Donald Trump and Ali Khamenei (AP file photo)

The United States is weighing military options against Iran that could go far beyond strikes on nuclear facilities, with one scenario reportedly involving the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his son Mojtaba Khamenei. The discussions come as President Donald Trump considers limited military action even while nuclear negotiations with Tehran remain ongoing.According to a report by Axios, a senior adviser said US officials have prepared options “for every scenario”. “One scenario takes out the Ayatollah and his son and the mullahs,” the adviser said, referring to Khamenei and Mojtaba, who is widely viewed as a potential successor. A second source told the outlet that the plan was floated to Trump several weeks ago. “What the president chooses no one knows. I don’t think he knows,” the adviser added.Trump confirmed on Friday that he is weighing potential action. Asked whether the US could carry out limited strikes during negotiations, he replied: “I guess I can say I am considering that.” A day earlier, he said 10 to 15 days would be “enough time” for Iran to reach a deal.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has signalled that Tehran is ready to move forward diplomatically. He said a draft proposal could be finalised within “the next two to three days” and that serious negotiations on the text might begin “in a matter of a week or so”. Araghchi insisted Iran was “prepared for diplomacy” as much as it was “prepared for war”.Meanwhile, the Pentagon has undertaken its largest military build-up in the Middle East in two decades. Additional warships, aircraft and air defence systems have been deployed, with two US aircraft carriers positioned at a distance from Iran. Hundreds of troops have been relocated from key bases, including Al Udeid in Qatar and installations in Bahrain.Experts warn that any attempt to target Iran’s leadership would be seen in Tehran as an existential threat. Iran has already told the United Nations that if attacked, US bases and assets in the region would become “legitimate targets”. With tens of thousands of American troops stationed across the Middle East, analysts caution that a strike aimed at regime figures could trigger a broader and far deadlier confrontation.

Afghanistan said Sunday that “dozens” of people were killed and wounded after Pakistan carried out airstrikes in eastern border provinces, in one of the deadliest recent escalations between the two countries.Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid in a post on X said, “Last night, they bombed our civilian compatriots in Nangarhar and Paktika provinces, martyring and wounding dozens of people, including women and children.”Afghanistan’s Tolo News reported that the Pakistani army targeted a civilian house in Behsud district of Nangarhar province, leaving 23 members of a family buried under rubble. Only four people had been pulled out so far, the report said. The broadcaster, as quoted by ANI, also reported that the Pakistani Air Force struck a religious seminary in Bermal district of Paktika province and carried out multiple airstrikes in Khogyani district of Nangarhar.Pakistan conducted strikes in Bermal and Argun districts of Paktika, as well as in Khogyani, Bahsod and Ghani Khel districts of Nangarhar since Saturday.Islamabad confirmed the cross-border strikes, saying they targeted militant groups it blames for recent suicide attacks inside Pakistan. Pakistani media outlets also reported that the airstrikes focused on alleged militant camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.Geo News, citing Pakistan’s Ministry of Information, reported that seven camps and hideouts of Fitna al Khwarij (FAK), its affiliates and Daesh Khorasan Province (DKP) were hit. The ministry said the action was conducted “with precision and accuracy” in response to recent suicide attacks in Islamabad, Bajaur and Bannu during Ramzan.The strikes came days after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a security post in Bajaur district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national. Hours before the latest border strikes, another suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in Bannu district, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel.After Saturday’s violence, Pakistan’s military warned it would not “exercise any restraint” and that operations against those responsible would continue “irrespective of their location,” signaling rising tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.Information minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan had “conclusive evidence” that recent attacks, including a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that killed 31 worshippers earlier this month, were carried out by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militants acting on the “behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers.”He said Pakistan had repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to take verifiable steps to prevent militant groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks in Pakistan, but alleged that no substantive action had been taken.In a statement, Pakistan said it expects the interim Afghan government to prevent the use of its soil against Pakistan and called on the international community to press Afghan authorities to honour commitments under the Doha Agreement.Earlier this week, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said it reserves the right to target Afghanistan to protect its citizens amid rising cross-border tensions following the Bajaur attack, according to Dawn, as cited by ANI. “Pakistan very legitimately demands that Afghan territory should not be used for terrorism inside Pakistan. So, as long as this demand is not met, whilst exercising patience, all options would obviously remain on the table,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said at a weekly media briefing.Relations between the two countries have remained tense since October, when deadly border clashes killed soldiers, civilians and suspected militants on both sides. The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan.

Pakistan will lock horns with New Zealand in their first Super 8 clash of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Saturday. With a storied rivalry and plenty at stake, the contest promises to be a high-intensity encounter between two evenly matched sides.

