February 19 Overnight News Highlights

1. The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on January 27-28, released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, showed that "several participants indicated that they had previously been inclined to describe the future path of interest rates as 'two-sided', to reflect that if inflation remains above target levels, raising rates may be appropriate." 2. According to three US officials, the US is withdrawing all of its approximately 1,000 troops from Syria, ending a decade-long military operation in the country. 3. On the 18th local time, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance stated in a press release that starting from the end of January 2026, someone had used a civil servant's login credentials to access the content of around 1.2 million bank account records in the national bank account file system. The accessed content includes personal data, bank account information, account holder identity information, addresses, and tax identification numbers. 4. On the 18th local time, two Israeli sources indicated that due to signs of a possible joint attack against Iran in the coming days, Israel has raised its national alert level and is intensifying relevant military preparations. 5. Google announced in a blog post on Wednesday that the Gemini AI assistant can now generate 30-second music tracks based on text, photos, or videos uploaded by users, using Google DeepMind's latest Lyria 3 model. This feature can generate custom lyrics or purely instrumental audio, will be open to users over 18 years old, and support multiple languages. 6. Goldman Sachs CEO admitted to holding a "small amount" of bitcoin, having long been skeptical of cryptocurrencies. 7. World Labs, a startup founded by AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, raised $1 billion in a new round of financing. 8. Cryptocurrency lending company Ledn Inc. has issued $188 million of bitcoin-backed securitized bonds. 9. WTI rose by 4.6% to around $65 per barrel; Brent crude closed above $70 per barrel for the first time in over two weeks.