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

By NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS Television news anchor Savannah Guthrie said Tuesday that her family is offering up to $1 million for information that leads to finding her mother, Nancy, who was abducted from her home more than three weeks ago. Guthrie, a “Today” show host, made the new offer in a four-minute video posted on Instagram in which she acknowledged that her 84-year-old mother may already be dead, but said the family was holding out hope for a miracle. If Nancy Guthrie

Shoveling snow outside of a laundromat in Queens, on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. The powerful winter storm pummeling a vast swath of the Eastern Seaboard  left a heavy blanket over the region Tuesday, dumping snow at a furious rate and strangling major metropolitan areas at the dawn of the workweek. (José A. Alvarado/The New York Times) By JACEY FORTIN and ANDY NEWMAN A blizzard that buried much of the Northeast and New England left a heavy blanket over the region Tuesday, as well

A photo provided by the Havana Docks Company shows a brochure from the 1950s advertising the company’s dock facilities in Cuba. Amid rising tensions with Cuba, the Trump administration is backing lawsuits that would allow Americans to get compensation for property confiscated by Fidel Castro’s regime. (Havana Docks Company via The New York Times) By ANN E. MARIMOW More than 60 years ago, Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba and began confiscating the assets of all American-owne

The U.S. Coast Guard said response personnel and salvage teams would meet Tuesday to reassess the plan for freeing the still-grounded fuel barge Defiant and make adjustments before a second tugboat-assisted refloating attempt during the next high tide today. By THE STAR STAFF The U.S. Coast Guard reported Tuesday that a tugboat attempted to refloat the barge Defiant at high tide early in the morning and moved it nearly 30 feet from its original grounding position. “In close c

Rosely Hernández, executive director of the Beef Industry Promotion Fund, and Agriculture Secretary Irving Rodríguez Torres Also distributes more than 100 tablets to boost efficiency By THE STAR STAFF The Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture announced two major initiatives Tuesday aimed at modernizing the island’s agricultural sector, including the rollout of a cattle traceability system and the delivery of more than 100 electronic tablets to agronomists and inspectors. Publ

Municipal Revenue Collections Center Executive Director Javier García Cintrón By THE STAR STAFF Municipal Revenue Collections Center (CRIM by its acronym in Spanish) Executive Director Javier García Cintrón outlined several new initiatives Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Mayors Federation in Gurabo but did not say whether property taxes will be raised. García Cintrón said the agency is advancing projects aimed at improving property tax records and taxpayer services ac

Johnny Rodríguez Ortiz, president of the PREPA Retirees Association By THE STAR STAFF The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) charges customers $1.92 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to fund its Employees Retirement System. However, PREPA only pays out the amount needed each month for its 12,000 pension beneficiaries and keeps the rest, according to Johnny Rodríguez Ortiz, president of PREPA’s Retirees Association. If PREPA contributed the full amount collected, the retiremen