A new IDB Invest technical note analyzes 21,696 MSMEs across 30 Latin American and Caribbean economies, linking credit access to employment growth. The study finds that an extra US$1 million in financing generates roughly four permanent jobs per year. Effects vary: smaller firms see higher relative but lower absolute job gains, fast‑growing firms benefit more, and credit directed to fixed‑asset investment outperforms working‑capital loans. The impact wanes as loans age and is muted in markets with low banking‑sector competition.

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an antitrust probe into the $45 billion sale of Warner Bros. to Apex Media Holdings. Regulators are examining whether the deal could curtail competition for independent movie theaters by shifting distribution power toward Apex’s streaming...

The 2026 BRIT Awards will be streamed on ITV’s YouTube channel for the first time, alongside ITV1 and ITVX. The ceremony airs Saturday 28 February from 8.15 pm live on TV, with a global digital simulcast beginning at 8.45 pm on YouTube....
WestFax launched Comprehend, an AI‑powered Intelligent Document Processing platform for healthcare, now available across all its service tiers. The solution uses OCR, AI and FHIR‑aligned models to convert inbound fax, email and file‑based documents into searchable PDFs, classify types, and...
ESL FACEIT Group unveiled the "Road to EWC" qualifiers at DreamHack Birmingham, scheduled for March 27‑29, with a combined $120,000 prize pool across Street Fighter 6, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and Trackmania. The events use double‑elimination formats and cap...
Balancing cost and performance in drug discovery requires a hybrid engineering‑led approach that combines on‑premise HPC with scalable cloud resources. Uncontrolled cloud scaling can drive unpredictable expenses, while pure on‑premise systems demand high upfront capital and maintenance. By implementing disciplined...

Los Angeles‑based BH Properties acquired Seattle’s Pacific Place in May 2024 and announced a full revitalization. The 335,000‑sq ft downtown mall, which had slipped to 45% occupancy under the previous owner, will receive interior upgrades, lease‑ready suites, and a four‑story LED...
On Feb. 18 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth toured Boeing’s St. Louis site as RTX’s Pratt & Whitney announced it will fast‑track the XA103 engine for the upcoming F‑47 sixth‑generation stealth fighter, with detailed design review completed and a prototype slated for...
Winter 2026’s anime slate is dominated by high‑octane sequels, yet “Journal With Witch” quietly steals the spotlight. Adapted from Tomoko Yamashita’s manga, the series follows grieving teen Asa and her aloof aunt‑novelist Makio as they navigate loss, identity, and an...
Atlanta's freeway damage, its 1970s-era MARTA rail footprint, and the way forward...Expanding transit is worth the enormous cost, but realistically we need to put an equal weight on adding density near existing transit lines. https://atlurbanist.substack.com/p/atlantas-freeway-damage-its-1970s

Philippine banks posted a record P403.1 billion net profit in 2025, up 3% year‑over‑year and the highest since 2008. Strong net interest income, which jumped 11% to P1.15 trillion, and a 10% rise in non‑interest income drove the earnings surge, despite a...
Elevance Health reported that 60.5% of its medical spend now flows through value‑based care contracts, with shared‑risk arrangements climbing to 37%—a 4‑point rise from the previous year. The company’s 2024 Advancing Health Together report shows that 76% of its value‑based...
Age‑related macular degeneration (AMD) affects roughly 19.8 million Americans and remains a leading cause of blindness. The disease is split into dry and wet forms, each requiring distinct therapeutic approaches. Wet AMD is managed with intravitreal anti‑VEGF injections, with newer agents...
Ryan McCormack’s February 2026 Operational Excellence Mixtape warns that change fatigue is eroding continuous‑improvement efforts. He urges leaders to anchor teams to core values, embed quality as the operating architecture, and use process confirmation to lock improvements into daily work, citing Toyota’s...
At HIMSS26, CDC Acting Chief Enterprise Architect Ryan M. Harrison will unveil the agency’s Technical Reference Architecture (TRA), a unified framework that codifies IT standards across CDC. The presentation targets both IT leaders and developers, illustrating how the TRA integrates...

