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Fishing Boat Carrying 283 Migrants Safely Reaches Greek Island

People visit the 43rd Thessaloniki Book Festival in Thessaloniki on July 7, 2024. (Photo by Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP)
People visit the 43rd Thessaloniki Book Festival in Thessaloniki on July 7, 2024. (Photo by Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP)
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Fishing Boat Carrying 283 Migrants Safely Reaches Greek Island

People visit the 43rd Thessaloniki Book Festival in Thessaloniki on July 7, 2024. (Photo by Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP)
People visit the 43rd Thessaloniki Book Festival in Thessaloniki on July 7, 2024. (Photo by Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP)

A fishing boat carrying nearly 300 migrants to Europe has safely reached a southern Greek island after a large rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sea, Greek authorities said Monday.
There were no immediate reports of injury or ill health among the 283 migrants, The Associated Press quoted the coast guard as saying.
A coast guard statement said a search was launched before dawn Monday after authorities were notified that a vessel carrying migrants was hit by high winds south of Crete.
Two coast guard vessels, four merchant ships and two smaller private boats took part in the operation, and the migrant vessel was located 18 nautical miles south of Gavdos, a small island off southern Crete. The fishing boat was finally able to reach the port of Gavdos with its own engines, and the migrants safely disembarked.
There was no immediate information as to the nationalities of the migrants, or where they had departed from.
Tiny Gavdos in recent months has become an important destination for migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean from eastern Libya. Typically, people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia seeking a better life in Europe pay thousands of dollars to smugglers for a spot on the dangerous, overcrowded vessels.
In June 2023, a rusty trawler that was carrying an estimated 750 people from Tobruk in eastern Libya to Italy sank off southwestern Greece leaving hundreds feared drowned. Only 104 passengers survived, and 82 bodies were recovered.

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World

NORAD Intercepts 5 Russian Aircraft near Alaska, Though Military Says There Was No Threat

An F-16 fighter jet takes off (file photo - Reuters)
An F-16 fighter jet takes off (file photo - Reuters)
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NORAD Intercepts 5 Russian Aircraft near Alaska, Though Military Says There Was No Threat

An F-16 fighter jet takes off (file photo - Reuters)
An F-16 fighter jet takes off (file photo - Reuters)

Military jets were launched to intercept five Russian aircraft that were flying in international airspace off Alaska’s western coast, but military officials said Friday the Russian aircraft were not seen as provocative.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said it detected and tracked two Russian Tu-95s, two Su-35s and one A-50 operating near the Bering Strait on Thursday, The Associated Press said.

In response, NORAD launched two F-16s, two F-35s, one E-3 and four KC-135 refueling tankers to intercept, identify and escort the Russian aircraft until they departed the area, according to a release from the command.

“The Russian military aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace,” according to the NORAD statement. It also noted this kind of activity “occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat.”

The Russian aircraft were operating in an area near the Bering Strait, a narrow body of water about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide separating the Pacific and Arctic oceans, called the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.

Such zones begin where sovereign airspace ends. While it’s international airspace, all aircraft are required to identify themselves when entering zones in the interest of national security, NORAD said.

The command used satellites, ground and airborne radars and aircraft to detect and track aircraft

NORAD is headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, but has its Alaska operations based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.

World

Trump Unleashes Personal Assault on 'Disloyal' Supreme Court Justices

US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
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Trump Unleashes Personal Assault on 'Disloyal' Supreme Court Justices

US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

US President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary personal attack Friday on the Supreme Court justices who struck down his global tariffs, including two of his own appointees, and claimed they were being "swayed by foreign interests."

"I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what's right for our country," Trump told reporters at a White House press conference.

"They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution," he said, deriding them at one point as "fools and lap dogs."

The Supreme Court has overwhelmingly sided with Trump since he took office in January of last year, and the tariffs ruling was the first major setback for the Republican president before the conservative-dominated court.

Asked if he regretted nominating justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch -- who both voted against him -- to the top court, Trump said he did not "want to say whether or not I regret."

"I think their decision was terrible," he said. "I think it's an embarrassment to their families if you want to know the truth, the two of them."

