El Paso Airport Grouding, Canada School Shooting, & Babysitting rates

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Adam Rogers
February 12, 2026

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The FAA grounded El Paso International Airport for six hours on Wednesday after the US military tested high-energy lasers near Fort Bliss designed to protect against cartel drones, according to four sources familiar with the matter. The FAA and Defense Department miscommunicated about whether the testing could impact commercial flights, leading to the shutdown.
The FAA initially issued a 10-day flight restriction, then abruptly lifted it without explanation. A Trump administration official had claimed Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace and were disabled, but the Pentagon has not confirmed any drones were shot down.
Medical evacuation flights had to be diverted 45 miles to Las Cruces during the closure. Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico has seen no evidence of drone activity along the border.

Police identified the Tumbler Ridge school shooter on Wednesday as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, a former student who killed eight people and wounded 25 others on Tuesday before dying by suicide. The first two victims were Van Rootselaar's mother, 39, and stepbrother, 11, killed at the family home before the attack on Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
The six victims at the school included three 12-year-old girls, two boys aged 12 and 13, and a 39-year-old female teacher. Van Rootselaar dropped out of the school four years ago. Police had responded to the home multiple times for mental health calls and seized firearms, which were later returned to the lawful owner. It's unclear if those weapons were used in the attack.
Tumbler Ridge is a remote community of 2,700 in the Canadian Rockies. The shooting is Canada's deadliest since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 22 people. School shootings are rare in Canada, which has strict gun control laws.

Chile officially launched Latam-GPT on Tuesday, an open-source artificial intelligence model built for Latin America after nearly three years of development. It draws on more than 230 billion words from Latin American sources, including humanities, social sciences, health, public policy, economics, environment, arts, and Indigenous communities.
Unlike global AI systems primarily trained on English data, Latam-GPT was built in Spanish and Portuguese and incorporates Indigenous languages and local dialects. Only 2% to 3% of training data for existing AI models comes from Latin America, with about 45% originating in the US, according to developers.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric led the launch, emphasizing the goal of "digital sovereignty"- building regional AI systems rather than relying on those from the US or China. The $3.5 million project involved collaboration from more than 15 countries and 60 organizations. The model will initially be available as an open-source tool for universities, governments, and startups to build their own AI systems.

Two senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would require AI data centers to generate their own power instead of driving up families' electric bills, with households getting first priority for grid access. (More)

Democrats accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of covering up powerful people in the Epstein files while exposing survivors' names, but she dismissed their questions as "theatrics" and refused answers. (More)

House Republicans joined Democrats to reject Trump's Canada tariffs 219-211, angering Trump, who will likely veto the symbolic measure if it passes the Senate. (More)

A gunman took hostages and fired shots at a southern Thailand school on Wednesday before police caught him after two hours, injuring at least one student. (More)

Police arrested 27 people after violent clashes erupted in Sydney, Australia, between officers and thousands protesting Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit. (More)

A Hong Kong father was convicted for trying to cancel an insurance policy he'd bought for his daughter as a toddler, after she became a US democracy activist wanted by authorities. (More)

US stock markets closed lower on Wednesday (S&P -0.00%, Nasdaq -0.16%, Dow -0.13%). The Dow broke a three-day winning streak. (More)

The US deficit shrank in January as tariff collections hit $30 billion for the month, but the government may have to refund everything if the Supreme Court rules against Trump's tariff authority. (More)

Kraft Heinz canceled its breakup plan just months after announcing it, with new CEO Steve Cahillane choosing instead to spend $600 million trying to revive the struggling food giant. (More)

American speedskater Jordan Stolz won his first Olympic gold at 20, crushing the Olympic record in the 1,000 meters. (More)

James Van Der Beek, who starred in "Dawson's Creek" and "Varsity Blues," died at 48 after battling stage 3 colorectal cancer. (More)

The NBA suspended Isaiah Stewart seven games for a brawl where he left the bench, put Charlotte's Miles Bridges in a headlock, and punched him until police stepped in. (More)

HoloRadar lets robots and self-driving cars see around corners in pitch darkness, using radar to spot hidden pedestrians and build 3D maps of what's coming. (More)

A 307-million-year-old fossil called Tyrannoroter is the first land vertebrate known to eat plants, likely borrowing plant-digesting bacteria from the insects it consumed first. (More)

Scientists found Earth's core holds up to 45 oceans' worth of hydrogen, proving our water's been here since the planet formed instead of arriving later via comets. (More)

Quiz: Can you identify countries by their borders?

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