Ultra-fast pulsar found near the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole

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Scientists at Columbia University working with Breakthrough Listen, a research initiative focused on searching for signs of civilizations beyond Earth, have reported new findings from the Breakthrough Listen Galactic Center Survey. This project represents one of the most sensitive radio investigations ever carried out to search for pulsars in the turbulent central region of the Milky Way. The research was led by recent Columbia PhD graduate Karen I. Perez and published in The Astrophysical Journal.

During the survey, researchers identified a promising 8.19-millisecond pulsar (MSP) candidate located close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

A Potential Tool for Testing Einstein’s General Relativity

If astronomers can confirm the object and precisely measure the timing of its pulses, it could create a rare opportunity to test General Relativity under extreme conditions. Tracking a pulsar in this environment would allow scientists to make highly accurate measurements of space-time around a supermassive black hole.

Pulsars are dense remnants of massive stars known as neutron stars. They spin rapidly and generate intense magnetic fields, producing focused beams of radio waves that sweep across space like the beam of a lighthouse.

When undisturbed by outside forces, the radio pulses from a pulsar reach Earth with remarkable consistency. Because of this steady rhythm, pulsars function like highly reliable cosmic clocks. Millisecond pulsars spin especially fast, which makes their timing behavior even more stable and predictable.

How Gravity Can Distort a Pulsar’s Signal

“Any external influence on a pulsar, such as the gravitational pull of a massive object, would introduce anomalies in this steady arrival of pulses, which can be measured and modeled,” said Slavko Bogdanov, a research scientist at the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory who was a co-author on the study. “In addition, when the pulses travel near a very massive object, they may be deflected and experience time delays due to the warping of space-time, as predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.”

Sagittarius A* contains about 4 million times the mass of the Sun, giving it a powerful gravitational reach that strongly affects nearby objects.

Follow Up Observations Underway

Because of the possible scientific significance, researchers are now analyzing additional follow up observations to determine whether the pulsar candidate is genuine.

To encourage broader scientific collaboration, Breakthrough Listen is making the data publicly available. This allows research teams around the world to conduct their own independent analyses and explore related scientific questions.

“We’re looking forward to what follow-up observations might reveal about this pulsar candidate,” Perez said. “If confirmed, it could help us better understand both our own Galaxy, and General Relativity as a whole.”

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Bailiffs used to pursue NHS staff over pay errors

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Thousands of NHS workers were pursued by debt collectors after salary overpayments, the BBC finds.

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Green By-Election Candidate Slaps Down Reform Rival’s Offer For Head-To-Head Debate

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The Green Party candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election has rejected her Reform rival’s invitation for a head-to-head debate.

While both parties have described the crunch contest to win another seat in parliament as a case of “Green vs Reform”, Hannah Spencer hit back at Matt Goodwin by pointing out they had already debated in two public forums.

Meanwhile, Labour insisted the Reform move demonstrated they were picking up more support in the traditionally red seat that expected.

It comes as the contest in the Greater Manchester, expected to be a three-horse race between the Greens, Labour and Reform, heats up.

In a post on X, Goodwin wrote: “I am hereby challenging the Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer to a one-on-one debate about the future of Gorton & Denton.”

In his attached letter to Spencer, the GB News preseneter said previous platforms had only offered one-minute answers to multiple candidates, meaning there was “limited room for a serious discussion”.

“As you have said yourself, this by-election is now a two-horse race between Reform and the Green Party,” he said, claiming there had been plenty of “misinformation” about the run-up to polling day.

He offered for it to be hosted by a Green-friendly platform with a moderator of their choosing, with his “only condition” being that it is recorded and published in full afterwards.

But, in a message to HuffPost UK, Spencer hit back: “Hi Matt, we literally just debated in the BBC studio and last week at the Manchester Evening News hustings.

“It’s not a game of the best of three. It sounds like you’re concerned you didn’t come across very well and want another go.

“I’m not sure anyone wants any more of your hot air and I’m focusing my time now on knocking on doors to talk about what really matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour told HuffPost UK this race was “Labour versus Reform” last week.

Following on from Goodwin’s offer, a Labour spokesperson said: “This is a cynical move from a campaign that knows its struggling, and that the Labour vote is holding.

“While Matthew and Hannah play student politics, Labour’s Angeliki Stogia is busy, out on the doors, listening to what matters to the people of Gorton and Denton.”

Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell also responded to Goodwin’s letter, saying: “Funny. Matt knows what we know – he’s not doing as well as he’d hoped so is trying to big up the Greens (again) as his only route to victory is to split and suppress the Labour vote (which he knows is holding).

“That, or he’s frit after Angeliki slayed him at the hustings.”

An almighty row broke out at the Manchester Evening News’ debate last week when Stogia told Goodwin that “women are scared to leave the house” due to the rise in far-right rhetoric.

He replied: “I’m not going to be lectured to by a Labour politician from a party that consistently failed to investigate the mass rape and sexual abuse of working-class kids in this country for 30 years.

“And the reason I have security is because I have very real threats to my life in an area where people assure me everything is fine, and clearly in some parts of this country integration is not working as it should be.”

These spats come after Labour have mocked the Greens for misspelling “Gorton” on some campaign posters, while Rayner previously joked Reform could not find the constituency “on a map”.

There are 11 candidates standing in the by-election in total, including Charlotte Anne Cadden for the Conservatives and Jackie Pearcey for the Liberal Democrats.

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Labour Dubbed A ‘Zombie Government’ After Starmer Commits To Yet Another U-Turn

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The government is facing fresh backlash after U-turning on their plans to postpone elections for 30 local authorities.

Labour originally offered 63 councils the chance to delay their May local elections amid wider plans to re-organise local governments.

Ministers said 30 agreed to delay, pointing to the cost of holding elections during the council rejig.

