Rev. Jesse Jackson, Monsanto Settlement, & Pancake Day

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Adam Rogers
February 18, 2026

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The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a protege of Martin Luther King Jr. who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after King's 1968 assassination, died Tuesday at his Chicago home. He was 84. Jackson founded the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, and continued protesting racial injustice into his 80’s despite a rare neurological disorder.
Jackson ran for president twice, winning 13 Democratic primaries and caucuses in 1988 — more than any Black politician before Barack Obama. He also scored diplomatic victories, securing the release of a US Navy pilot from Syria in 1984 and freeing 700 hostages from Iraq in 1990.
Jackson's rallying cries — "Keep Hope Alive" and "I am Somebody" — became cultural touchstones of the Civil Rights Movement. Rep. John Lewis said Jackson's presidential campaigns "opened some doors that some minority person will be able to walk through and become president," a prophecy Obama fulfilled 20 years later.

Bayer's Monsanto unit filed a proposed $7.25 billion class settlement Tuesday aimed at resolving all current and future claims that its Roundup weedkiller caused cancer.
The settlement — which requires court approval — would establish a claims program funded by annual payments over up to 21 years and covers approximately 65,000 plaintiffs who say they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers from using the product. Bayer previously paid about $10 billion in 2020 to settle earlier Roundup lawsuits but failed to cover future cases. The company was hit with a $2.1 billion jury verdict in Georgia in March, and faces mixed trial results.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Bayer's appeal in late April in a case that could sharply limit its liability. Bayer shares rose 7.7% to their highest level since September 2023 following the announcement. The company's total litigation liabilities are expected to reach $13.9 billion.

A comprehensive review of 71 studies involving 3,484 participants found no meaningful difference in cognitive performance between fasted and fed healthy adults. The analysis examined 222 measures of attention, memory, and executive function drawn from research spanning nearly seven decades, from 1958 to 2025.
Adults performed just as well on cognitive tests whether they had eaten recently or not. However, children and adolescents showed worse performance when fasted, suggesting their developing brains need regular meals to support learning.
The review found longer fasts were associated with better performance, likely due to the metabolic switch from glucose to ketones that occurs about 12 hours after the last meal. However, performance declined in the afternoon and evening compared to morning, and fasted participants struggled more with tasks involving food-related cues but performed normally on tests using neutral symbols.
The findings offer reassurance that healthy adults can practice intermittent fasting without sacrificing mental sharpness.

Police arrested an 18-year-old man who ran toward the Capitol with a loaded shotgun and tactical vest. (More)

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is leaving next week. Fox News commentator Katie Zacharia is expected to fill the gap in the team. (More)

North Carolina Republicans and Democrats agreed to give 73,000 voters more time to provide ID information before they could be removed from voter rolls. (More)

Italy's 'Lovers' Arch' rock formation collapsed on Valentine's Day after heavy storms battered the Adriatic coast, with officials warning erosion threatens other fragile coastal areas. (More)

A new report found Mexico's disappearances have surged more than 200% in a decade, with over 130,000 people now missing as cartel-linked kidnappings surge. (More)

Australia won't bring home 34 women and children with alleged Islamic State ties stuck in a Syrian detention camp, Prime Minister Albanese said Tuesday. (More)

US stock markets closed higher on Tuesday (S&P +0.10%, Nasdaq +0.14%, Dow +0.07%). Declines in software stocks kept the markets near even. (More)

Software firm Palantir is relocating its headquarters from Denver to Miami, joining a growing list of tech companies and billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, moving to tax-friendly Florida. (More)

Warner Bros. Discovery is weighing a $31-per-share offer from Paramount Skydance after Netflix, which bid $27.75 per share, gave Warner a week to consider competing bids. (More)

Team USA's figure skating trio had a mixed Olympic debut with one skater in medal position while another fell to 13th after a costly mistake. Elsewhere, Norway's Tormod Frostad edged American Mac Forehand for big air gold, and Italy beat the US in team pursuit speed skating. (More)

MMA legends Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano will fight May 16 in California, marking Rousey's first bout in nearly a decade. (More)

Actor Shia LaBeouf was arrested in New Orleans after allegedly punching two people outside a business during Mardi Gras celebrations. (More)

Scientists found a 5,000-year-old bacteria strain in a Romanian ice cave that resists 10 modern antibiotics but also kills superbugs, offering clues for developing new treatments and understanding resistance evolution. (More)

Researchers named a 215-million-year-old greyhound-like crocodile ancestor Galahadosuchus jonesi after a Welsh teacher who inspired the lead scientist to study paleontology (More)

Snake cannibalism has evolved at least 11 times as a survival strategy when food is scarce, according to a review of 500 reports across different species. (More)

See photos from London’s Pancake Day races.

Ranking the best state capitals to live in.

Photographer captures meteor streaking into active volcano.

How the Easy-Bake Oven revolutionized the toy industry.

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