Delhi’s Karkardooma Court has acquitted six accused while giving a major verdict in the North-East Delhi riot case of 2020. During this time, the court made a strong comment on the investigation of Delhi Police, calling it careless and suspicious. Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh said that the police filed a fake charge sheet in this case which was forwarded by a senior officer without proper investigation.
According to the information, the accused acquitted by the court include Prem Prakash alias Kalu, Ishu Gupta, Rajkumar alias Sevaiya, Amit alias Annu, Surendra Singh and Hari Om Sharma.
FIR was lodged in New Usmanpur police station on charges of rioting.
An FIR was registered against all of them in New Osmanpur police station on charges of rioting. The court said in its order that evidence was tampered with in this case, which is a very serious matter. This clearly shows the negligence of the investigating police officers. Expressing displeasure over the role of the then SHO and the concerned ACP, the court has directed the Delhi Police Commissioner to send a copy of the order. Also said that appropriate action should be taken against the responsible officers.
What is the whole matter?
Actually, the matter is of 25 February 2020. That day the police had received information over phone that some people were demolishing shops. They are setting fire and raising slogans with sticks in their hands. When the police team reached Sudamapuri near Azizia Mosque, the informer was not found there. During investigation on the spot, bricks and stones were found scattered. After this, on February 29, Mehboob Ali, Asif Ali, Mohammad Tahir and Shoaib reached the police station and lodged a complaint. Later Mohammad Raees and Khalid also complained about the loss.
Karkardooma Court found that the witnesses who had spoken to the police about identifying the accused. He did not recognize anyone in the court. According to the court order, this is a major lapse in police investigation and supervision of senior officers. It is noteworthy that in the riots in North-East Delhi in February 2020, 53 people were killed and about 200 people were injured.
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The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added a critical security flaw impacting SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, flagging it as actively exploited in attacks.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-40551 (CVSS score: 9.8), is a untrusted data deserialization vulnerability that could pave the way for remote code execution.
“SolarWinds Web Help Desk contains a deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution, which would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine,” CISA said. “This could be exploited without authentication.”
SolarWinds issued fixes for the flaw last week, along with CVE-2025-40536 (CVSS score: 8.1), CVE-2025-40537 (CVSS score: 7.5), CVE-2025-40552 (CVSS score: 9.8), CVE-2025-40553 (CVSS score: 9.8), and CVE-2025-40554 (CVSS score: 9.8), in WHD version 2026.1.
There are currently no public reports about how the vulnerability is being weaponized in attacks, who may be the targets, or the scale of such efforts. It’s the latest illustration of how quickly threat actors are moving to exploit newly disclosed flaws.
Also added to the KEV catalog are three other vulnerabilities –
CVE-2019-19006 (CVSS score: 9.8) – An improper authentication vulnerability in Sangoma FreePBX that potentially allows unauthorized users to bypass password authentication and access services provided by the FreePBX administrator
CVE-2025-64328 (CVSS score: 8.6) – An operating system command injection vulnerability in Sangoma FreePBX that could allow for a post-authentication command injection by an authenticated known user via the testconnection -> check_ssh_connect() function and potentially obtain remote access to the system as an asterisk user
CVE-2021-39935 (CVSS score: 7.5/6.8) – A server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions that could allow unauthorized external users to perform Server Side Requests via the CI Lint API
It’s worth noting that the exploitation of CVE-2021-39935 was highlighted by GreyNoise in March 2025, as part of a coordinated surge in the abuse of SSRF vulnerabilities in multiple platforms, including DotNetNuke, Zimbra Collaboration Suite, Broadcom VMware vCenter, ColumbiaSoft DocumentLocator, BerriAI LiteLLM, and Ivanti Connect Secure.
The universities of Greenwich and Kent have confirmed they have been given formal approval to merge into the UK’s first “super-university”.
The merged entity will be the third-largest higher education institution in the UK, the universities said, and is consulting on being named the London and South East University Group.