But critics claimed the government’s move was motivated by a fear of losing those local elections, which Labour denied.

However, local government secretary Steve Reed has now decided to “withdraw his decision” to postpone the elections “in the light of legal advice”.

The reverse-ferret came as Reform UK prepared to take the government to court, so Nigel Farage is heralding it as a victory.

The government is now looking to “agree an order” with Reform to end the case and has promised to “pay the claimant’s costs of these proceedings’.

A total of 136 local authority areas across England will now hold elections in the spring – along with elections to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.

The government will be offering £63 million in new funding to help with the reorganising.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: “Following legal advice, the government has withdrawn its original decision to postpone 30 local elections in May.

“Providing certainty to councils about their local elections is now the most crucial thing and all local elections will now go ahead in May 2026.”

Farage told Sky News that the U-turn was “extraordinary”, claiming: “We were due [in court] this Thursday. They’ve caved, they’ve collapsed. It’s a victory for Reform.

“But more importantly, it’s a victory for democracy in this country.”

The MP for Clacton then called Reed’s future in the government into question.

He said: “What I do think now is the minister, Steve Reed, has clearly acted illegally. And given that the government has now given in, knew they’d lose to us in court, I think Steve Reed’s question as a minister should now be debated.”

Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “This is a zombie government. U-turn, after U-turn, after U-turn.

“No plan or programme to deliver anything. Even the simple stuff that should be business as usual gets messed up.

“And we’ve got three more years of this, because Labour MPs don’t want an early election – they know they will lose their seats.”

She also claimed Reed has “very serious questions to answer on whether political considerations were behind his decision”.

“He must come clean or we will use every means at our disposal to get to the truth,” she said.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The Liberal Democrats have fought tooth and nail to stop this stitch-up and the government has been forced into a humiliating U-turn.

“Labour are terrified of Reform and we are the only party willing to stand up to Farage and beat him, as we do week after week in council by-elections.”

He also called on Starmer to support his party’s plans to stop governments from being allowed to “cancel elections on a whim ever again”.

Labour MP Florence Eshalomi – Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee – said: “I welcome this development.

“As I argued previously, democracy is not an inefficiency that should be cut out during local government reorganisation process.”

She added: “Councils should not have been put in the position of choosing between frontline services or elections.

“I welcome the indication that the government will provide additional resources to ensure that local council elections can take place and look forward to seeing more detail on this.”

Councilor Richard Wright, Chair of the District Councils’ Network, said: “Council officers, councillors and local electorates will be bewildered by the unrelenting changes to the electoral timetable.

“Councils were assured by the government that elections could be legally cancelled but now it seems ministers have come to the opposite conclusion.

“It’s the government, not councils that have acted in good faith, which should bear responsibility for this mess which impacts on people’s faith in our cherished local democracy.”

He added: “We need to have faith in the government’s decision-making as we work on the biggest shake-up of councils in 50 years – but the government is doing little assure us that it has a strong grasp of the huge legal complexity involved.”

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‘F*** Away To Russia’: Ukrainian President Hits Out As Fresh Peace Talks Loom

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fumed at the idea of handing more territory to Russia in an angry social media post and called for the west to expel all Russians.

More peace negotiations are set to take place in Geneva this week but Moscow continues to drag its feet and stick to its maximalist demands.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the “main issue” to be discussed between diplomats from Ukraine, Russia and the US will be the matter of territory.

Despite already holding a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign land, Russia wants Ukraine to give up the entirety of its Donbas region in the east as part of a peace deal.

Kyiv has repeatedly rejected this call and refuses to withdraw its troops, even though the US is pushing for a peace deal sooner rather than later.

In a series of posts on X, the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy said it was a “big mistake” to ever reward the aggressor.

Pointing to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Vladimir Putin’s occupation of parts of Georgia and Chechnya, Zelenskyy said: “Many mistakes were made.

“That’s why now I don’t want to be the President who will repeat the mistakes made by my predecessors or other people.”

The president said: “I’m not just talking about Ukraine. I’m speaking about the leaders of different countries that allowed an aggressive country like Russia to come onto their territory.

“Because you can’t stop Putin with your kisses or flowers.

“I never did it and that’s why I don’t feel that it’s the right way.”

Zelenskyy said that even giving into that demand from Putin would enable him to rebuild his military at a time when he “is losing 30–35 thousand people per month now”.

Instead, he called for stricter sanctions on Russia and the expulsion of Russians from the US and Europe.

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This is a big mistake to allow the aggressor to take something. It was a big mistake at the very beginning, starting with 2014. And even before that, during the attack and occupation of parts of Georgia. And even before that, when Chechnya was occupied, with total destruction and…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 16, 2026

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This is a big mistake to allow the aggressor to take something. It was a big mistake at the very beginning, starting with 2014. And even before that, during the attack and occupation of parts of Georgia. And even before that, when Chechnya was occupied, with total destruction and…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 16, 2026

Zelenskyy said: “Total sanctions means total. President Trump took strong steps sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft. We are thankful to him. He can sanction all of their energy, in particular nuclear energy. And it will be a powerful message to the Europeans.

“Europeans have done a lot. But they haven’t yet sanctioned Russian nuclear energy, Rosatom, the persons and their relatives, their children, who live off their money in Europe, in the United States, who pay with these profits for their education at European universities, who own real estate in the United States. A lot of real estate. They financially support children and relatives everywhere.”

Speaking directly to the Russians who still live in the US and Europe, he said: “Fuck away to Russia. Go home. You don’t respect anybody in the United States. You don’t respect the rules. You don’t respect democracy. You don’t respect Ukraine or Europe. Go home.”

Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump insists that both Ukraine and Russia “want to make a deal” – though he continues to baselessly accuse Kyiv of holding up the talks.

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