published a heart-wrenching story about an 11-month-old child who died of measles . Written in the second person from the perspective of a mother whose two unvaccinated children fell ill with the disease, the story is rich with personal detail; " You plant her on the couch with a blanket and put Bluey on the TV while she drifts in and out of sleep..." " While the kids are napping, you tap a list of your daughter’s symptoms into Google and find a slew of diseases that more or less match up..." " Her cough wracks her whole body, rounding her delicate bird shoulders. She does not sleep well. And as you lift up her pajama top to check her rash one morning, you see that her breathing is labored, shadows pooling between her ribs when she sucks in air. " Image via NiemanLab Turns out, NONE OF THAT HAPPENED. The Atlantic 's Elizabeth Bruenig simply made it up, leading to mass confusion. Elizabeth Bruenig, who fabricated measles scare piece without a disclaimer. As Laura Hazard Owen of NiemanLab - who initially busted Bruenig - writes: When I initially read Bruenig’s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer’s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig’s piece, though, there’s an editor’s note: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.” That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: “ as far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!! ” My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story. I wondered if the key people whose minds might be changed by it — people who don’t vaccinate their kids — would brush it off as fiction, or fake. Following the publication, two journalists reached out to Owen to let her k...

While Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) generated media excitement with its intention to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD) , Wall Street was not thrilled with the news. The streaming leader's stock is down 18% in 2026 through the week ending Feb. 13, plunging to a 52-week low of $75.23. Contributing to the sinking share price was activist investor Ancora Holdings' insistence that WBD walk away from the Netflix merger. Ancora holds $200 million in WBD stock and believes the Netflix offer is inferior to the hostile takeover bid from rival Paramount Skydance . With Netflix stock struggling, could this be the time to buy or for shareholders to follow Wall Street's lead and sell? Perhaps the best choice is to stand pat if you own shares. Here's a look into Netflix to evaluate a course of action. Continue reading

Vistra Energy Corp (NYSE: VST) is being revalued as an AI-driven power provider, and the upside could be significant if execution stays on track. I break down the contracts, risks, and growth paths investors need to understand right now. Stock prices used were the market prices of Feb. 10, 2026. The video was published on Feb. 16, 2026. Continue reading

Draganfly argues that drones are shifting to intelligence platforms. See defense demand signals, “made-here” trends, and recent AFSOC training/FPV momentum.

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Wayu Penpituckbut/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis I reiterate my buy recommendation on assets that track the main American indices. This article is part of a weekly series where I bring valuable insights about macroeconomics and investments to Seeking Alpha readers. In this week's edition, I will analyze the fall in shares of companies with businesses threatened by artificial intelligence and contextualize this with my market vision. Context Firstly, it is important to remember that I described this phenomenon that investors are seeing in an article last year, where I detailed my outlook for 2026. The article was called “2026 S&P 500 Outlook: The Start Of Natural Selection In AI,” and in it, I shared my opinion that 2026 would mark the natural selection of companies in the context of artificial intelligence. This view was so solid that I even adjusted my recommended stock portfolio. In 2025, the portfolio only included American companies, several of which were big techs, and in 2026, I exchanged some American shares for Brazilian shares. The choice of Brazil was strategic: currency appreciation, expected rise in commodities, and extremely attractive valuation, but I explain in detail in another article . The fact is that the recommended stock portfolio easily beats the S&P 500 as emerging markets receive high investment flows. Year to date, the S&P 500 rises 1% while my recommended stock portfolio rises 5.3%. Annual Cumulative GEM Equity Fund Flows since 2004 (Syz) But returning to the central point of this article, it is curious to observe how many investors are extremely concerned about the fall in the shares of companies whose businesses are threatened by artificial intelligence. Investor skepticism was marked by the fall of software companies represented, for example, by ETF IGV , but we had other events, such as the fall in finance sector shares on Tuesday , the fall in real estate shares on Wednesday, and the fall in logistics shares on Thursday, all...

hapabapa DoorDash ( DASH ) is in the green for a third consecutive day but off its best levels during Thursday’s trading session as investors continue to digest the company’s fourth quarter performance and the impact its heavy investments in DashMart, DashLink, and Deliveroo will have on profitability going forward. The food delivery company enjoyed better than expected gains in total orders and gross order value (GOV), and total sales and per share earnings both increased by double digits from the same quarter last year (although missed expectations). But the company’s margins were weighed down by investments with gross margin, net revenue margin, and adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of marketplace GOV, all lower from a year earlier. This will likely continue to be an issue for investors given DoorDash’s ( DASH ) assurances that it anticipates “significant levels of ongoing investment in new categories and international markets.” Wedbush’s Scott Devitt, however, thinks this high level of investment is justified as they “expand DoorDash’s addressable market on a global scale and support more durable long-term growth.” This was reflected in DoorDash’s ( DASH ) year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter in grocery and retail and higher engagement from new cohorts. “Importantly, DoorDash now expects unit economics in the U.S. grocery and retail categories will turn positive in the second half of 2026,” Devitt adds. UBS analyst Stephen Ju, however, thinks it’s unlikely DoorDash ( DASH ) can deliver a beat on adjusted EBITDA given the ongoing investment level, leading Ju to maintain his Neutral rating on the stock. “The investment intensity remains unanswered,” Ju says, adding that questions about 2027 cost centers remain unresolved. “This does result in a decreased conviction level in our estimates, especially in a market in which investors are asking for clearer answers on ROIC. As such, our narrow risk/reward skew of 1.7x leaves us Neutral rated,” Ju says. Wedbush’s D...

