Tootfinder

It's mind-boggling that tourism to the US was only down by 6% last year. Hopefully, the drop will be a lot bigger this year. Don't go there if you don't have to.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/travel/us-tourism-declines-eu-canada.html

Why the United States Is Seeing an Ongoing Tourism Slump
Last year, the U.S. was the only major destination to see a decline in international travelers. With increased scrutiny at the border, ICE violence and unpredictable policies, the new year isn’t looking better.

The UK Treasury committee says the government and Bank of England's "wait-and-see approach" to AI risks in the financial sector poses "serious harm" to the UK (Kalyeena Makortoff/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/

After Tariff Decision, What Happens to Trump's Deals With China, Canada and Europe? (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/business/economy/what-happens-to-all-these-trade-deals-now.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260220/p118#a260220p118

Trump posts map with U.S. flag over Canada and Greenland
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/trump-shares-altered-map-of-us-flag-covering-canada-greenland-and-venezuela/

Interview with WPP CEO Cindy Rose, who says AI puts pressure on the ad agency's pricing and WPP has 10K data scientists and software engineers and 12K creatives (Daniel Thomas/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/3eb36aed-8366-4db9-8ea0-e7484416dc43

I beg you, wherever you are, to show some kind of solidarity with Minneapolis-St. Paul this Friday:
(1) SHUT DOWN NORMAL: Whatever your normal Friday is, find a way to pause it, interrupt it, halt it…even if only a little. Normal life cannot continue unabated while this is happening. It is intolerable, and we must not tolerate it.
(2) TAKE ACTION: Whether it is marching, yelling, organizing, forming that Signal group, taking that observer training, making connections with neighbors, just having a potluck…do •something•.
Please.

"After running through terminal count for the #ArtemisII wet dress rehearsal, the launch team paused the clock at T-33 seconds in the countdown," says https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/02/19/live-artemis-ii-wet-dress-rehearsal-coverage/: "Teams are now reconfiguring and replenishing the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen systems, in order to recycle back to the T-10 minute mark and perform another run of terminal count. [...] The entire recycle process lasts approximately 60 to 90 minutes."

Canadian PM Mark Carney at Davos, on the rupture of the old world order:
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches/2026/01/20/principled-and-pragmatic-canadas-path-prime-minister-carney-addresses
He goes righ…

“Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path” Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
Thank you, Larry.It’s a pleasure – and a duty – to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world.Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.

Microsoft's AI safety team proposed technical standards for detecting AI-generated content, but its CSO declined to commit to using them across its platforms (James O'Donnell/MIT Technology Review)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/1

Microsoft has a new plan to prove what’s real and what’s AI online
A new proposal calls on social media and AI companies to adopt strict verification, but the company hasn’t committed to following its own recommendations.

S&P Global: data center deals hit $61B globally in 2025; debt issuance nearly doubled YoY to $182B, with Meta raising $62B debt since 2022, ~50% of that in 2025 (April Roach/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/19/data-center-deals-…

Data center deals hit record $61 billion in 2025 as AI valuation risks and funding concerns grip investors
Hyperscalers are increasingly turning to outside capital in the form of debt to fund the energy-intensive infrastructure.