Pakistan vs New Zealand Super 8s: Head-to-head record between PAK and NZ in T20Is

This will be the 50th T20I meeting between Pakistan and New Zealand, underlining how closely contested this rivalry has been in the shortest format. Of the 49 matches played so far, Pakistan have won 24, New Zealand 23, while two games ended in ties — a near-perfect split that highlights the fine margins between the teams.

Since January 2022 alone, the two sides have faced each other 24 times in T20Is. New Zealand hold a slight edge with 13 wins compared to Pakistan’s nine. However, Pakistan fans draw confidence from their memorable victory in the 2022 T20 World Cup semi-final, where they defeated the Black Caps to book a place in the final.New Zealand and Pakistan last played a T20 match in March last year, when New Zealand hosted the 2009 T20 World Cup champions for a three-match series, which the home side won 2-1.Total Matches Played: 49Pakistan Won: 24New Zealand Won: 23No Result: 2Performance of both teams in their last 5 matchesPakistan: W, W, W, L, WNew Zealand : L:, W, W, L, WIn this edition, both teams have blown hot and cold. Pakistan suffered a setback against India in the group stage, while New Zealand went down to South Africa. As a result, both finished second in their respective groups and now find themselves in a challenging Super 8 group that also includes England and Sri Lanka.Form-wise, Pakistan come into the game with three wins in their last five matches (W, W, W, L, W), while New Zealand’s recent run reads L, W, W, L, W — again reflecting how evenly matched the sides are.

Pakistan vs New Zealand Super 8s: Weather report

While the cricketing rivalry adds spice, the weather in Colombo could play a decisive role. Rain is forecast before and during the match, which is scheduled to begin at 7 PM local time. Showers are expected during the first half, with temperatures hovering between 24 and 26 degrees Celsius and humidity above 80 per cent.

Pakistan vs New Zealand Super 8s weather report: What happens if PAK-NZ gets called off?

There is no reserve day for this Super 8 fixture. If the match is abandoned due to rain, both teams will share one point each — a scenario that could severely dent their semi-final hopes. Officials will have an additional 90 minutes on the day to try and force a result, but if even a five-over contest isn’t possible, the game will be called off.

AI is fast changing the way information is created and shared, but speed and scale don’t necessarily mean credibility. Jimmy Wales , who co-founded Wikipedia — harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to upend traditional encyclopaedias like Britannica and become the internet’s default reference point — now finds it at the centre of a new debate on trust, including attacks from Elon Musk over alleged bias. Speaking to Rohit Saran and Saikat Dasgupta on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, Wales reflects on the opportunities and risks AI presents, why neutrality is non-negotiable, and why trust is more important than everFor centuries, humanity has found itself caught between the promise of tomorrow and its perils when talking about the future. Socrates died a worried man because he thought writing will kill the quest for knowledge. It’s the same now with AI. How do you see this?■ John Philip Sousa (one of US’s most celebrated composers) believed people wouldn’t sing anymore when music began to be recorded. Chess, as a game, is more popular than ever before, even though the best chess player in the world is no longer human. It hasn’t stopped people from saying, ‘Oh, but we really enjoy playing chess!’ About AI, since the technology is so new, and so accessible, I don’t know. You ask a computer a question and it can answer, that’s incredible. But we also know it’s flawed. And then, there is this wild conjecture that it’s going to destroy all jobs, or no one will need to work anymore because we’re going to become vastly wealthy. Probably the answer, as ever, is somewhere in the middle. AI is obviously going to have a huge impact. What it will be is so hard to predict right now.Broadly speaking, internet has made information a ‘commodity’. Do you think AI will make intelligence a commodity?■ All I can say is that right now, when we look at large language models — and I use them a lot, I’m a programmer, but not a very good one because I enjoy making things — it’s incredibly helpful and very fun. But it also makes things up and hallucinates. What I’m most interested in right now is, are there ways we can use this technology to support the community? Are there things that I can do pretty well? A lot of Wikipedia discussions are really long. You can get AI to summarise it. But here’s a key point, I want to read the original. It’s very useful. Another example would be you load up the Wikipedia article and all the sources and ask if there’s anything in the sources that should be on Wikipedia, but isn’t, or is there anything that’s not supported by sources. I did this and I think it is potentially useful for the community. Then say I want to write about a Bollywood movie that’s not globally famous in Wikipedia and I want to just get some basic facts about it. But I can’t read Hindi. Maybe the AI could help me a bit.

