Operation Epic Fury
On Feb. 28 at approximately 1:15 a.m. ET, the United States sent out multiple missile strikes in collaboration with the Israeli military against Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This attack against Iran occurred after multiple days of strained communication between President Trump and the Supreme Leader over Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and their illegal killing of approximately 30,000 protesters. Multiple hours after the initial missiles were fired, Iran counter-attacked by sending multiple drone strikes toward Israel and US military bases in the region. In President Trump’s initial statements about the attack, he mentioned that the country of Iran was “the world’s number one state sponsor of terror” and that “they’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and [the U.S.] can’t take it anymore.”
State of the Union
On Feb. 24, President Trump gave the longest State of the Union Address in U.S. history, which ended at about 1 hour and 47 minutes. Throughout this speech, President Trump made a multitude of statements about his first year of his presidency. One of the many topics discussed in the State of the Union Address was President Trump’s involvement in the brokering of ceasefires in eight conflicts. Many of them were temporary ceasefires broken by the time Trump gave the address. Other conflicts were not considered wars on the international stage, like Egypt and Ethiopia having a dispute over a single dam, according to AP News. Another topic discussed was Trump’s claim that the Somali community has taken over 19 billion dollars from American taxpayers. While approximately 350 million dollars was stolen from taxpayers in the 2022 Feeding Our Future case, there is no evidence pointing to the theft of $19 billion from American taxpayers, according to the Department of Justice. President Trump’s most controversial statement of the night was that illegal aliens from prisons and asylums in South America came to the U.S by the millions under President Biden. Many officials on the Democratic side of the fence question the validity of the statement, citing that less than one percent of immigrants had criminal records from the Center for Immigration Studies.
Pakistan Conflict with Afghanistan
After a series of escalations in the border dispute between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif declared that the two countries are now in “open war.” Casualties of the conflict are heavily disputed, with Pakistan’s military spokesman, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, saying that 400 Afghan troops were killed and Afghan officials claiming only 22 were killed. The last time these countries were in open conflict was in October of 2025, when the Taliban allied with Pakistan’s largest enemy, India. This conflict is being mediated by Qatari officials after they successively initiated a ceasefire in October of 2025.
