“The January jobs report delayed by the brief government shutdown will be released next week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. The closely watched report now will come out Feb. 11, five days later than its original release date, according to a revised schedule. In addition, the BLS will release the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey on Thursday, after it originally had been scheduled for Tuesday. There are other delays as well. The consumer price index for January now will be released on Feb. 13, two days later than its original release date. A companion release, which computes real earnings, will be subject to the same delay.” (02/04/26)
“Myanmar’s junta will form a new entity to oversee both the military and civilian administration, a move experts say will allow paramount ruler Min Aung Hlaing to become president without loosening his grip on the powerful armed forces. Just days after the completion of a final phase of an election that will see a parliament convene next month and power transferred to a nominally civilian government, the junta announced its plans in state media late Tuesday to create the five-member Union Consultative Council. Its mandate is exceptionally broad, granting it control over every critical component of national security and the legislative process, said Naing Min Khant, program associate at the Institute for Strategy and Policy — Myanmar think-tank.” (02/04/26)
“Amazon has announced that its generative AI-powered digital assistant Alexa Plus is now available to all Prime members in the US via any Alexa-enabled device, Alexa.com, and the Alexa mobile app. If you don’t have Prime, you can access the assistant on a new free tier on the web and app, or pay $20 a month for unlimited access to Alexa Plus, without Prime. Alexa Plus initially launched in March 2025 in an Early Access program and, over the last year, has slowly expanded to tens of millions of users, Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Echo, told The Verge in an interview.” [editor’s note: I tried it during “Early Access” and turned it off because it lacked some basic features (in particular, reading books from my Kindle library aloud). I may try it again at some point – TLK] (02/04/26)
“A group of Minnesota school districts and educators has asked a judge to order federal officers to stay away from schools, alleging that the nation’s largest immigration operation has spilled onto campuses, affecting attendance statewide, according to a lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday morning. The lawsuit rebukes the agency’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul — its largest operation so far in a campaign to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. The public school districts in Fridley and Duluth, along with Education Minnesota, an 89,000-member teachers union, accuse federal officers of breaking a promise to stay away from schools.” (02/04/26)
“Armed men have killed at least 35 people and burned homes and shops in Woro, a remote village in Nigeria’s north-central Kwara State, authorities said. … It was the deadliest assault this year in the district bordering Niger State, which armed gangs have attacked increasingly. Villagers fled into the surrounding bushland as the armed men attacked Woro, [lawmaker Sa’idu Baba] Ahmed told the Reuters news agency by phone. Several people were still missing, he said.” (02/04/26)
“The U.K. government agreed Wednesday to release documents casting light on the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, as it tries to stem mounting anger over the revelations. Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced the wrath of opposition lawmakers, and his own Labour Party backbenchers, after acknowledging that he had known at the time of the 2024 appointment about Mandelson’s friendship with the convicted sex offender. Starmer said that he was unaware of the depth of the relationship, and that Mandelson ‘had lied repeatedly’ about his ties to Epstein. A trove of documents about Epstein released last week by the U.S. Justice Department has finished off Mandelson’s long political career — and left Starmer facing angry questions about his judgment in making him Britain’s envoy to the Trump administration, the country’s most important ambassadorial post.” (02/04/25)
“A Serbian government minister and three others went on trial on Wednesday on charges of abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for a real estate project that was to be financed by a company of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner has since withdrawn from the planned multi-million investment that envisaged building a high-rise hotel, a luxury apartment complex, office spaces and shops to replace a sprawling bombed-out military complex in central Belgrade. … Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic, who is a close ally of [Serbian president Aleksandar] Vucic, and three other officials are accused of illegally lifting the protection status in 2024 for the site by forging documentation. If convicted they could face up to three years in prison. They pleaded not guilty as the trial opened.” (02/04/26)
“Envoys from Russia and Ukraine met in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday for another round of U.S.-brokered talks on ending the almost four-year war, a Ukrainian negotiator said. The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined in the United Arab Emirates by U.S. officials, Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief, who was present at the meeting, said on social media. Umerov said the planned two-day negotiations started with all three delegations present, after which negotiators were to break into groups according to topics and then meet as a full group again at the end.” (02/04/26)
“President Trump’s budget office is instructing the Department of Transportation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to claw back more than $1.5 billion from blue states on grounds the money was being mishandled, officials told The Post. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told the DOT Wednesday to cancel more than $943 million, while the CDC was ordered to nix at least $602 million meant for New York, California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. An OMB spokesperson said that the states were being targeted for ‘waste and mismanagement’ of taxpayer funds. Illinois was slated to receive the largest of the transportation-related grants, with $100 million provided to the state’s Environmental Protection Agency to build electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.” (02/04/25)
“Pink noise, a staticky sound that’s supposed to help people fall asleep, may actually worsen your rest, a new study found. … University of Pennsylvania researchers conducted a seven-night sleep lab study involving 25 healthy adults, mostly younger women, to determine the effects of environmental noise, pink noise and earplugs on sleep quality. … The study, published Monday in the journal Sleep, found environmental noise mainly disrupted Stage 3 sleep, reducing it by 23.4 minutes on average. Stage 3 is the deepest sleep state and is important for cognitive function and memory. The study also found that pink noise reduced the time spent in REM sleep by 18.6 minutes, a crucial sleep stage for mood regulation and mental focus.” (02/04/25)