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Wiki powered a huge number of Google search answers and is now emerging as a source layer for AI. Are LLMs both a threat and an opportunity to Wiki’s future?■ We’re really about that human element, the human curated knowledge, the judgement. That machine translation might be a grammatical translation, but if you think about the cultural context of the reader, what they need to understand, what they are likely to know and what you need to explain to them, that goes beyond just the text. My example is, who’s the most famous cricket player? Today, it could be Virat Kohli in India. But if you’re writing for a global audience, you need to add a little text to explain who he is and put it in context. Machine translation can’t do that. But a human can.You’re making the case really for human moderation of information. Do you think that is where eventually the biggest problem with AI-curated information will lie, a wall that it cannot breach?■ So, Gary Marcus is an AI researcher who has become known as kind of an AI sceptic, although I would say he’s not really an AI sceptic, but thinks that large language models have already hit a sort of wall — that we’re not seeing improvement on a lot of key issues like hallucinations. He thinks there needs to be some more fundamental breakthroughs. For some time, scaling seemed to make all the difference. But there are other experts of equal fame who disagree with them. Just watching that, I think, maybe we’re going to have a little bit of a break for a few years until there’s more breakthroughs where it’s like ‘okay, we’ve got this amazing tool but maybe we’re not that close to the next steps’.Like Google search in the past, AI companies have a frenemy relationship with news media — New York Times has sued OpenAI, for example. If AI systems increasingly cite original sources, should they be required to link back and share revenue or traffic?■ I think we’re going to have a big fight on copyrights. It’s going to be across legislatures and courts, rethinking how copyright law is structured. My concern is, we want to be careful about overreach. One of the classic principles of copyright law has always been that you can’t copyright facts. Some scientific publishers may be very excited to be able to say, you can’t use the facts unless you pay. And that’s a disaster. We don’t want to go there. That damages Wikipedia and our ability to say that on this date, this happened. Here’s the sources, and it’s five different newspapers. Also, newspapers don’t want to go there. One of the bigger, deeper issues is that local journalism has been wrecked. And that happened long before AI. For society, that’s a huge problem. I’m from Huntsville, Alabama, which is not a huge city, but it’s not tiny — 250,000 people. When I was a kid, I was a paper boy. I rode my bike and threw the papers (into houses). As a Wikipedian, the value of this is if I want to write about the history of Huntsville or the 1978 mayoral election, I’ve got a lot of good content to work with. But if I want to write about the most recent election? Very thin content. Because there’s just one afternoon paper now that’s published three times a week and from 100 miles away. And that means the first draft of history, which is journalism, isn’t being written. So, the second draft of history, which is Wikipedia, becomes much harder.

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How do we solve that?■ I wish I had the answer to that. In some cases, maybe AI can help, if there’s some way to make it possible for one or two journalists to do more in a useful way that could be good. The changes in the information ecosystem have a lot of positives, obviously, but also some negatives. So go ahead and test.Wikipedia has had this debate between deletionists and inclusionists. Which side are you on?■ It has helped strengthen Wikipedia that we have this active, intellectual dialogue. I always say that I’m an eventualist, which is, we’ll probably get it wrong a lot but we’ll get it right eventually. The health of the Wikipedia community is important for us. Is the community having active discussions, having fun, behaving well? Are we doing things in a thoughtful way? I’m very comfortable with the debates as long as they don’t just become angry screaming matches. Tell us about your India community and volunteer group. There’s a perception or misperception, you tell us, that India pages are not as rigorous. ■ I find the Indian Wikipedia community to be very similar to everywhere in the world. A lot of nerds, not necessarily professionals in this field. There’s this guy in the global community with the nickname Hurricane Hank, who is a weather expert but not a professional meteorologist. The community has more men than women, unfortunately. That’s always something that we talk about. We want to improve that around the world. This is my third trip to India in a month and a half. On one of the trips, I was in Kerala, and I met with the local Wikipedia group. Among them was a couple, both Wikipedia editors, who brought their kids. On the second part of your question, I’ve not heard that about India pages. I do think it would be likely for the smaller language versions of Wikipedia. Obviously, those pages are typically going to be shorter and less filled in and less rigorous because there are fewer people doing it.When people say, ‘Wikipedia is broken because it’s biased’, how do you react to that? And what’s your take on an AI-first competitor like Grokipedia?■ See, Wikipedia is a source of knowledge, and sources are transparent things. One of the things that Elon (Musk) said is that Wikipedia just reflects mainstream propaganda. And I’m like, that’s really weird. Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say. We cannot take one strange side, and say, ‘uh, we’re going to fight against all of scientific wisdom’, right? But we should reflect a debate if it’s a legitimate debate. Do we have biases? Well, of course, we’re human beings. So, we have to be really careful about that. Being neutral is one of the core values in the community. There’s no dispute about that. But do we always get it right? Maybe not. An old saying that I love is if you ask a fish about water, the fish will say, ‘What water?’ They live in it. They have no idea about it. And so oftentimes our biases are just there because we don’t know.How important is tone neutrality for credibility? ■ Amartya Sen makes a comment in the introduction of his book, ‘10 Indians, 12 opinions’. That’s actually all humans — 10 humans, 12 opinions. Tone neutrality is very important for Wikipedia and for newspapers as well. I live in London and read two papers, Guardian and Telegraph. Guardian is a sort of centre left, Telegraph centre right. Both quality newspapers. I have an electric car, not a Tesla. I love electric cars and so I read a lot about them. If you cut out the headlines from those two papers, I can probably filter the information 90% accurately, because Guardian loves electric cars and Telegraph hates them. But because of this tone, I also trust both of them less because it feels like they are both campaigning. That’s a problem because it can reduce trust, not just with people who disagree, but even with people who agree with the tone.You launched WikiTribune to address neutrality in public discourse. Why did you not continue?■ Tribune was an experiment to see if there was a way for journalists and community members to collaborate. What journalists can do, like you have come here in the middle of Delhi to chat with me, or go and report on something, or attend a press conference, or talk to a politician, that’s almost impossible to do as a volunteer. So, we explored some good collaborations. And then we would look at traffic stats every day. We had one story that had a really clickbait headline that I didn’t like. To make this into a commercial success, we needed more clickbait headlines. I didn’t want to do that. That’s how I realised the problem is not with journalism but that model, the broader ecosystem. The newspapers always love a good, juicy headline. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if algorithms are feeding people content to keep them around as long as possible, then that encourages more of the same kind of behaviour and so on. So it kind of changed my focus and was like, ok, good experiment.

