Politics

The victim claimed that she was a high school junior at the time. The FBI interview, which took place July 15, 2020, records the unidentified woman’s birth year as 1986.

“EPSTEIN got on the massage table and was on a speakerphone call with DONALD TRUMP,” the FBI memo reads. “[The victim] started getting undressed, and they started massaging him. (The victim) started massaging EPSTEIN’s feet and pointed to his back.”

Recent reports indicate that the DOJ has only released a fraction of the Epstein files, potentially holding onto upward of 50 terabytes that the agency has not yet disclosed. The recent releases, which include millions of pages of documents, amount to roughly 300 gigabytes, or 2 percent of the estimated total.

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2012/EFTA02857857.pdf

Lindsey Graham, the veteran Republican senator who has been pushing for war against Iran for decades, has issued a dire warning to the Iranian government, saying it was worth spending money to “take this regime down”.

“When this regime goes down, we are going to have a new Middle East, and we are going to make a tonne of money,” Graham, a longtime proponent of US military intervention abroad, told Fox News on Sunday.

Justice’s new settlement with Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, in a high-profile antitrust lawsuit challenging the entertainment giant’s ticketing sales.

The bipartisan coalition of states said the settlement between the DOJ and Live Nation does not fully address concerns of monopolization in the entertainment sphere and it vowed to keep pursing the company in court.

New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas and Maryland are just a few of the states continuing the lawsuit against Live Nation, according to releases sent Monday by several attorneys general.

“The settlement recently announced with the U.S. Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers. We cannot agree to it,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Lawmakers are pressing the Pentagon for more details about the department increasingly acquiring equity stakes in defense companies as part of the effort to strengthen the country’s defense industrial base.

During a recent House Armed Services Committee hearing, lawmakers from both parties said they support the Defense Department’s use of new financing tools to rebuild fragile supply chains, but want “clear answers on when equity investments are the right approach.”

“How does the department determine when equity investments are necessary? And how do you deal with the possible market implications or distortion that could be caused by that?” HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said.

While not unprecedented, the federal government has historically directly intervened in the economy only during periods of extraordinary crisis. During the 2008 financial crisis, for instance, the government injected billions of dollars into the banking, auto and insurance sectors to help stabilize the economy.

Critics who released the new statistics say it undercuts Republicans’ pitch that the $1 billion program is meant to help low-income Texas families who are unsatisfied with public school afford alternative options.

The data shows only 36,000 applicants, out of more than 150,000 to date, indicated that they were enrolled in a public school during the 2024-2025 school year.

A former Missouri state house speaker was sentenced on Monday to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud for misusing federal Covid-19 relief funds for his personal benefit, including payments for country club dues and three cars.

John Diehl, the former Republican house speaker, received about $380,000 in federal loans for his law firm between 2020 and 2022 through a program intended to help cover operating expenses for businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

But Diehl admitted in a September plea agreement that he instead used the money for personal expenses such as country club dues, swimming pool maintenance, his home mortgage, and vehicle payments for a Tesla, an Audi and a Jeep. Prosecutors said he used more than half the money to fund his law firm’s defined benefit plan, of which he was the only participant – and also paid off a civil settlement related to his time as state house speaker.

A federal judge in Oregon on Monday restricted federal officers from using teargas at protests at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists.

Michael Simon, a US district judge, issued the preliminary injunction after a three-day hearing in which the plaintiffs – including a demonstrator known for wearing a chicken costume, a married couple in their 80s and two freelance journalists – testified about having chemical or projectile munitions used against them.

The lawsuit, whose defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, argues that federal officers’ use of such munitions is a retaliation against protesters that chills their first amendment rights.

Fifty-three percent of voters oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, while 40 percent support it. … Seventy-four percent of voters oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, while 20 percent support it.

‘Voters are unenthusiastic about the air attack on Iran and there is overwhelming opposition to putting American troops on Iranian soil to fight a ground war,’ said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

When Sen. Ron Johnson was asked last week why GOP lawmakers were so reluctant to assert their legal authority on matters of national security, the Wisconsin Republican replied that it’s a mistake to look to Congress for limits on presidential power. “I think the primary restraint on any president of [the] United States is public opinion,” the senator told NPR.

Two brothers of one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers visited the sex offender's former New Mexico ranch on Sunday for ​the first time to demand the Trump administration release unredacted documents to reveal ‌the identities of men their late sister alleged sexually abused her at the property.

With Epstein's hacienda-style mansion in the background, the brothers of Virginia Giuffre, who took her own life in April, ​joined hundreds of protesters at a roadside rally to mark international ​women's day near the gate of the ranch located 30 miles (48 ⁠km) south of state capital Santa Fe.

Giuffre's brother Sky Roberts, 37, called on ​the U.S. Department of Justice to release documents showing, among other things, names of ​visitors to Epstein's Zorro Ranch where he and his acquaintances are accused of sexually abusing women and girls.

"All those names are in the files and right now the government is covering ​those up," said Roberts, flanked by Giuffre's older brother, Daniel Wilson, 47, and ​their families.

Agencies were recently expected to put together lists of all positions they intended to convert into the new employment classification. But according to the Office of Personnel Management’s Feb. 6 final rule, those conversions can only be formalized once President Donald Trump orders it.

OPM’s regulations last month set off a one-month countdown before the president would be able to sign an executive order, officially converting federal positions to the new schedule. The 30-day deadline is set for March 9, making that date the earliest employee conversions could begin occurring.

It’s not yet clear how many federal positions will be affected. OPM estimated about 50,000 employees would be placed into Schedule Policy/Career. But plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit warned that the number could ultimately be much higher.