The State Department has cleared the last protest against its $10 billion Evolve IT services vehicle and announced the final round of 48 contract awards across five functional categories. Evolve consolidates eleven existing contracts into a single multiple‑award vehicle with a...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a proposal to roll back most of the 2024 amendments to its Risk Management Program (RMP) rule, which governs safety at roughly 11,000 chemical manufacturing, storage, and warehousing facilities. The 2024 rule introduced...

Generation Z is redefining retail by favoring in‑person experiences despite their digital upbringing. A recent Retail Dive survey shows 69 percent prefer brick‑and‑mortar stores, with three‑quarters visiting weekly, prompting brands to create hybrid, experience‑focused spaces. Architects like RDC are translating online identities...

Taco Bell announced a multi‑million‑dollar partnership with Latin music star Myke Towers, integrating his track “Sunblock” into a new Chicken Bacon Ranch Street Chalupas commercial. The campaign rolls out across the United States, Puerto Rico, the Latin America/Caribbean region and...
Altesa BioSciences announced an oversubscribed $75 million Series B round, led by Forbion with participation from Sanofi and existing backers Medicxi, Pitango, and Atlantic Partners. The financing will support the development of its lead candidate, vapendavir, targeting viral-driven exacerbations in COPD and...
The equal‑weighted S&P 500 has outperformed the cap‑weighted benchmark in 2026, breaking a decades‑long pattern of concentration in mega‑cap tech names that now comprise 19.4% of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF. Meanwhile, MSCI World ex‑USA and Emerging Markets indexes have posted double‑digit...

Retail real estate in the Mid‑Atlantic remains healthy but is becoming increasingly selective as limited supply, zoning constraints, and rising construction costs tighten the market. Developers are focusing on mixed‑use, grocery‑anchored projects such as Richmond’s $2.4 billion Diamond District and the...

Read a first note from @asha_shar the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming: Dear team, Today I begin my role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming. I feel two things at once: humility and urgency. Humility because this team has built something extraordinary over decades. Urgency because...

If solar and wind are not replacements for fossil fuel power, what are they? After all, they are doing something—witness charts showing large amounts of “generation” in a day or the largest growth in “generation” and “capacity” over time. That “something” is...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted approval to Adquey, a 1% difamilast topical ointment, for the treatment of mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis in patients two years and older. Developed by Otsuka and licensed to Acrotech Biopharma, the product is...
DOJ, Ohio attorney general accuse OhioHealth of driving up prices, crowding out competition https://t.co/oxxD0glykV via @statnews

42% of enterprise AI projects fail. The culprit? Data readiness (or lack thereof) @PureStorage @PureStorageUK #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #Technology #Tech #TechNews https://t.co/fgDiy1Ew0X

WWE Friday Night SmackDown moves to SyFy on February 20 while USA Network airs extended Winter Olympics coverage. The episode, staged at Fort Lauderdale's Amerant Bank Arena, features men’s and women’s Elimination Chamber qualifiers that shape the Road to WrestleMania. Viewers...

Project OVERMATCH - how one company is scaling up production of #drones in the UK #avgeek https://t.co/sEEOjJQprt https://t.co/PjEtX67uHA

“renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console.” "Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware" Did Copilot write this? https://t.co/9xhWEFi0TM https://t.co/HNsY9rUlOr
James Chuong, who has served nearly five years as LinkedIn’s chief financial officer, will become Atlassian’s CFO on March 30. His compensation package includes a $600,000 base salary, a 75% target bonus, a $22 million RSU grant and a $2 million signing...
"We have looked at building [the Donlin project] in phases, but given the current price environment of about $5,000 an ounce, it's our current thinking to build the project in a single build," said @NOVAGOLD 's CEO Greg Lang. ...
Thanks to Phil Spencer for 38 years of great work, innovation, and partnership at Microsoft, from intern in 1988 to head of Xbox and then EVP.

