Top U.S. & World Headlines — February 19, 2026

AMY GOODMAN, The War and Peace Report, Washington, DC quote, spending a lot of time thinking about this," unquote. On Tuesday, U.S. and Iranian negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva and left without a clear resolution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Israel and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this month to discuss Iran's nuclear program. Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending a second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, to the Middle East to join the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Persian Gulf.

The USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group has been stationed in the Caribbean when the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. Iran has long maintained its nuclear program as solely for civilian purposes. This is Iranian President Massoud Pazashkian.

We have stated this many times. My own statements are not important.

What matters from an ideological standpoint is the policy and the fatwa of the supreme leader. We are in no way seeking nuclear weapons. Whatever form of verification they want to carry out, we are ready for that verification to take place.

In the United Kingdom, police have arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince and King Charles' brother, on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Authorities say they're investigating a complaint over allegations that the former prince shared confidential material with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The former prince was the U.K.'s trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. Back in November, King Charles stripped his brother of his title as prince and duke of York and

evicted him from his royal residence over his relationship with Epstein. It comes as Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, shut down six companies after the Epstein files revealed Ferguson's close ties to the late convicted sex offender. The documents reveal Ferguson brought her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, to visit Epstein in Miami in 2009, just five days after he completed a prison

sentence on sex crime charges involving a minor. While Ferguson publicly disowned Epstein in 2011, calling their relationship a gigantic error of judgment and stating she abhors pedophilia, emails reveal she privately apologized to Epstein for her public condemnations, calling him a steadfast, generous and supreme friend,"

unquote.

Here in the U.S., Les Wexner, the billionaire former CEO of Victoria's Secret, testified about his relationship to Epstein in a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee at his home in Ohio. This is Democratic Congressmember Robert Garcia.

There would be no Epstein Island. There would be no Epstein plane. There would be no Epstein plane. There would be no money to traffic women and girls. Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Les Wexner.

Meanwhile, a panel of independent experts, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, is calling for an independent and impartial investigation into alleged sex crimes contained in the Epstein files. The U.N. panel says, quote, "'So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity," unquote. The Trump administration is planning to build a 5,000-person military base in Gaza sprawling

more than 350 acres. That's according to contracting records reviewed by The Guardian newspaper, which reports the site is meant to host a future international stabilization force, part of the so-called Board of Peace chaired by President Trump. Today, dozens of world leaders and high-ranking diplomats are gathering in Washington, D.C., as the Board of Peace holds its inaugural meeting.

Ahead of the summit, European allies declined to join. Country-sending delegations are largely led by authoritarian governments. The list includes Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The pope has refused to join the Board of Peace. This comes as Palestinians left homeless by Israel's bombardment say they have yet to

receive any assistance rebuilding their shattered neighborhoods.

As Palestinians living in displacement, we first hope for the reconstruction of Rafah City, and secondly, the infrastructure. We have destruction in hospitals, in health, in education, in infrastructure, in electricity, in water, in housing, in the environment, in diseases, in the spread of diseases, and in the spread of things like that. So we hope for reconstruction in a very quick way.

A new study finds Israel's assault on Gaza killed far more Palestinians than initially reported. Writing in The Lancet medical journal, researchers found there were over 75,000 violent deaths in the first 16 months of Israel's assault. That compares to the roughly 49,000 deaths reported by the Palestinian health ministry over that period.

More than half of those killed in the Israeli strikes were women, seniors or children. Palestinian photographer Mariam Daga has won a 2026 George Polk Award for photojournalism for her work documenting Israel's starvation campaign against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Daga was awarded the prize posthumously after she was killed last August when Israel's military bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

She died in a second strike on the hospital alongside Palestinian journalists Moaz Abutaha and Mohamed Salama, after they rushed to the scene of Israel's initial attack. In Moscow, Cuba's foreign minister met Wednesday with top Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pledged his support to the island nation. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, urged the U.S. to end its blockade and oil embargo, which has left Cuba facing blackouts and severe fuel shortages.

This is Cuba's foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

We share a great concern about the deterioration of the international order, which was already unjust and precarious, but which today is being replaced by the practices of the United States government through operations of plunder and occupation of natural resources, total transgression of international law and ignorance of the United Nations, which threatens not only the current order, multilateralism, the United Nations and others, but also the sovereignty and security of all states, without exception.

The Department of Homeland Security is launching a nationwide campaign to investigate and prosecute naturalized citizens who registered to vote or voted illegally prior to becoming citizens. That's according to documents reviewed by MSNOW. The initiative reportedly requires DHS investigators to submit reports to the White House detailing each case in which they declined to bring charges. Two current and former DHS officials told MSNOW that the White House directive is, quote,

not normal. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is reportedly the driving force behind the DHS investigation. The Trump administration is preparing to roll back limits on levels of toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. The New York Times reports top EPA officials will announce the rollback during a visit

to Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday. The World Health Organization considers mercury one of its top 10 chemicals of major public health concern, and even small amounts can cause serious health problems, especially in utero and in children. Meanwhile, a coalition of public health and environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday seeking to block President Trump's rollback of the 2009 endangerment finding, which enabled

the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In a separate petition, 18 children and young adults also sued the EPA, arguing the burning of fossil fuels is denying them their constitutional rights to life and liberty. Lead petitioner Elena Venner wrote, quote, "'My Catholic faith teaches me to care for all life and protect the most vulnerable, and it teaches that children are a gift. I now struggle to imagine bringing a child into a world where the air is unsafe and the

climate is increasingly unstable,' she said." In New York, NYU Langone Health has announced it will close its trans youth health program, forcing transgender teens who are currently receiving gender-affirming care at the hospital system to seek treatment elsewhere. This comes as the Trump administration's threatened to cut federal funding from hospitals that provide hormone treatments or puberty blockers to minors.

New York State Senator Eric Boucher said, quote, "'Health care decisions should be made by doctors, patients and families, not by politicians weaponizing funding to push an extreme ideological agenda,' unquote." According to Stat News, more than 40 hospitals nationwide have paused or ceased to offer some type of gender-affirming care to trans youth since President Trump returned to office. South Korea's former President Yoon Suk-yoo has been sentenced to life in prison with

hard labor after a court in Seoul found him guilty of leading an insurrection during a failed attempt to declare martial law last December, 2024. In a verdict broadcast on live TV, a judge found Yoon unlawfully tried to send troops into South Korea's National Assembly to arrest key figures, including the Assembly speaker and party leaders. Yoon had faced a possible death sentence.

And in California, eight backcountry skiers have been found dead after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe. A ninth skier is still missing, but is also presumed to be dead. It's the deadliest avalanche in California history. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman.

And I'm Nermeen Shaikh.

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