5 Big News Stories Overnight - Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Ukraine: Big Gain

France 24 reports:

Ukraine recaptured 201 square kilometres (78 square miles) from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday last week, taking advantage of a Starlink shutdown for Russian forces, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The recaptured area is almost equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December and is the most land retaken by Kyiv's forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counter-offensive.

"These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces' access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield," the ISW, which collaborates with the Critical Threats Project, another US think-tank, stated.

U.S.: LA Mayor Bass Calls on Wasserman to Step Down

Hollywood Reporter:

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is calling on Casey Wasserman to step down as chairperson of LA28 after some emails of his surfaced in the Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein document release.

During an interview on CNN Monday, the mayor said, “I cannot fire him, but I have an opinion. And my opinion is that he should step down. That’s not the opinion of the board.”

Last week, Wasserman was publicly backed by the Los Angeles Olympics Committee board after they hired an outside law firm to review his interactions with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker connected to Epstein. Their flirtatious correspondence took place in 2003, years before Epstein’s arrest in Palm Beach. “LA28 takes allegations of misconduct seriously, and our Board is committed to thoroughly reviewing any concerns related to the organization’s leadership,” the executive committee wrote. “Mr. Wasserman fully cooperated with the review. We found Mr. Wasserman’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.”

PHOTO: White House. SEE GOLOCAL STORY

U.S.: Cooper Leaving 60 Minutes

Multiple reports:

“Being a correspondent at 60 Minutes has been one of the great honors of my career,” Anderson Cooper said Monday. “For nearly twenty years, I’ve been able to balance my jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they still want to spend time with me.”

U.S.: Hillary Clinton Accuses Trump Administration of Cover-Up on Epstein Files

Guardian and BBC report:

“Get the files out. They are slow-walking it,” Clinton, who is due to testify before a Congressional committee on the issue, told the British broadcaster in an interview in Berlin.

The Justice Department last month released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files – more than 3m documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into Epstein, who died from what was determined to be suicide while in custody in 2019.

Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, features regularly in the files, but no evidence has come to light implicating either Clinton in criminal activity, AFP reported.

The couple has been ordered to give closed-door depositions before the House oversight committee, which is investigating Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.

“We will show up but we think it would be better to have it in public,” Hillary Clinton told the BBC. “I just want it to be fair,. I want everybody treated the same way.”

U.S.: Pritzker, Citing Epstein, Resigns as Hyatt’s Chairman

New York Times reports:

Thomas J. Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, stepped down from his role Monday as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, becoming the latest person felled by an association with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr. Pritzker, 75, said in a letter to the Hyatt board that he was retiring, effective immediately, adding: “Good stewardship also means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret.”

He added that he “exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact with them, and there is no excuse for failing to distance myself sooner.”