Investor Erik Wetterling, known as The Hedgeless Horseman, breaks down why junior mining stocks remain undervalued despite recent market corrections after the VRIC event. He stresses patience, the "wall of worry" mindset, and the shift from gold‑silver focus to base‑metal...

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6‑3 decision striking down President Trump’s global tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), ruling the move exceeded presidential authority. The majority held that IEEPA does not grant the power to...
A phase‑2 single‑center trial evaluated a five‑day pre‑operative radiotherapy schedule in 110 patients with high‑risk soft‑tissue sarcoma. At two‑year follow‑up, grade ≥ 2 radiation‑related toxicities were observed in 14 of 74 evaluable patients, with lower rates in the extension cohort. Major wound...

Norwegian shipbuilder VARD has received an order from France’s Orange Marine for two additional cable‑laying and repair vessels based on the VARD 9‑03 design. The ships will be constructed at Colombo Dockyard in Sri Lanka and follow the same specifications as...
Nicolas Chomont, chair of CROI 2026’s scientific program, previewed the conference’s focus on emerging HIV research, including treatment, cure, and vaccine advances. The meeting will showcase extensive data on long‑acting antiretroviral therapies and address funding constraints affecting global HIV initiatives....
ALIS released its Q4 2025 ALIS 500 Clinical Report, the first senior‑living clinical benchmarking study covering 500 communities and 28,800 residents. The report delivers detailed data on resident age, prevalent chronic conditions, comorbidity patterns, and fall incidents, and is paired with an...
The Guttmacher Institute reports a modest 2% drop in abortion clinics across non‑ban states, yet high churn—51 closures and 39 openings—creates instability, especially in Florida where a six‑week ban accelerated losses despite telehealth growth. New sickle‑cell disease therapies, including gene‑editing...

What I hope isn’t lost in today’s news about Xbox is Phil Spencer’s incredible career in gaming. Phil is a passionate competitor and a big gamer. You may not have always agreed with the calls, but this industry is better...

Phil Spencer retires after a 12‑year tenure, and Microsoft appoints Asha Sharma—formerly head of its Core AI Product division—as Xbox’s new CEO. In her inaugural memo, Sharma vows to keep “soulless AI slop” out of games while acknowledging AI’s role...
"we are now dealing with exponential improvements of ai, astounding even those, like me, who have been in the field for nearly a decade. we knew this would happen but it’s happening quicker than we thought."

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration unveiled three rulemakings and a sweeping fraud‑crackdown targeting ghost offices, sham CDL schools, and fraudulent electronic logging devices. Carriers and training providers must now maintain a physical office inspectable within 48 hours, and drivers...
Ahead of MWC Barcelona 2026 Ericsson unveiled its AI‑RAN portfolio, opting for purpose‑built ASIC silicon instead of Nvidia GPUs and confirming Intel as its only commercial silicon partner. The company highlighted a software‑defined approach that uses hardware abstraction layers to...

Leakers examining God of War Ragnarok’s game files uncovered a cut scene featuring Atreus, Athena, a robed figure and a character named Mau. The dialogue references Egyptian terminology—Mau meaning cat and a "white snake" likely alluding to the god Apophis—hinting...

Ramsey Elkholy’s indie project Monotonic has sued A&R Worldwide’s Pangea Entertainment for allegedly breaching a year‑long marketing and consulting contract. The lawsuit claims Pangea failed to provide promised creative input, bi‑weekly strategy calls, artwork support, and placement of the band’s...

Veteran public‑finance banker Eric Avila has joined Siebert Williams Shank & Co. as managing director and head of the Midwest region, bringing senior experience from Janney Montgomery Scott, Morgan Stanley, Samuel Ramirez & Co., and U.S. Bank. Siebert highlighted the hire as a catalyst to capitalize on...
Microsoft's new Xbox chief says "games are and always will be art, crafted by humans" and that Xbox won't chase AI slop. "As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our...
Supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford Has Crossed Into The Mediterranean The carrier's rush to the Middle East comes as the military build-up in the region appears to be approaching its crescendo. Latest: https://t.co/ZPLyQ1iOa3