In the United Kingdom this morning, Thames Valley Police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, on suspicion that he committed misconduct in public office. Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last October because of his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice suggest that when Mountbatten-Windsor represented the United Kingdom as a trade envoy, he gave confidential government documents to Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest is the first arrest of a senior royal since 1647, when supporters of Parliament arrested King Charles I during the English Civil War. Today is Mountbatten-Windsor’s 66th birthday. King Charles III said the investigations into his brother have his “wholehearted” support and that Buckingham Palace will cooperate. He said that “the law must take its course.” In South Korea, Seoul Central District Court Judge Jee Kui-youn sentenced former president of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison after he was found guilty of leading an insurrection against the government. With his approval rating plummeting as his administration was engulfed by scandals, on December 3, 2024, Yoon declared martial law and tried to paralyze the parliament by using troops to blockade the National Assembly building and arrest opposition politicians. As Lim Hui Jie reported for CNBC, five other conspirators have also received prison sentences of up to 30 years. During the trial, prosecutors told the court that Yoon had declared martial law “with the purpose of remaining in power for a long time by seizing the judiciary and legislature.” Yoon claimed that he was within his constitutional authority to declare martial law and that he did so to “safeguard freedom and sovereignty.” After Yoon declared martial law, 190 of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly fought their way into the chamber and overturned his edict, forcing Yoon to back down about six hours after his martial law announcement. Lawmakers impeached him 11 days later and removed him from office. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for Yoon. The judge said that in sentencing Yoon, he had taken into consideration that Yoon is 65 and that he did not order his troops to use lethal force during the period in which he declared martial law. In Washington, D.C., today, President Donald J. Trump held the first meeting of his so-called Board of Peace at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), newly renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace,” a change being legally challenged. Last year, officials from the Trump administration seized the USIP building, which housed an independent entity created by Congress in 1984, and fired nearly all the employees. Trump has made it clear he wants his new board to replace the United Nations. Twenty-seven countries have said they will participate, but so far none appear to have tossed in the $1 billion that would give them permanent status. The countries participating include Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Trump extended invitations to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, both of whom have been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Trump withdrew an invitation to the board from Canada after Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced Trump’s foreign policy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, so Canada is out. Rejecting Trump’s invitation are Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the Vatican. They cite their continuing support for the United Nations, concerns about Russian influence in Trump’s board, and concerns about the board’s organization, which gives Trump final say in all decisions, including how to spend the board’s money. Today, Trump announced that the U.S. will put $10 billion into the Board of Peace, although since Congress is the only body that can legally appropriate money in our system, it’s unclear how he intends to do this. The event at the board appeared to be the Trump Show. Representatives from the countries who had accepted Trump’s invitation stood awkwardly on stage waiting for him while his favorite songs blared. Once he arrived, he rambled for an hour and then appeared to fall asleep at points in the meeting as dignitaries spoke. Lena Sun and Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post reported today that having pulled out of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Trump administration has called for creating an alternative run by the U.S. that would recreate WHO systems. The cost would be $2 billion a year funded through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), up from the $680 million the U.S. provided to the WHO. The secretary of HHS is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Public health experts told the journalists it was unlikely that any new U.S.-based system could match the reach of the WHO. Director Tom Inglesby of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said: “Spending two to three times the cost to create what we already had access to makes absolutely no sense in terms of fiscal stewardship. We’re not going to get the same quality or breadth of information we would have by being in the WHO, or have anywhere [near] the influence we had.” Only sovereign nations can join the WHO, but California, Illinois, New York, and Wisconsin, as well as New York City, have joined the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Today Trump’s Commission of Fine Arts swore in two new members, including Chamberlain Harris, Trump’s 26-year-old executive assistant, who has no experience in the arts. Then the commission, now entirely made up of Trump appointees, approved Trump’s plans for a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand, although the chair did note that public comments about the project were over 99% negative. According to CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty, Harris said the White House is the “greatest house in [the] world. We want this to be the greatest ballroom in the world.” Trump says the ballroom is being funded by private donations through the Trust for the National Mall, which is not required to disclose its donors. Today workers hung a banner with a giant portrait of Trump on the Department of Justice building. On Air Force One as Trump traveled to Georgia this afternoon for a speech on the economy, Peter Doocy of the Fox News Channel asked Trump about the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor. “Do you think people in this country at some point, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, will wind up in handcuffs, too?” Trump answered: “Well, you know I’m the expert in a way, because I’ve been totally exonerated. It’s very nice, I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. I think it’s so bad for the royal family. It’s very, very sad to me. It’s a very sad thing. When I see that, it’s a very sad thing. To see it, and to see what’s going on with his brother, who’s obviously coming to our country very soon and he’s a fantastic man. King. So I think it’s a very sad thing. It’s really interesting ‘cause nobody used to speak about Epstein when he was alive, but now they speak. But I’m the one that can talk about it because I’ve been totally exonerated. I did nothing. In fact, the opposite—he was against me. He was fighting me in the election, which I just found out from the last three million pages of documents.” In fact, Trump has not been exonerated. When he got to Georgia, Trump’s economic message was that “I’ve won affordability.” More to the point was his focus on his Big Lie that he won the 2020 election and that Congress must pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act to secure elections. In fact, in solving a nonexistent problem, the law dramatically restricts voting. Republicans in the House have already passed it. If the Senate passes it, Trump told an audience in Rome, Georgia, “We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race.” — Notes: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/02/19/uk-police-arrest-ex-royal-prince-andrew/ https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/19/uk/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-arrest-what-we-know-intl https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02/19/world/yoon-korea-martial-law-president https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-mixes-diplomacy-flattery-peace-board-meeting-2026-02-19/ https://time.com/7379643/trump-board-peace-countries-joining-rejected-invitations-membership/ https://thehill.com/policy/international/5745297-trump-funding-board-of-peace/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/02/19/alternative-world-health-organization-proposal/ https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/19/politics/trump-white-house-ballroom-commission https://www.axios.com/2026/02/10/new-york-who-global-outbreak-alert-response-network https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-says-hes-totally-exonerated-001041657.html https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-republicans-will-never-lose-save-america-act/ https://newrepublic.com/post/206784/donald-trump-sleep-board-peace-launch https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/19/trump-sotu-georgia-rally-00790155 X: atrupar/status/2024576037477027958?s=20 Bluesky: governor.ca.gov/post/3mfahp6e7s22w atrupar.com/post/3mfadaghzzk2k onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3mfa34ad6js2m You’re currently a free subscriber to Letters from an American. If you need help receiving Letters, changing your email address, or unsubscribing, please visit our Support FAQ. You can also submit a help request directly. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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2026/02/19
February 19, 2026
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