AMD beats GPU frequency world record with Radeon RX 9060 XT hitting 4.769 GHz VideoCardz.com

BlackJack3D/E+ via Getty Images HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. ( HIVE ) is one Bitcoin miner I have steered clear of over the years among Bitcoin mining companies. My view over the years has been that HIVE has been the smaller-scale miner. HIVE has faced a number of structural headwinds in its operating model, including exposure to geographic policy risk. An instance was when the miner closed shop in Norway in 2021 after the government removed the electricity tax subsidy for crypto miners (became effective March 2019), which materially increased its power costs. The timing was particularly jarring; while peers were aggressively acquiring capacity to capture bull market margins, HIVE was paying to exit a flagship 1 GW project that had become an impairment on the balance sheet. HIVE originally bought that Norway site in 2018 with dreams of building a 1-Gigawatt data center. They never broke ground on the massive scale they promised, and the project was written down from $15 million to $0 before the sale . HIVE started as a miner mainly focused on mining Ethereum ( ETH-USD ), but as events turned out, Ethereum moved to a Proof of Stake consensus in 2022 during The Merge, and HIVE had to pivot aggressively toward Bitcoin mining. The miner’s earlier GPU-heavy strategy became an earnings drag; thus, the risk-reward profile has historically been weaker than the larger, more liquid, and operationally robust mining peers. Riot Platforms ( RIOT ), Hut 8 ( HUT ), and MARA Holdings ( MARA ) are a few examples that come to mind instantly. HIVE released Q3 FY26 earnings two days ago. Highlights from the earnings include nearly 300% YoY growth in hashrate to reach ~25 EH/s, record revenue of $93.1 million, with the BUZZ AI segment contributing $4.9 million to total revenue, the huge GAAP net loss of $93.1, as well as strong guidance for the coming fiscal year. Gross operating margins jumped to 34.5%, which is over sixfold YoY improvement. Though data from the earnings will make up...

Investors in Tyler Technologies, Inc. (Symbol: TYL) saw new options begin trading today, for the April 17th expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the TYL options chain for the new April 17th contracts and identified one put and one

Looking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLK) where we have detected an approximate $140.9 million dollar outflow -- that's a 0.2% de

Investors in Morgan Stanley (Symbol: MS) saw new options begin trading today, for the October 16th expiration. One of the key data points that goes into the price an option buyer is willing to pay, is the time value, so with 239 days until expiration the newly trading contracts

Looking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (Symbol: XLF) where we have detected an approximate $378.6 million dollar outflow -- that's a 0.7% dec

A commission made up of Trump appointees signed off on the design after architects made changes in response to concerns.

LordHenriVoton/E+ via Getty Images The last time I spoke about Disc Medicine, Inc. ( IRON ), it was with respect to a Seeking Alpha article entitled " Disc Medicine: NDA Submission And CNPV For Bitopertin Further Boost Shareholder Value ". With that article, I had rated the stock a "Strong Buy" because I believed that the AURORA and BEACON studies would be sufficient enough to allow for Accelerated Approval by the FDA for bitopertin for the treatment of patients with Erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP). Unfortunately, the company received a complete response letter (CRL) for bitopertin for the treatment of these patients. The FDA noted that these studies do provide evidence of lower PPIX but still want to see the results from the phase 3 APOLLO study before making a decision. I don't foresee any major issues, but now the risk has somewhat increased as everything hinges on data from this late-stage APOLLO study. With that being said, I believe the stock should be downgraded from a "Strong Buy" rating to a "Hold" rating. That's because it is not clear where the FDA's stance changed on how the biomarker data analyzed from the AURORA and BEACON studies should be viewed. This puts into question if the data from the phase 3 APOLLO study will even be sufficient enough for the company to be able to obtain U.S. marketing approval of bitopertin for the treatment of these EPP patients. In addition, there are two other catalysts or risk events that investors need to be aware of that are coming this year. One would be the release of updated data from the phase 2 study using DISC-0974 for the treatment of patients with myelofibrosis (MF) and anemia in the 2nd half of 2026. Followed by an end of phase 2 (EOP2) meeting to happen likely thereafter. I will be going over this program in detail below. The other one is to be the release of data from another clinical candidate being developed in the pipeline, which is the use of DISC-3405 for the treatment of patients with Polycythemia V...

Source: Bloomberg, 5:05