The University of Greenwich’s current vice-chancellor, Prof Jane Harrington, will be the designate vice-chancellor of the merged university group.
Legal documentation has been formally signed by both universities and approval from the Department for Education and Office for Students has been received, they confirmed on Wednesday.
The merged group will exist from 1 August 2026.
The two universities will still operate as distinct academic divisions within the university group, retaining their current names.
Students will still apply to and graduate from the university they choose, the institutions said.
All staff from both universities will be employed by the university group, which will have one vice-chancellor, one board of governors and one executive team.
It is believed that senior executive positions will be confirmed by April, and will include the University of Kent’s acting vice-chancellor, Prof Georgina Randsley de Moura.
Harrington said that together the universities could “continue to provide world-class teaching, grow our research tackling real-world challenges, and ultimately foster a culture where staff, students and communities thrive, collaborate and succeed together”.
She added: “For current and future students, they can be reassured that nothing changes for them, apart from the reassurance of the greater resilience and new opportunities that will come from the collective resources of being part of this new multi-university group.”
The merger comes as universities in the UK continue to face financial challenges, with the Office for Students warning in November that about 45% of providers could be facing a deficit for 2024-25.
The University and College Union general secretary, Jo Grady, warned in September the merger was a “result of severe financial pressure”.
The universities said the merged group would provide a strong financial foundation for getting through economic challenges.
The University of Greenwich’s governing body chair, Craig McWilliam, said: “The new multi-university group represents a bold and responsible response to the pressures facing higher education, rooted in strong governance, shared values and a clear civic purpose.”
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – On a Thursday afternoon, 19-year-old Mahmudul Hasan prepared seating on the floor of his bamboo-and-tarpaulin home in Balukhali Rohingya Refugee camp.
Minutes later, 35 young children trooped in. Hasan is still in his teens, but he is their teacher. They greeted him in Rakhine language: “Sayar, Nay Kaung Lar? [Sir, how are you?]” The children are among 80 who study at Hasan’s community-run private school, where he teaches them Burmese, English and maths.
But nearby, a Bangladeshi government official on a motorcycle was trying to educate all those who would listen about something else: He was making announcements about the country’s upcoming February 12 elections.
Between February 9 and February 13, the official yelled out on a microphone, people in the refugee camp should keep their shops shut and not venture outside the camp. And he warned them: Anyone found participating in any political campaign would receive “serious punishment” – they could lose their registration card and a separate document that allows refugees access to subsidised rations.
The camps in Cox’s Bazar are home to more than 1 million Rohingya refugees, who were forced to flee Myanmar in 2017 after a brutal military crackdown. At a time when most countries shunned them, Bangladesh – under then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – gave them shelter. But the election season warnings to them were a reminder of how, at the same time, life in Bangladesh is life in limbo: Limited education, health, rations, livelihood options, and freedom of movement.
As Bangladesh’s 127 million voters prepare to elect their next government, Rohingya refugees like Hasan know that they aren’t real stakeholders.
“I don’t have any new expectations,” Hasan told Al Jazeera. “I deserve to live with dignity and human rights. This life [in Bangladesh] is not my choice.”
Still, he conceded, candidates from the two main political fronts in the election – the alliances led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami – in the Ukhia and Teknaf regions where the Rohingya camps are based, have spoken of the community’s concerns, as have national leaders from these parties.
That gives him some hope to cling to.
A Rohingya family outside their temporary home in a camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh [Sahat Zia/Al Jazeera]
‘It’s not sufficient’
Hasan arrived in Bangladesh with his family when he was 10 years old in 2017, with other Rohingya refugees.
The massacre of the Rohingya in Myanmar – where the community’s members are not even considered citizens – is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice as a possible genocide. Meanwhile, in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Myanmar’s military chief, Min Aung Hlaing, accusing him of committing crimes against the Rohingya in 2017.
Since then, Bangladesh has been home to the biggest chunk of Rohingya refugees globally.
