Friday, 20 February 2026

🧚‍♀️ TREEHOUSE NEWS 🏡

NEWS AGGREGATOR & COMMENTS

Great Spirit bless 🙏

Good morning and Happy Friday to all! It's gray and gloomy-looking out there, but on the bright side, I believe the worst part of the winter is over. The temperature is a nice, mild 50° F. in my Green Space; today's forecast is for rain, but right now it's just foggy, like in a vampire movie. "I will suck a your blood!" 🦇 Or maybe it's just the morning bats still flutering around in my belfry 🦇 🔔🦇 this is no place for old bats 🦇 We may get a few more snowstorms, but nothing will stick anymore. I see patches of green grass poking through the snow. I believe it will be mostly gone by the end of the day.

I am a little later getting started this morning. After my usual routine of putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher and setting up the morning coffee, I sat down to scroll through my cell while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing and kind of drifted for a bit until I heard the coffee machine's tiny beeping, indicating the coffee was ready.

TODAY'S DISCUSSION:

Accountability

- Google Search -

Question: What Is Accountability?

🔹AI Overview

Accountability is the obligation to take ownership of your actions, decisions, and results, both positive and negative. It involves being answerable for outcomes, admitting mistakes, and taking proactive steps to fix them rather than shifting blame. It is essential for building trust, improving performance, and fostering a culture of responsibility.

This Google Search response pretty well covers all the basics of accountability. In my opinion, Ethics in Governance and Responsibility in Leadership and Organizational Management are the areas that most lack. Greed and power often override a person's empathy and ethics in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, whether for survival or greed. One can be just as destructive as the other, like crabs in a bucket, without human emotion.

My personal thoughts on this are quite simple: Holding oneself responsible for personal behavior and commitments, and admitting and correcting personal mistakes, are essential. But instead, the psychopath will continue to lie or attempt to cheat their way out, or pass the blame for failure on to someone else. There are plenty of pathological liars and others who subvert the traditions that underpin our system of government.

BREAKING NEWS:

A former prince is arrested in the UK with accountability in question in the US

Police officers who came for Britain’s fallen prince on his 66th birthday punctured the defining perception of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal: that wealthy elites are shielded from scrutiny because of who they are.

In America, accountability still seems elusive.

It doesn’t get much more elite than being the brother of King Charles III or the favorite son — according to insiders — of late Queen Elizabeth II. But blue blood did not spare Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from arrest in an investigation following the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files...

“Let me state clearly: the law must take its course,” it said.

Why accountability is lagging in the US:
The core issue at the heart of the Epstein scandal:
In a coincidence of timing, the DOJ unveils a big move:

Read More:

Updated Feb 20, 2026, 6:37 AM ET - 1 hr 48 min ago

- CNN -

F-35s caught in trade crossfire between US and Canada

Listen to audio version of this article Included:

Canada is reevaluating its planned purchase of U.S. F-35 fighter jets over the escalating trade tensions between Washington and Ottawa in what has become a flash point in bilateral relations between the two allies.

Canada has committed to buying at least 16 F-35A Lightning II, a fifth-generation aircraft, produced by Lockheed Martin. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is weighing whether to buy another 72. A mix of domestic political pressure, rising costs and an increasingly contentious relationship with President Trump has prompted Carney’s government to consider looking elsewhere for military hardware...

if Ottawa does not buy the Lockheed Martin-made F-35s, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a defense partnership operated jointly by the two countries, “would have to be altered” — with Washington flying warplanes into Canada’s airspace more frequently.

A mixed fleet of F-35s and the Gripen or by switching to the Swedish-made aircraft for future acquisitions, according to an EKOS Politics poll from December. Only 13 percent of survey respondents said that Canada should stick with F-35s as its main fighter plane. ...

February 2026 9:14 PM ET

- TheHill-com -

F-35s caught in trade crossfire between US and Canada SNOPES

Canada's planned purchase of 88 US-made F-35 fighter jets is reportedly under review due to rising trade tensions and political pressure from the United States. While alternative suppliers are being considered, Canada has continued making payments and ordering components for the F-35s. This situation is a developing geopolitical issue, not a topic addressed by Snopes as of February 2026...

The US could strike Iran. Here’s how Tehran is getting prepared

As the United States continues a significant military buildup in the Middle East, Iran has taken steps to signal its readiness for war, including fortifying its nuclear sites and rebuilding missile production facilities.

Iranian and US negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva for three-and-a-half hours on Tuesday, but it ended with no clear resolution. Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said both sides agreed on a set of “guiding principles,” but US Vice President JD Vance said the Iranians had not acknowledged “red lines” set by US President Donald Trump. Despite ongoing talks, the White House has been briefed that the US military could be ready for an attack by the weekend, after a buildup in recent days of air and naval assets in the Middle East, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Amid the threat of war, Iran has spent recent months repairing key missile facilities and heavily damaged air bases while further concealing its nuclear program...

Repairs:

Reconstruction at the Imam Ali Missile Base in Khorramabad
Fortifying nuclear facilities:
Tunnel fortification at Pickaxe Mountain:
Reconstruction at 7th of Tir:
Reshaping governance:
Crackdown on dissent:
War games:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Feb 19, 2026, 8:00 PM ET - 13 hr ago

- CNN -

CANADIAN NEWS:

Gaza doctor says MSF decision to pull out of key hospital leaves staff vulnerable to IDF attack

Doctors Without Borders says its team on the ground has seen armed gunmen come through hospital

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip await treatment under difficult circumstances and dwindling supplies, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has announced it is scaling down operations at one of the region's biggest medical facilities, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

In a statement provided to the CBC, MSF said the “difficult decision” to suspend non-critical operations at the hospital as of Jan. 20 is “due to concerns regarding the management of the structure, the safeguarding of its neutrality and security breaches.” The statement goes on to say that MSF personnel as well as patients “have seen armed gunmen, some masked, in the different areas of the large compound of the hospital.” ...

WATCH | Gazans gather during Ramadan amid aid shortages:

Physician denies gunmen using Nasser as shelter:
IDF says intelligence confirms presence of gunmen:

Read More:

Posted: Feb 20, 2026 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 39 minutes ago

- CBC -

Local management had dealings with armed group before kidnapping at Canadian mining company, say ex-workers

5 of 10 kidnapped Vizsla Silver workers from Mexican mining project were killed, say authorities

The on-site management of a Canadian mining company in Mexico whose workers were killed earlier this year had allegedly established some level of co-ordination with an organized armed group in the region, according to a former employee and two ex-contractors.

Mexican federal authorities say a suspected faction of the Sinaloa cartel, a transnational drug trafficking organization, killed five of 10 Mexican workers kidnapped from Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver Corp.'s residential facilities on Jan. 23. The five other workers remain officially missing. The group was abducted from a gated compound in the urban centre of Concordia, a municipality that sits about 50 kilometres east of the coastal city of Mazatlán, Sinaloa.