American streamer Adonis, known online as Adoniscrashboom, was detained in Romania after a street fight during a livestream in Bucharest. The video, which is now widely shared on social media, shows him arguing with a Romanian local before things turn physical. Reports say the local allegedly spat on him. Moments later, Adonis is seen throwing punches and knocking the man to the ground. Police were called to the scene. Adonis, who is based in New York, has more than 92,000 followers on Instagram. He is known for traveling to different countries and speaking to people about culture, dating, and daily life. His Romanian visit acquired dangerous consequences during this particular trip. The complete facts about his detention remain undisclosed to the public although livestream videos document the escalating conflicts which eventually led to physical violence. Adonis had posted updates about his Romanian activities before this event occurred. His latest Instagram posts featured street interview segments and content about local food and his skincare product discoveries which he found while dating in Bucharest.

The confrontation happened while Adonis was streaming live. In the beginning of the clip, he can be heard telling the local to “back off.” During the argument, streamer Adonis called the man his “Romanian dog.” The local responded by saying, “You don’t know how this country works.”As the exchange became more intense, the local moved very close to Adonis and allegedly spat on him. Seconds later, Adonis punched the man, and he fell to the ground. People nearby quickly gathered around them. In the video, Adonis can be heard asking bystanders to call the police.Local reports say officers arrived at the scene. The Romanian man reportedly refused to go to the hospital and was treated by medical staff at the location. It remains unclear what legal steps were taken after Adonis was detained. Officials have not shared detailed public statements so far.After the incident, Adonis posted a short clip from the movie The Equalizer 2 on his X account @Adonisboom. The film stars Denzel Washington. Along with the clip, he shared a long message that many people found hard to understand. It read:“February 22, 2026 update Kinfolk .. 12 scope, my drop lips sink ship Awake but not up, Insides hurt, Feeln on John q, Burn edges surroundings on hot comb, Please keep to body, gate kept translation, Boy shakin but tall on Nat turner.”Earlier in his career, Adonis also appeared on season 10 of America’s Got Talent in 2015. He received approval from all four judges during auditions but was later eliminated in the Judge Cuts round. On his YouTube bio, he writes that his goal is to become a better communicator. He says he traveled often to find his “right place” and moved from dancing into creating informative content.For now, the investigation details remain limited. What started as a livestream about life in Romania has turned into a legal issue that is still unfolding.

Australia star and former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) cricketer Glenn Maxwell is likely to take retirement from T20 Internationals. As per the latest media claims, the 37-year-old might have already played his last T20I for Australia.

If the reports are to be believed, then the Australia vs. Oman match on February 20, 2026, in Pallekele, could be his last ever assignment for his nation in the T20Is.