But Nay San Lwin, a diaspora leader of the Rohingya and a co-chair of the Arakan Rohingya National Council (ARNC), said that while the community was grateful to Bangladesh’s government and people, the country’s policy of “non-integration” of the Rohingya meant that they remained on the peripheries of society. The camps are fenced with barbed wire, and Rohingya children can’t access the formal education system of Bangladesh, for instance.
“The elected government in February should focus on improving living conditions, access to education, healthcare, livelihoods, and fostering greater engagement between refugees and host communities,” he said.
That’s easier said than done, though. The Rohingya camps have run with financial support from the United Nations and global aid agencies – and funding cuts in recent years have hobbled the already limited services available to residents.
“The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate due to insecurity, funding cuts, lack of education, and uncertainty about the future,” said Sayed Ullah, president of the United Council of the Rohingya, a community organisation.
Hafez Ahmed, a 64-year-old shopkeeper in the camp, said medical facilities there were getting worse. “We only got the basic medicines they provide in the hospital. If any critical illness is detected, hospitals advise us to seek treatment at private hospitals, but we don’t have the money,” he told Al Jazeera. “Rations are getting less; it’s not sufficient.”
And for young Rohingya like the teenage teacher Hasan, life in the camp is one of dashed dreams.
“Living camp life is a trauma; camp life is like prison life,” he said. “I wanted to be a world-class teacher who contributes to world education, but what can I say to myself, a fateless one?”
Growing frustrations with life in Bangladesh have led more and more Rohingya refugees to try to repeat the perilous journeys they once took to get to the country – to go elsewhere this time.
In a joint statement issued in November, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that in 2025, more than 5,300 Rohingya refugees embarked on dangerous maritime journeys. Many left Myanmar, but others were also trying to flee Bangladesh. In all, more than 600 are missing or have been killed.
Bibi Khadija, 23, is among those who tried to leave the refugee camps in Bangladesh. In November, she said, she tried “to go to Malaysia in search of a better life”. But after a human trafficker detained her and her three-year-old son, she escaped with the child. As she tried to make her way back to the camp, she asked locals in a market for help. Instead, she said, they “beat” her. “You are the Rohingya; you always create problems for us,” she recalled the mob telling her. Eventually, another local – a stranger – gave her some money to help her get back home.
Khadija’s story isn’t unique: The Rohingya in Bangladesh today sit at the intersection of a complex narrative, say experts – both treated as victims of a possible genocide, and held responsible for crime and strained social services.
As the country looks for a new start with the upcoming election, many – among both the Rohingya and Bangladeshis concerned about their presence in the nation – are hoping for a new deal for the community.
Camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, are home to more than one million Rohingya refugees [Sahat Zia/Al Jazeera]
‘Matter of utmost priority’
In August 2024, then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India, seeking exile after a major student-led uprising. She has now been sentenced, in absentia, to death for a brutal crackdown by her security forces against protesters, in which more than 1,400 people were killed.
Since her ouster, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has led an interim administration. Before the February 12 elections that will determine Bangladesh’s next government, the BNP and the Jamaat – the two main forces, with Hasina’s Awami League banned – have both spoken of the Rohingya crisis.
“Rohingya repatriation is a matter of utmost priority for the BNP,” party leader Israfil Khosru told Al Jazeera. Khosru is a special assistant to BNP chairperson Tarique Rahman’s Foreign Advisory Committee. In 1992, during the first term of Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, as the country’s prime minister, Bangladesh successfully repatriated Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. “We believe in safe and dignified repatriation of the Rohingyas. Their right to citizenship [in Myanmar] must be ensured.”
The Jamaat, meanwhile, has launched a platform to seek feedback on potential solutions to the Rohingya crisis from Bangladeshis and the diaspora. “We received a significant number of policy proposals from the people to solve the Rohingya crisis. We will examine those,” Jamaat’s assistant secretary, Ahsanul Mahboob Zubair, said.
