While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Feb 18, 2026
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US Capitol police searching a vehicle on Feb 17 in the vicinity of the Capitol in Washington DC, after a young man running towards the building with a shotgun was arrested.
PHOTO: EPA
Man runs towards US Capitol with loaded shotgun
An 18-year-old man ran towards the US Capitol with a loaded shotgun on Feb 17 before police arrested him without incident, said US Capitol police chief Michael Sullivan.
The motive of the man, who police said was wearing a tactical vest and tactical gloves, was not immediately known.
He also had a Kevlar helmet and a gas mask in his vehicle, police said.
Chief Sullivan said the man arrived in a white Mercedes SUV just after noon and parked near the Capitol, before getting out and running towards the building that houses the US Congress.
Ukraine, Russia conclude first day of Geneva peace talks
Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia concluded the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Feb 17, with US President Donald Trump pressing Kyiv to act fast to reach a deal to end the four-year conflict.
Ahead of the negotiations in Switzerland, Russia carried out airstrikes overnight across swathes of Ukraine, severely damaging the power network in the southern port city of Odesa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks left tens of thousands without heat and water.
Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Mr Rustem Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, said in a statement that the day’s talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” without providing details. He said negotiations would resume on Feb 18 for a final day.
Vatican will not partake in Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’
PHOTO: EPA
The Vatican will not participate in US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”, its secretary of state said on Feb 17.
The board, of which Mr Trump is the chairman, was initially designed to oversee the Gaza truce and the territory’s reconstruction after the war between Hamas and Israel.
But its purpose has since morphed into resolving all sorts of international conflicts, triggering fears the US president wants to create a rival to the United Nations.
11 dead in US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats
US attacks killed 11 people on three alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, the US military said on Feb 17.
The strikes late on Feb 16 killed “four on the first vessel in the Eastern Pacific, four on the second vessel in the Eastern Pacific, and three on the third vessel in the Caribbean. No US military forces were harmed,” US Southern Command said in a post on X.
The post included video of the strikes on the three boats, two of which were stationary when hit while the third was speeding across the water. People could be seen moving on two of the vessels prior to the strikes.
Abu Dhabi data leak exposes global figures, FT reports
PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
Passports and other ID documents of hundreds of attendees of Abu Dhabi’s flagship investment conference, including former British prime minister David Cameron and hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard, were exposed online, the Financial Times reported on Feb 17.
The FT, citing documents, said scans of more than 700 passports and state identity cards were discovered on an unprotected cloud storage server associated with Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW), a state-sponsored event that hosted more than 35,000 attendees in December.
Mr Cameron, Mr Howard, and US investor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci were among those whose identity documents were exposed, the FT said.
