Free Republic

Russia is one of the biggest winners in the early days of the largest U.S. military confrontation in decades, as Iranian missiles deplete stocks of Patriot interceptors that Ukraine needs for its defense. Even before the Iran campaign, production bottlenecks in the U.S.-made Patriot system had drained Ukraine’s reserves and left European allies on yearslong waiting lists. Those shortfalls have allowed Russia to punch through gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, devastating its power infrastructure and casting Ukrainian cities into blackouts.

Sir Keir Starmer has told MPs that the government "does not believe in regime change from the skies", putting him at odds with President Trump over the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. In his first statement to Parliament since the strikes, Sir Keir defended his decision not to permit the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks. "President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain's national interest," he told MPs.

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend. Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tells Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides “clearly and unequivocally” that Cyprus was not the target of an Iranian missile attack, according to Cyprus’s readout. Earlier, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said that two Iranian missiles were fired toward Cyprus. “We don’t believe they were targeted at Cyprus,” says Healey in a Sky News interview. The UK has two large sovereign base districts in Cyprus.

Saudi Arabia joined Israel in lobbying the US to launch strikes against Iran. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, argued in favour of an attack during multiple phone calls with Donald Trump in the past month, sources told the Washington Post. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, also continued his long-standing campaign urging the US to join strikes on Iran, the Post reported. Iran has continued its retaliation after the US and Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Saturday morning, killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Correspondents in Dubai reported a fresh round of explosions on Sunday...

Clearly, the “Saturday Night Live” writing team had a lot of work to do on Saturday, as they opened the show with a sketch about President Trump’s early morning attack on Iran. In the Feb. 28 cold open, Trump (played by James Austin Johnson) gives a press conference about the military action. “It’s me, Donald Trump, FIFA Peace Prize winner and Nobel Peace Prize taker,” he began. “Remember that? I launched this attack after me and my board of peace…we were bored of peace. As we all know, Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for...

Norway’s foreign minister argues that the strikes on Iran broke international law, calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. “The attack is described by Israel as a pre-emptive strike, but it is not in accordance with international law. A pre-emptive attack would require the existence of an imminent threat,” Espen Barth Eide says in an email sent to AFP by his office. He does not mention US strikes.

Missiles streaked across the skies of the Middle East on Saturday morning as the United States and Israel began “Operation Epic Fury,” a joint operation targeting the Iranian regime—and one that President Donald Trump hopes will not only destroy the Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear program, but deliver regime change itself. After months of moving American military assets into the region, the Americans and Israelis began their attack by striking regime infrastructure. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Tehran palace was turned to rubble, killing the Supreme Leader, according to officials. Additional reports said that the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had been targeted....

The United Nations chief condemned the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Saturday and called for an immediate return to negotiations “to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink.” Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that everything must be done to prevent further escalation. “The alternative,” he warned, “is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.” Guterres said the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes violated international law, including the U.N. Charter. He also condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan,...

With the threat of a U.S. strike on Iran looming, the United States embassy in Jerusalem has told its workers that they may leave Israel and warned them that if they want to, it is vital that they do so immediately, according to an email from Ambassador Mike Huckabee sent to the U.S. mission Friday. The move followed meetings and phone calls through the night, Mr. Huckabee told embassy workers in the email, and resulted from “an abundance of caution” and conversations with the State Department in which officials agreed that the safety of embassy staff was a priority. Those...

A group of internal investigators at the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance made a series of startling discoveries last year. People in Iran had gained access to more than 1,500 accounts on the Binance platform over the previous year. About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. And one of those accounts belonged to a Binance vendor. After uncovering the transactions, the investigators reported them to top executives, according to company records and other documents reviewed by The New York Times. Within weeks, Binance fired or...

The Supreme Court tried to disarm Trump's tariff revolution. Treasury Sec. Bessent declared Hamilton's system the foundation of sovereignty. Meanwhile, 60 nations answered Trump's call at the Board of Peace. One system is dying. Another is born. Susan Kokinda argues Trump’s response to the Supreme Court tariff ruling points beyond China to “foreign interests” tied to British Empire's Adam Smith free-trade ideology, defended by the US Chamber of Commerce and Cato Institute. She cites Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ambassador Jamieson Greer framing the administration’s approach as Hamiltonian economic sovereignty, and says tariffs will continue under other laws, including a...

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Feb. 24. The high-profile speaking slot has proved to be a mixed blessing in recent years, providing both a national platform for a rising star and the peril of being the follow-up act to a president who has just been wrapped in the trappings of a speech to a joint session of Congress. Most of the response speeches, whether given from a quiet television studio in Washington, a Lousiana living room or a Kentucky diner, have been largely forgettable —...

The Libertarian National Committee voted this month to hold the party’s 2028 national convention in El Paso, Texas, selecting the city over Richmond, Virginia, after two rounds of balloting. Vote totals shared on the committee’s public Business List show that the final vote was 9–8 in favor of El Paso. Members also had the option to select “None of the Above,” which would have prompted further research into additional potential venues. The site selection vote followed a special virtual meeting held February 10, during which committee members heard presentations from venue representatives in El Paso, Richmond, and Frisco, Texas. The...

"Restore Britain has been called ‘far-right’ and ‘racist’ by the Guardian, Reform and the whole host of soapless socialists over the last few days. I cannot be clearer in our official party response. We do not care. The illegals will go. The hotels will be emptied, the HMOs closed. Foreign sex pests, criminals and invaders will be rounded up, and they will be sent home. Far more legals will leave than enter. Those foreign nationals here already will pay their way, they will contribute, they will respect our culture. If they don’t do that? Fine. Their choice. They will leave...

The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Latin trap artist Bad Bunny was the subject of immense criticism from Americans on Sunday night. President Donald Trump called it "one of the worst ever." The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on...

It’s known as “Don Colossus.” At 15 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf. For more than a year, the golden statue has been at the center of one of the stranger moneymaking ventures of the Trump era. A group of cryptocurrency investors paid $300,000 to have a sculptor create it as a tribute to Mr. Trump, an outspoken crypto proponent. Then they used it to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT....

Bend skier Hunter Hess is feeling "mixed emotions" about representing the U.S. at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Hess spoke during a news conference in Milan on Friday with the Team USA freeski halfpipe squad. He was reportedly asked what it means to wear Team USA gear and the American flag amid the Trump administration's immigration arrests. "It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now I think," Hess said. "It's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of and I think a lot of people aren't. I think...

President Donald Trump has deleted a controversial video that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Thursday evening, Trump posted a video with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that included a short clip at the end of the Obamas’ faces superimposed on apes’ bodies. The video was furiously criticized by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, members of the media, and other political commentators as racist. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post as simply sharing an “Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of...

Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) publicly undercut President Donald Trump’s push to federalize America’s elections on Thursday, flatly warning he did not support the idea, which would require a constitutional amendment. The proposal, first floated by the president on Tuesday in a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, came alongside Trump’s familiar unsubstantiated claims that he won states where he was officially defeated in past presidential elections, which he again branded “crooked.” The president said Republicans should “take over the voting” in at least 15 jurisdictions. Trump repeated the claim on Wednesday night in an interview with...