“Solving the Rohingya issue is one of our party’s top priorities, to return them to their homeland, Myanmar, with security and dignity,” he added. He said that while previous Bangladeshi governments have focused on seeking a resolution through the UN, “China, India, and other essential stakeholders should play an effective role,” too.
But Tanvir Habib, assistant professor in international relations at Dhaka University, said the Rohingya issue was not a major factor in the election campaign.
“The next government would need to engage global and regional stakeholders to ensure that support continues to reach this vulnerable community,” he said.
Thomas Kean, senior consultant on Bangladesh and Myanmar for the International Crisis Group, said Rohingya refugees would “welcome improvements to their living conditions in the camps” under whichever party wins the election.
But the refugees see “their stay in Bangladesh as temporary, so the focus remains repatriation”.
John Quinley, director at the human rights nonprofit Fortify Rights, cautioned that Bangladeshi parties need to go beyond using “the Rohingya as a political tool during election campaigns”.
“Whoever comes to power in Bangladesh must outline a comprehensive Rohingya strategy that goes beyond repatriation. Repatriation cannot be the sole political agenda for Bangladeshi leaders, as it is not possible at this time,” he argued. “The Myanmar junta continues to commit genocide against the Rohingya.”
Not everyone is as sympathetic to the Rohingya refugees.
Outside the camp in Cox’s Bazar, Mahabub Alam, a 29-year-old student and a resident of Ukhia, described the Rohingya as a “burden”.
“Rohingya are occupying our local labour market at a lower day wage rate, and the job market is decreasing. So the Rohingya issue is a big problem for us,” Alam said.
Alam also blamed the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar for local crime, including human trafficking.
While Rohingya leaders push back against the community being characterised as responsible for crime and violence in parts of Bangladesh, those concerns extend beyond locals in Cox’s Bazar.
“People are getting impatient with the lingering Rohingya issue in Bangladesh,” Major General Shahidul Haque, a former diplomat and Bangladeshi defence attache to Myanmar, told Al Jazeera. “It is impacting our law and order situation and our national security. I have attended seminars this week where everybody is worried and wants this solved. They are expecting the next government to solve the issue.”
What that solution will look like is unclear.
But back in the camp in Cox’s Bazar, Ahmed, the Rohingya shopkeeper, knows what he wants from the next government in Bangladesh: Repatriation with rights, to Myanmar.
“I want to die in my homeland,” the sexagenarian said. “I want to return to my home.”
After the retirement of Rohit and Virat from T20, the Indian team is struggling for a regular opening pair. On one hand, Abhishek Sharma’s explosive batting is setting the game, but on the other hand he is not getting the same support. Ayush can become his second partner.
Ayush Mhatre can become an alternative to Rohit Sharma in Team India.
Ayush Mhatre, who is captaining the Indian team in the Under-19 World Cup, is making a comeback in Team India. This 18 year old young batsman from Mumbai has attracted the attention of the selectors due to his excellent game. Cricket experts believe that if Ayush Mhatre is groomed properly then he can become a great alternative to Rohit Sharma in the Indian team.
Especially after the retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in T20, Ayush Mhatre seems to have the potential to become the captain of Team India, which is struggling for the opening pair. Mhatre’s biggest strength is that he also offspins. And by taking 3 wickets each in the last two matches of the Under-19 World Cup, he has proved that he has the ability to perform charisma with both bat and ball.
After the retirement of Rohit and Virat from T20, the Indian team is struggling for a regular opening pair. On one hand, Abhishek Sharma is setting the game by batting brilliantly, but on the other hand, he is not getting the kind of support he should be getting. In the last four T20 series, Shubhman Gill and Sanju Samson were tried as openers along with Abhishek Sharma. Meanwhile, Shubman played some good innings, but Sanju’s performance was not what he is known for. In the recent 5-match series with New Zealand, he could score only 46 runs.
