“Kenyan cult leader Paul Mackenzie and seven others linked to a doomsday sect were issued with new charges on Wednesday over the deaths of 52 people whose bodies were found in shallow graves in southeast Kenya in 2025, a court charge sheet showed. Mackenzie and others were already facing charges including murder and terrorism in connection with the deaths of people whose bodies were exhumed earlier from Shakahola forest, in one of the world’s biggest cult-related disasters in recent history. Prosecutors say Mackenzie and his Good News International Church organised a cult in which they ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ended. Mackenzie has denied the accusations.” (02/11/26)
“The Food and Drug Administration has declined to review Moderna’s application for the first mRNA-based flu vaccine, a decision that shocked the company and that comes as the agency plans to tighten federal vaccine approvals. The nation’s top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad, told Moderna that it lacked an ‘adequate and well-controlled’ study, the company said in a news release Tuesday. In a large clinical trial, the vaccine was compared with Fluarix, an approved standard-dose flu vaccine. Prasad’s letter did not detail concerns with the safety or efficacy of the vaccine, which Moderna was aiming to target for adults ages 50 and older. Moderna President Stephen Hoge said that the company had previously engaged with the FDA on the trial design and that the agency earlier indicated it would be acceptable.” (02/10/26)
“Ten people including the shooter are dead after an assailant opened fire at a high school in western Canada on Tuesday in one of the country’s deadliest mass casualty events in recent history. The attack brought to Canada the type of mass shooting more common in the neighboring United States, and was carried out by a shooter described as female, police said. Six people were found dead inside a high school in the town of Tumbler Ridge, in British Columbia, two more people were found dead at a residence believed to be connected to the incident, and another person died on the way to hospital, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.” (02/11/25)
“Florida has executed a 64-year-old man for the 1989 murder of a traveling salesman, the state’s first execution and the nation’s second of the year. Ronald Heath was administered a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday evening and was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. EST, the state’s Department of Corrections said in a statement. Though Heath is Florida’s first execution of 2026, his death follows a record-setting 2025 in which the Sunshine State put 19 death row inmates to death, accounting for 40% of the 47 executions carried out nationwide that year.” (02/11/26)
“Venezuela’s National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez has said that the country will not hold presidential elections in the immediate future, emphasising that the government’s current focus is on national stability. His comments came late on Monday in an interview published with the conservative outlet Newsmax in the United States. Presidential terms run for six years in Venezuela, and the last election was [stolen by the regime] in 2024. Newsmax host Rob Schmitt asked if that meant another election would not happen for another five years. ‘The only thing I could say is that there will not be an election in this immediate period of time where the stabilisation has to be achieved,’ Rodriguez replied.” (02/10/26)
“The San Francisco cryptocurrency startup Archblock just filed for bankruptcy, throwing millions of dollars into question and continuing a slog of legal woes. Archblock has been plagued with legal trouble over the past few years, facing fraud allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission and in a civil lawsuit from another crypto company. On Friday, Archblock and its subsidiaries filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which lets a company reorganize its debts. The company’s filing makes its financials look dire: It estimates that its assets are worth between $1 million to $10 million, against liabilities between $100 million to $500 million. But one subsidiary, TrustToken, claims in its own filing to have $100 million to $500 million in assets against just $10 million to $50 million in debt. The other subsidiaries tack on millions more for each column — it’s as yet unclear how the overall company will aim to reorganize in this bankruptcy process.” (02/11/25)
“US singer Britney Spears has become the latest musician to sell the rights to her catalog that includes hits like ‘… Baby One More Time’ and ‘Oops! … I Did It Again,’ US media reported Tuesday. The deal is believed to be worth around $200 million, according to sources cited by celebrity site TMZ, though it said the exact amount is not detailed in legal documents. That sum would be comparable to the sale of Canadian singer Justin Bieber’s catalog in 2023. Spears, 44, joins a growing list of artists who have sold their music rights in recent years including Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, as well as Shakira and KISS.” (02/10/26)
“A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from the Department of Justice that sought to obtain Michigan’s voter rolls, marking the latest judicial rejection in President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging attempts to gain access to voter data from states. The Justice Department has sued at least 23 states and the District of Columbia in its effort to obtain detailed voter information. In an opinion issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou, a Trump nominee, said the laws cited by the Justice Department in its complaint, including the Civil Rights Act of 1960, do not require the disclosure of the records it sought.” (02/10/26)
“A grand jury on Tuesday refused to indict a coalition of Democratic lawmakers over their participation in a controversial ‘illegal orders’ video last fall. The failed federal indictment was pursued by the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, as first reported by The New York Times. The lawmakers urged military servicemembers and intelligence community personnel to defy illegal orders in a joint video statement released in November. The video followed the Trump administration’s decision to carry out deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean. … The Times reported that federal prosecutors were seeking to indict lawmakers for breaching a law forbidding interfering with the U.S. military’s loyalty, morale or discipline.” (02/10/26)
“Russian authorities have begun restricting access to Telegram, one of the country’s most popular social media apps, as the government continues to push everyday Russians toward its own tightly controlled alternatives to foreign tech platforms. On Tuesday, the government said it was restricting access to Telegram for the ‘protection of Russian citizens,’ accusing the app of refusing to block content authorities consider ‘criminal and terrorist.’ Russia’s telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said in a statement that it would continue to restrict the operation of the Telegram messenger ‘until violations of Russian law are eliminated.'” (02/10/26)
