Every new year, public media reporters across the country bring us some of the new state laws taking effect where they are. Here are six in 2026.

From building your strength to tackling credit card debt, NPR's Life Kit has a newsletter journey to help you tackle your New Year's resolution.

Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a Swiss Alps bar during a New Year's celebration, police said Thursday.

For most of 2025, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin surged as President Trump vowed to make the U.S. a crypto leader. But now, a severe sell-off has shaken the sector.

The legendary 95-year-old investor spent decades building his company into one of the world's largest and most powerful. Now Greg Abel is taking it over.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the oath of office in New York City after midnight Thursday. The city's first Muslim mayor, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has promised to focus on affordability and fairness.

Survivors of the Eaton and Palisades Fires find healing and community working on a Rose Parade float to honor the lives and communities lost in last year's wildfires.

The city shut down the station in 1945 on New Year's Eve. Eighty years later, it's a symbolic venue choice for the incoming mayor's private swearing-in ceremony.

The U.S. military says it struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats over two days. The attacks killed eight people, while others jumped overboard and may have survived. U.S. Southern Command did not reveal where the attacks occurred.

Former special counsel Jack Smith also described President Trump as the "most culpable and most responsible person" in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a transcript of Smith's closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee.

The BBC's Silvia Costeloe says the bar where the fire broke out has been around for at least 40 years, and is considered an institution in the area.

Several dozen people are presumed to have died in the fire at a New Year party in the resort of Crans-Montana.

Colder weather with snow and ice warnings in force will continue over the next few days.

BBC Radio 4's Today will follow six parents for five years, chronicling the ups and downs of looking after a young child in modern Britain.

From spectacular firework displays to chilly sea dips, nations celebrate the start of 2026.

Fans gathered at premieres in cities across the US and Canada to watch the finale on the big screen.

Tom Shearman pays tribute to his wife and two children after a fire engulfed their home.

The ECHR questions whether it was considered if Shamima Begum was a victim of grooming and trafficking.

A barrister, nursery school teacher and cyber security expert will also enter the TV show's castle.

The latest strike comes as the US Coast Guard searches for survivors of another that happened a day earlier.

'What do we need to do better?' El Reg talks to comms boss about the problem

Interview Scientists and engineers have been taken aback by the amount of radio interference generated by satellite constellations, and many are calling on standards bodies to improve operator performance.…

Do you want bork with that?

Bork!Bork!Bork! Today's example of bork-in-the-wild shows that Microsoft is not the only game in town when it comes to screens having an IT moment in public. No, there will be no orders on this Firefox-based drive-thru kiosk at Wendy's.…

Well kinda... Your call will be transferred to the next available assistant

Microsoft had a special way of dealing with customers demanding to speak to its CEO. One that kept the customer happy without necessarily bothering His Billness.…

GPUzilla has reportedly received orders for more than two million units

With the sales ban lifted, Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance, are scrambling to secure orders for Nvidia's H200 graphics accelerators while they can. But will there be enough to satisfy demand?…

What, weekend warriors from Silicon Valley not good enough?

The US Army has been all-in on becoming an AI-powered outfit for some time, and now it's creating a career path for officers to specialize in making its automation dreams come true. …

As in past incidents, ESA says the impact was limited to external systems

The European Space Agency has suffered yet another security incident and, in keeping with past practice, says the impact is limited. Meanwhile, miscreants boast that they've made off with a trove of data, including what they claim are confidential documents, credentials, and source code.…

The world has passed it by in many ways, yet it remains relevant

Feature In the early 1990s, internetworking wonks realized the world was not many years away from running out of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, the numbers needed to identify any device connected to the public internet. Noting booming interest in the internet, the internet community went looking for ways to avoid an IP address shortage that many feared would harm technology adoption and therefore the global economy.…

El Reg speculates about what GPUzilla really gets out of the deal

This summer, AI chip startup Groq raised $750 million at a valuation of $6.9 billion. Just three months later, Nvidia celebrated the holidays by dropping nearly three times that to license its technology and squirrel away its talent.…

From COBOL and C to Linux and SQL, the unglamorous software that keeps the world running refuses to disappear

Opinion COBOL turned 66 this year and is still in use today. Major retail and commercial banks continue to run core account processing, ATM networks, credit card clearing, and batch end-of-day settlement. On top of that, many payment networks, stock exchanges, and clearinghouses rely on COBOL for high‑volume, high‑reliability batch and online transaction processing on mainframes.…

Funds in ‘Money Safe’ accounts are only available when customers appear for face-to-face verification

Hong Kong’s banks have a new weapon against scams: Accounts that require customers to visit a branch to access their funds.…

Streaming may get a little worse before it gets better.

Streamers made a strong showing this year, as did horror. Big tentpoles, superhero sagas mostly fell flat.

This time, a Colorado plant scheduled to shut down will be kept on standby.

The past year has seen plenty of hacks and outages. Here are the ones topping the list.

In a year where lofty promises collided with inconvenient research, would-be oracles became software tools.

The study's main takeaway: "Be bold. It is the thing that slows down authoritarian creep."

Settlement forces NIH to review grants previously rejected on ideological grounds.

Musk allies spin DOGE as having a "higher purpose" beyond federal budget cuts.

The state deals with flooding and sea level rise by buying homes in flood prone areas.

Netflix's finale will also have a two-day theatrical release to more than 600 locations.