Ayush Mhatre is the new star of Mumbai, Ayush started playing cricket at the age of 5 in Nalasopara area. He used to travel 80 km daily from Virar to Churchgate by train to practice. The special thing is that Dinesh Lad, the coach who prepared Rohit Sharma, is grooming Ayush Mhatre. This is the reason why Rohit Sharma is also visible in Ayush’s batting. He also considers Rohit Sharma as his idol, Ayush himself has said this on many occasions.
Ayush Mhatre is continuously performing well as a player, he also has the captaincy of the Under-19 Indian team, in which he has left a deep impression. In the Under-19 World Cup, he led the team to the semi-finals by winning all five matches.
I am currently a part of the News18 App team. Before this, I have worked in reputed newspapers like Amar Ujala, Hindustan. Also, the websites of Times Now, Jagran and TV9 Bharatvarsha have articles on politics, history, education, literature…read more
Ayush Mhatre… Team India has found the next star to replace Rohit.
After the retirement of Rohit and Virat from T20, the Indian team is struggling for a regular opening pair. On one hand, Abhishek Sharma is setting the game by batting brilliantly, but on the other hand, he is not getting the kind of support he should be getting. In the last four T20 series, Shubhman Gill and Sanju Samson were tried as openers along with Abhishek Sharma. Meanwhile, Shubman played some good innings, but Sanju’s performance was not what he is known for. In the recent 5-match series with New Zealand, he could score only 46 runs.
Ayush Mhatre is the new star of Mumbai, Ayush started playing cricket at the age of 5 in Nalasopara area. He used to travel 80 km daily from Virar to Churchgate by train to practice. The special thing is that Dinesh Lad, the coach who prepared Rohit Sharma, is grooming Ayush Mhatre. This is the reason why Rohit Sharma is also visible in Ayush’s batting. He also considers Rohit Sharma as his idol, Ayush himself has said this on many occasions.
Ayush Mhatre is continuously performing well as a player, he also has the captaincy of the Under-19 Indian team, in which he has left a deep impression. In the Under-19 World Cup, he led the team to the semi-finals by winning all five matches.
Ayush is not limited to just batting, he also bowls right-arm off-spin, which makes him an explosive opener as well as an alternative bowler for the team, which the team is sorely lacking at the moment. He has given a brilliant performance of his bowling in the U19 World Cup 2026. In the knockout match with Pakistan, he took 3 wickets for 21 runs in 8 overs, before this he led the team to victory by taking 3 wickets in 4 overs against Zimbabwe. He took 3 wickets for 17 runs in 4.1 overs against Hyderabad in Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Great cricketer Sunil Gavaskar has expressed his opinion regarding Ayush Mhatre. In his column for Sportstar, Gavaskar had written that Ayush must have matured by spending time with Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal, although he cautioned that Ayush Mhatre and Vaibhav Suryavanshi should not be seen as sensations as there is a huge difference between Under-19 cricket and first-class cricket, leave alone international cricket.
Ayush Mhatre exposed the arrogance of Pakistani player.
Mumbai : Plays for Mumbai in Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Chennai Super Kings: Signed for Rs 30 lakh as replacement for Ruturaj Gaikwad in IPL 2025. India U19: In November 2025, he was made the captain of the U19 Asia Cup 2025 and is currently leading India in the U19 World Cup 2026.
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Our Money team interview top chefs from around the UK every month, hearing about their cheap food hacks, views on the industry and more.
Today, we speak to TV regular Mitch Tonks, founder and chief executive of the Rockfish restaurants.
Tinned seafood is like a time capsule… perfectly preserved fish that are bursting with flavour. A very good budget-friendly recipe is tinned sardines with tomatoes and tagliatelle – you don’t need many ingredients, and it’s super quick to make (and still incredibly tasty). Another favourite of mine is tinned mackerel shawarma: you shred cabbage, red onion and some green chilli and mix together, before grating garlic into some yoghurt and tossing the lot together. Lay out a flour tortilla and bread with some hummus, place the cabbage on top, then top with mackerel, a sprinkling of zaatar or cumin, a squeeze of lemon and wrap the whole thing up like a shawarma.