Glenn Maxwell lost his flair in T20Is

Over the years, Glenn Maxwell uplifted himself as an exciting all-rounder in Twenty20 cricket. He was among the top preferred names in the Indian Premier League as well. Despite all the credibilities, the proven all-rounder gradually dropped his flair. In the T20 World Cup 2026, he could not rise on big occasions to prove his ante.

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Australia crashed out of the 2026 T20 World Cup after a lackluster performance in the group stage. Back-to-back defeats against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka forced him to take the exit door. In those 4 matches in the group stage, Maxwell scored only 62 runs in three innings and managed to take only 2 wickets, which was against Oman.

Notable stats of Maxwell’s T20I career for Australia

If we take a look at Maxwell’s performance graph in the T20Is, then the downfall is clearly visible. He scored his last T20I half-century back on August 16, 2025, against South Africa before an 11-match-long streak without hitting a single half-century.

On an overall basis, from 2012 to 2026, the all-rounder confirmed an average of 28.97 after playing 130 matches, including five 100s. He took 51 wickets as well.

Recent stints with Punjab Kings and RCB

It is worth mentioning that Maxwell has already skipped IPL 2026 after being released by the Punjab Kings (PBKS) last year. His performance in the IPL for the last couple of seasons also looked below par. In IPL 2025, for PBKS, Glenn Maxwell secured only 48 runs in 6 innings, averaging 8.00.

A season before, when he was with RCB, the Aussie all-rounder’s batting average was only 5.77, as he was able to notch up only 52 runs in 9 innings. In 2023, his batting average for RCB was 33.33. From 2024, his downfall started, which might have reached the final stage in the form of a retirement.

Overall in his T20 career, the Melbourne-born has played a total of 503 matches to score 10986 for a batting average of 27.53 and clinched 198 with his spin bowling skills at an economy rate of 7.86. As a middle-order batter, his highest T20 score is 154*.

Read More: IND vs SA Preview – Match 43, Super 8 Group 1: Free Live Streaming, Pitch & Weather Report, Head-to-head | T20 World Cup 2026

Video footage circulating online shows hundreds of students marching through university campuses in Tehran and Mashhad on Saturday, more than 40 days after a deadly crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran. The rallies, described as the largest student demonstrations since the violence last month, took place at Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology and several medical sciences universities in both cities. At Sharif University in the capital, students carrying Iranian national flags chanted “death to the dictator” in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alongside other anti-government and pro-monarchy slogans. The BBC said it had verified footage of the march at the start of the new semester, showing largely peaceful scenes before scuffles broke out between demonstrators and supporters of a rival pro-government gathering nearby. Basij paramilitary forces affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were deployed, and protests there were met with force.Additional verified images showed a peaceful sit-in at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, while footage from Amirkabir University captured students chanting against the authorities. In Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, students were heard shouting “Freedom, freedom” and urging their peers to “shout for your rights”. Further demonstrations were reported later in the day, with calls for more rallies on Sunday. It was not immediately clear whether arrests had been made.The latest unrest follows mass protests that erupted in late December over economic grievances, including the collapse of the rial, before spreading nationwide. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has claimed more than 6,000 people were killed in the crackdown, including protesters and children, and said it was examining thousands more reported deaths. Iranian authorities have put the death toll at over 3,100, maintaining that many of those killed were security personnel or bystanders targeted by what they call rioters.The student rallies come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear programme, with US President Donald Trump weighing potential military action even as diplomatic efforts continue.

Pakistan’s captain Salman Ali Agha, right, shakes hands with New Zealand’s captain Mitchel Santner after toss (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

NEW DELHI: Rain spoiled the Pakistan vs New Zealand Super 8 clash in Colombo, and the match was completely washed out without a ball being bowled. As a result, both teams shared one point, which has made the race for the T20 World Cup 2026 semi-finals much more complicated.

This was an important game for both sides because a win would have given them a strong start in the Super 8 stage. Instead, Pakistan and New Zealand now have only two matches left to push for a top-two finish in their group.For Pakistan, the situation is simple but tough. They will next play England and Sri Lanka. If Pakistan manage to win both matches, they will reach five points, which should be enough to book a place in the semi-finals. However, if they lose even one game, their chances become tricky. One win and one loss would leave them on three points, and then they would have to depend on other teams’ results. If Pakistan lose both remaining matches, they will be knocked out of the tournament.New Zealand are in the same boat. The rain has given them a point, but they will still need wins in their upcoming matches to stay in control of their destiny. Any slip-up could pull them into a tight battle with the other teams in the group.Since this was the first Super 8 match for both Pakistan and New Zealand, the full picture will only become clear once all teams have played at least one game. Both sides were seen as favourites to reach the semi-finals, but the washout has made their path harder and kept the group wide open.