By NICHOLAS KRISTOF As the world follows the drip-drip of sensational revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, here’s a number to ponder: Last year the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 113,000 reports of child sex trafficking. Yiota Souras, the center’s chief legal officer, says that while no one knows the actual number of children trafficked annually in the United States alone, “the real number is absolutely higher” than that. Most of the victims

People walk past a domestically built missile “Khaibarbuster,” and banners showing portraits of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, and the late armed forces commanders, at Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1, 2025. (Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times) By BRET STEPHENS President Donald Trump appears poised to order strikes on Iran — indeed, by the time you read this column, he may already have done so — while barely bothering to spell out his reas

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs the White House in Washington, Feb. 13, 2026. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times) By MICHELLE GOLDBERG I never imagined I’d miss being lied to by George W. Bush and his henchmen. When the Bush administration wanted to go to war with Iraq, it undertook a full-court press to propagandize the American people. Administration officials leaked false information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which turne

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE Americans of the revolutionary generation did not think of themselves as direct heirs to Western civilization, a term that wouldn’t come into vogue until the 20th century. If anything, they saw their new nation as a break with the European past — a new civilization rooted in popular sovereignt

“It tells you something notable about the world of the 2020s that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech to the Munich Security Conference earned a brief standing ovation,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. (Shannon Lin/The New York Times) By ROSS DOUTHAT It tells you something notable about the world of the 2020s that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech to the Munich Security Conference earned a brief standing ovation. Put the same speech in the mouth of any

In an undated image provided by National Nuclear Security Administration, a shaft at the Nevada test site being prepared for an underground nuclear test in the early 1990s. (National Nuclear Security Administration via The New York Times)  By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The world is entering a dangerous new nuclear age. This month, the New START treaty between the United States and Russia — the last major restraint on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — expired. In its place,

Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein wearing white t-shirts calling for a full release of the Epstein files raise their hands in response to a committee member’s question as Attorney General Pam Bondi, foreground right, testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. Bondi faced bipartisan skepticism over her handling, and perceived bungling, of the release of the investigative files related to the convicted sex offender Je

Anti-ICE protesters gather in dontown Minneapolis on Jan. 20, 2026. (Paola Chapdelaine/The New York Times) By JAMELLE BOUIE On Oct. 4, Marimar Martinez, a teacher’s assistant at a Montessori school, was driving in Chicago when she observed federal immigration agents on patrol. She had begun to honk her horn to warn her neighbors about their presence when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Moments later, the agent in the vehicle, Charles Exum, fired multiple shots into