The best place in the world for seafood… is northern Spain. It is always somewhere that inspires me. I love the culture of eating in Sidrerias (cider bars), and they’ve actually had a huge influence on the interior design of our two newest Rockfish restaurants, in Salcombe and Lyme Regis. Porto in Portugal has also always stirred something in me – I love the outside grills where seafood gets the simple treatment, cooked over charcoal and served with seasonal vegetables and cold beer. Beautiful.
As a chef with a 25-year career in seafood, Brexit has done… nothing good for UK fishing. Our fishermen have lost access to key 12-mile limits, while French fleets continue to fish in our waters under extended rights. Exporting to Europe has become more expensive and tangled in red tape. And at the heart of it all is this uncomfortable truth: we don’t eat our own fish. As long as we rely on Europe to buy what we land, we’re always going to be on the back foot. The only real answer is simple: we need to start eating more of our own seafood, especially the primary species landed right here in the UK.
An underrated and cheap fish I love is… sardines! They’re great pickled, fantastic grilled, wonderful on toast, and delicious in oils. That’s why we’ve tinned them, it’s a real art form. They’re so versatile and incredibly affordable with immediate flavour.
One thing I always find fascinating about the seafood we eat is… how many incredible local species are underappreciated. As an island, we should be celebrating British seafood more – yet so many delicious fish, such as red mullet, gurnard and cuttlefish, rarely get the attention they deserve. They’re incredibly versatile, and the best way to cook and enjoy them? Keep it simple. Don’t overpower the fish – let it shine.
A tip for anyone buying seafood is… always ask where it comes from and make sure it’s sustainably caught. Be curious about what’s on your plate – it makes all the difference for flavour and for the future of our oceans.
Restaurateurs or chefs should stop… putting food on square plates, covering things in foam and producing overly-long tasting menus.
If I were prime minister for one day, I would… lower VAT to give businesses more oxygen. I would reverse seasonal national insurance. I would forget the introduction of the new employers’ bill, which adds extra burden and complexity to doing business. If the government were to give businesses a level playing field, there would be more investment, more profits and ultimately more tax revenues.
One shop-bought item that can never be beaten by home cooks is… kewpie mayonnaise. It cannot be beaten.
Whenever I fancy a cheap eats place for a £15 meal or less, I go for a… fresh umami hit at Goto Japanese in Exeter. I can get four or five pieces of sushi or a bowl of their seafood ramen plus a tea for under £15 and it always feels like I’ve had something of great quality.
The Department of Energy says advanced nuclear reactor designs – many of which have so far existed mainly at the experimental, testing, or demonstration stage – generally pose limited environmental risk and can qualify for a streamlined environmental review for future projects.
The DoE announced the “categorical exclusion” for advanced nuclear reactors (ANRs) in a Federal Register filing on Monday, establishing a pathway that can allow ANR projects to proceed without a full environmental assessment or environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), provided specific conditions are met. The move follows Trump’s executive orders directing agencies to streamline environmental reviews for nuclear reactors in order to accelerate their deployment.
A categorical exclusion means that a covered category of actions “normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment and therefore does not require preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement,” the filing says. In this case, that’s referring to ANRs, which include Generation III+ reactors, small modular reactors, microreactors, and stationary and mobile reactors.
Authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of ANRs are all included in the categorical exclusion.
The DoE justified its decision in a written record of support, arguing that safety features of next-generation reactor designs generally limit their potential environmental impact.
“Advanced nuclear reactors have key attributes such as safety features, fuel type, and fission product inventory that limit adverse consequences from releases of radioactive or hazardous material from construction, operation, and decommissioning,” the DoE said in the record of support, while conceding that most advanced reactor designs have yet to move beyond experiments and demonstrations.
“Although past advanced reactor projects have been for solely experimental, testing, and demonstration purposes … these reactors indicate that reactors in this category developed for additional purposes, such as power production and industrial applications, are also appropriate for this categorical exclusion,” the document explained.