Chief Justice John Roberts, Coney Barrett and Gorsuch, all conservatives, joined with the court's three liberals in the 6-3 ruling that Trump's sweeping global tariffs were illegal.

Trump heaped praise on the conservative justices who voted to uphold his authority to levy tariffs -- Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee.

He thanked the three "for their strength and wisdom, and love of our country."

Trump in particular singled out Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent to the tariffs ruling, calling him a "genius" and saying he was "so proud of him."

- 'You're going to find out' -

The president also alleged there was foreign influence behind the ruling.

"It's my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests," he said. "I think that foreign interests are represented by people that I believe have undue influence.

"They have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court, whether it's through fear or respect or friendships, I don't know," he said.

Asked by a reporter if he had evidence of foreign influence on the court, Trump replied: "You're going to find out."

Vice President JD Vance added his voice to the condemnation of the tariffs ruling, calling it "lawlessness from the court, plain and simple."

Tensions between the White House and the Supreme Court are not new -- a frustrated president Franklin D Roosevelt once proposed expanding the court to pack it with Democratic loyalists.

But Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said Trump's "gratuitous and ad homineum attacks" on individual justices reveal "his fundamental misunderstanding of the separation of powers."

"He seems to believe that any good-faith disagreement with his own interpretation of the law is, by definition, illegitimate," Schwinn told AFP.

"At the same time, he lacks any serious interpretation of the law of his own, except to say that the law is what he wants it to be. This is not how a democracy works."

Trump was also asked whether the six justices who voted against him would be welcome at next week's State of the Union speech before Congress.

"Three are happily invited," the president said.

The others are "invited, barely," he said, before adding "I couldn't care less if they come."

World

Trump to Travel to China Next Month, with US Trade Policy in Focus

US President Donald Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, February 19, 2026. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, February 19, 2026. (Reuters)
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Trump to Travel to China Next Month, with US Trade Policy in Focus

US President Donald Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, February 19, 2026. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, February 19, 2026. (Reuters)

US President Donald Trump will travel to China from March 31 to April 2 for a highly anticipated meeting between the world's two biggest economies, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Trump's sweeping tariffs against imported goods.

A White House official confirmed the trip on Friday, just before the highest US court struck down many of the tariffs Trump has used to manage sometimes-tense relations with China.

Trump is expected to visit Beijing and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of a lavish, extended visit. Trump was last in China in 2017, ‌the most ‌recent trip by a US president.

A key topic had been whether ‌to ⁠extend a trade ⁠truce that kept both countries from further hiking tariffs. After Friday's ruling, however, it was not immediately clear whether - and under what legal authority - Trump would restore tariffs on imports from China.

TRUMP SEES TRADE IMBALANCE AS NATIONAL EMERGENCY

The administration has said the tariffs were necessary because of national emergencies related to trade imbalances and China's role in producing illicit fentanyl-related chemicals.

"That's going to be a wild one," Trump told foreign leaders visiting Washington on Thursday ⁠about the trip. "We have to put on the biggest display you've ‌ever had in the history of China."

The Chinese ‌embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beijing has not ‌confirmed the trip.

The visit would be the leaders' first talks since February and their first ‌in-person visit since an October meeting in South Korea. At that October meeting, Trump agreed to trim tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing cracking down on the fentanyl trade, resuming US soybean purchases and keeping rare earth minerals flowing.

While the October meeting largely sidestepped the sensitive issue of ‌Taiwan, Xi raised US arms sales to the island in February.

Washington announced its largest-ever arms sales deal with Taiwan in December, ⁠including $11.1 billion in ⁠weapons that could ostensibly be used to defend against a Chinese attack. Taiwan expects more such sales.

China views Taiwan as its own territory, a position Taipei rejects. The United States has formal diplomatic ties with China, but it maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan and is the island's most important arms supplier. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

Xi also said during the February call that he would consider further increasing soybean purchases, according to Trump.

Struggling US farmers are a major political constituency for Trump, and China is the top soybean consumer.

Although Trump has justified several hawkish policy steps from Canada to Greenland and Venezuela as necessary to thwart China, he has eased policy toward Beijing in the past several months in key areas, from tariffs to advanced computer chips and drones.