🇺🇸📁 — Jeffrey Epstein told Steve Bannon in a text message from September 2018 that he was going "into a SCIF talk tomorrow."

📝A SCIF is a U.S. government-accredited, highly secure area designed to store, discuss, and process top secret intelligence.

🇺🇸🇪🇺⚡️ — President Trump once again mocks European leaders in a new post on Truth Social.

🇻🇪⚡️ — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado announced her close ally Juan Pablo Guanipa was kidnapped in Caracas just hours after his release from prison, saying that heavily armed men in civilian clothing took him around midnight.

🇷🇺❌🇺🇦 — WATCH: A Russian Gerbera UAV being used as a drone carrier, deploying FPV drones in Sumy.

🇺🇦🇷🇺⚡️ — Ukraine faced a severe shortage of Patriot PAC-3 interceptors last month, leaving some launchers without missiles and exposing key energy infrastructure, including power plants, to incoming ballistic missile strikes, according to FT.

🇳🇴🇺🇸📁 — Norwegian lawyer Kåre Idar Moljord is stepping down as head of the Financial Supervisory Appeals Board (Finanstilsynsklagenemnda) following revelations in the Epstein files.

➡️ Moljord said he has no ties to Jeffrey Epstein but chose to resign to avoid any impact on the board’s mission, reputation, and integrity.

➡️ DOJ files show that Moljord and Jeffrey Epstein exchanged emails as late as 2018.

🇽🇰🧑‍⚖️ — International prosecutors have asked judges at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague to convict former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci of war crimes and sentence him to 45 years in prison.

➡️ Prosecutors argue that Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders carried out a campaign of persecution, murder, torture, and enforced disappearances during and after the 1998–99 conflict with Serbia.

➡️ They allege the group targeted political opponents, as well as minority Serbs and Roma, in an effort to consolidate control over Kosovo, operating detention sites where abuses occurred.

➡️ Thaci, who served as prime minister, foreign minister, and president between 2008 and 2020, denies the charges. His defense has argued that he did not exercise effective control over KLA forces during the conflict.

🇬🇧⚡️ — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s director of communications, Tim Allan, resigned today.

➡️ This comes a day after Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney stepped down over his role in supporting Peter Mandelson, who is facing scrutiny over ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

🇬🇧⚡️ — Asked if British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will resign today, his spokesman says, "No. He is getting on with the job in hand and delivering change across the country."

🇹🇼🇺🇸⚡️ — Taiwan’s Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun rejected U.S. suggestions that 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor production be shifted to the United States, calling the idea “impossible.”

➡️ She said Taiwan’s chipmaking ecosystem "cannot simply be relocated" and made clear to Washington that such a target is unrealistic.

➡️ While emphasizing that semiconductor capacity will continue expanding in Taiwan, she added that companies can still increase their presence and investment in the U.S. without moving core operations.

🇺🇸🇵🇦⚡️ — NEW: The U.S. Department of War announced that American forces boarded the Panamanian-flagged tanker Aquila II without incident after tracking it “from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean.”

➡️ The War Department said the ship was operating in violation of President Trump’s quarantine order on sanctioned vessels and was intercepted within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility.

🇮🇹⚡️ — An armed gang attempted to rob a BTV armored cash-in-transit van on the SS 613 highway between Lecce and Brindisi, near the Tuturano exit in Italy’s Puglia region this morning, which ultimately failed.

➡️ At least six gunmen, some posing as police using vehicles with flashing lights, blocked the roadway, setting vehicles on fire. The attackers used explosives to breach the van and exchanged gunfire with responding Carabinieri patrols.

➡️ No injuries or fatalities were reported. Two suspects have been detained as they attempted to escape.

🇺🇸🇵🇷⚡️ — Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show drew more than 135 million viewers overnight.

➡️ Meanwhile, Turning Point USA streamed its “All-American Halftime Show” on YouTube during the same time slot, reaching a peak of 6.1 million concurrent viewers.

🇺🇸🇸🇦📁 — Jeffrey Epstein told an unknown individual that he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman on September 30, 2018.

➡️ This is just days before Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

🇮🇷❌🇺🇸🇮🇱 — Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Abdolrahim Mousavi, said the military is “ready to carry out its mission under any circumstances.”

➡️ He also rejected Israeli calls to include Iran’s missile program in negotiations, adding that “Netanyahu talks too much.”