The DoE’s move isn’t entirely surprising given Trump’s executive orders cited in the Federal Register publication specifically ask the DoE to establish categorical exclusions for ANRs. Additionally, the DoE reportedly quietly rewrote other nuclear safety documents to streamline reactor projects recently, eliminating hundreds of pages of requirements, loosening groundwater protections, and increasing radiation exposure limits for personnel, among other changes.
Nonetheless, the DoE’s Office of Nuclear Energy told The Register that, contrary to the definition of a categorical exclusion stated in the Federal Register publication, nuclear reactors would still undergo an environmental review under NEPA.
“The U.S. Department of Energy is establishing the potential option to obtain a streamlined approach for advanced nuclear reactors as part of the environmental review performed under NEPA,” a Nuclear Energy spokesperson told us in an email.
“The analysis on each reactor being considered will be informed by previously completed environmental reviews for similar advanced nuclear technologies,” the spokesperson continued. “This methodology is a win for bipartisan supported NEPA reform and will accelerate licensing of advanced reactors while upholding the highest standards of safety and security.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ nuclear power safety director, Edwin Lyman, disagrees, telling us the DoE’s move cuts corners that will create a public health and environmental safety risk.
“The test reactor designs currently under construction have primarily existed on paper. This lack of real-world experience with the reactors means that they should be subject to more rigorous safety and environmental reviews before they’re built, not less,” Lyman told us. “Any nuclear reactor, no matter how small, no matter how safe it looks on paper, is potentially subject to severe accidents.”
As Lyman noted, most of the ANR designs that the DoE wants to exempt are still in the development phase. Only a single pair of Generation III+ nuclear reactors has been constructed in the US, and those came online in 2023 and 2024, respectively, at the Vogtle nuclear power facility in Georgia.
Small modular reactors, microreactors, and other fantasy generators are still the stuff of dreams. Just one SMR design has cleared US regulatory approval, and none has yet been built and operated, with at least one project already abandoned. Nonetheless, Energy Secretary Chris Wright claims the US will have at least one SMR up and running before the 4th of July in 2026.
Given how far behind the nuclear industry is in deploying reactor designs that are still the stuff of dreams, it’s going to need as many regulatory rewrites as possible. ®
Harden, an 11-time All-Star, was traded for the fifth time in his career after two and a half seasons at the LA Clippers.
Published On 4 Feb 20264 Feb 2026
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The Cavaliers and Clippers have finalised a trade that sends 11-time All-Star James Harden to Cleveland, with Darius Garland and a second-round pick going to Los Angeles, ESPN and The Athletic both reported late on Tuesday.
Harden, 36, was held out of the Clippers’ lineup the last two games for what the team labelled personal reasons.
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The former NBA MVP and three-time scoring champ is averaging 25.4 points, 8.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds in 44 games this season, his 17th in the NBA.
Harden could block any trade because he is technically under contract for just this season, which requires his approval for the swap. The second year of his two-year, $81.5m deal is a player option, which is not fully guaranteed.
Garland, 26, has been sidelined since January 14 with a Grade 1 right toe sprain.
The two-time All-Star is averaging 18.0 points and 6.9 assists over 26 games this season. He is in the third year of a five-year, $197.2m contract.
The Cavaliers (30-21) are in contention in the Eastern Conference, one of four teams with either 30 or 31 wins behind first-place Detroit (36-12), which explains the desire to make a big move by acquiring Harden.
The Clippers, 23-26, remain in play-in contention in the West, currently in ninth place.
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday at 3pm ET (20:00 GMT).
Harden, centre, is averaging 25.4 points per game this season, his highest scoring clip since 2020-21 [Bart Young/Getty Images via AFP]
![A Rohingya family outside their temporary home in a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh [Sahat Zia/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC3080-1770189355.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
![Camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, are home to more than one million Rohingya refugees [Sahat Zia/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/DSC6062-1770189395.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C550&quality=80)