“The lack of any limiting principle as to which positions the president can move (both now and in the future) effectively means the entire career civil service is at risk,” the plaintiffs wrote.

The Bank of North Dakota is on track to launch the state’s first stablecoin next September, pending a review by state officials later this month.

The state-owned bank announced in October it is developing a stablecoin, branded as the Roughrider Coin, for use in North Dakota’s banking system. Executives hope the digital currency, which will be tied to the value of the U.S. dollar, will streamline financial transactions between banks.

The Bank of North Dakota will present an analysis to the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which has oversight of the bank and has to approve the stablecoin initiative, at the board’s March 25 meeting. Kelvin Hullet, one of the bank’s executives, said part of the presentation will be made during the public portion of the meeting, while some of the discussion is expected to be in a closed-door executive session.

The analysis will include how the Roughrider Coin will be utilized in the state’s banking system, a risk assessment and the necessary safeguards, as well as cost projections for the initiative.

The seventh American service member killed in the United States war with Iran has been identified as a 26-year-old soldier from Glendale, Kentucky.

Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington died Saturday after being seriously injured during an attack on U.S. troops at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, March 1, the Department of Defense said Monday.

”He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved. That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way,” said Gen. Sean A. Gainey, United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command commanding general.

Thom Tillis, who called for the resignation or firing of DHS secretary Kristi Noem, says White House adviser ‘should go’

“He is not worried about substance. He’s more worried about form, but I also think that he has an outsized influence over the operations of the cabinet. And I believe we’ve got qualified cabinet members there that sometimes are doing less than what they want to, because of his direction and his outsized influence. He’s a big problem in this administration. He has been from the beginning,” said Tillis.

“It gives me pause that you had people like Stephen Miller calling the shots,” Tillis added. “It was Stephen Miller who said it was the position of the United States that we should go after Greenland. And Stephen Miller, that’s been repeatedly responsible for embarrassments for the President of the United States by acting too quickly speaking, first, and thinking later.”

The settlement was announced during a court hearing Monday morning. Under the agreement, Live Nation will pay roughly $200m in damages to states that participated in the lawsuit, and Ticketmaster will be required to open parts of its platform to rival ticketing companies, reported Politico.

The agreement also will require Ticketmaster to divest from some of the amphitheaters it owns and cap service fees for its venues at 15% of the ticket price. The agreement also limits long-term exclusivity contracts utilized by Ticketmaster when partnering with venues.

Newly released body camera footage shows the chaotic moments leading up to the fatal shooting of a US citizen by an immigration officer in Texas last year, which only recently came to light.

Gunfire rings out in the nighttime footage when Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, pulls his car forwards as law enforcement try to stop him on 15 March 2025 in the beach community of South Padre Island.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not publicly disclose an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer killed Martinez until the detail emerged in media last month.

Attorneys for Martinez's family said the new evidence "calls ICE's official account of a fatal shooting into question".

Three FBI interviews that contain graphic sexual and physical assault allegations against President Donald Trump were released Thursday by the Justice Department.

The reports were follow-up interviews a woman gave to the FBI in 2019, when the agency was investigating Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking crimes. There is no indication in the reports whether the FBI was able to verify her claims.

The White House on Thursday called the woman’s allegations “baseless.” But a DOJ source told the Miami Herald that agents found her to be credible – and that they would not have interviewed her four times if they thought she was lying. In the end, she declined to cooperate with their investigation, and they lost touch with her, the source said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/61389645

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/33264

US military investigators have said it is likely its forces were responsible for a strike on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and has been condemned as a war crime, according to a report by Reuters.​

The attack on the Minab girls’ school in southern Iran on Saturday is believed to have killed at least 165 people, mostly children under the age of 12.

​The UN’s education agency, Unesco, said the attack was a “grave violation of humanitarian law”.

​US war secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the military was investigating the incident. Investigators have not reached a final conclusion and it is still unclear what evidence contributed to their assessment, Reuters reported, citing two unnamed officials.

It was also unclear what type of munitions were used and who was responsible, the outlet said.

An investigation by news outlet Middle East Eye determined that the attack on the school was a “double tap” strike – where a target is hit a second time in order to kill rescuers who come to the aid of the injured.

“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” a Red Crescent medic told the outlet, citing conversations he had with survivors.

“The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

​The UK has joined the war on Iran – which is illegal because it was not approved by the UN or US congress – by allowing the use of its bases for strikes against the country.

Prime minister Keir Starmer has claimed the UK’s involvement is an act of self-defence, despite the fact the US and Israel started the war.

From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a Court of International Trade judge on Friday that it is not currently able to comply with his order to begin refunding reciprocal tariffs imposed last year by President Donald Trump, which the Supreme Court recently ruled are illegal.

CPB in a court filing cited its existing technology, processes and manpower requirements as the reasons it could not immediately comply with the conditions of Judge Richard Eaton’s order. But the agency also suggested it could begin issuing refunds by late April after revamping its technology.

CBP told Eaton in the same filing that the total amount of so-called IEEPA tariffs collected as of Wednesday by the agency and estimated duty deposits related to such tariffs “is approximately $166 billion.”

The Justice Department on Thursday released additional Jeffrey Epstein files involving accusations made by a woman against President Donald Trump that the department said had been mistakenly withheld during an earlier review.

The department said last week that it was working to determine if any records were improperly withheld after several news organizations reported that the massive tranche of records that had been made public didn’t include some files documenting a series of interviews conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Trump.

The accuser was interviewed by the FBI four times as it sought to assess her account but a summary of only one of those interviews had been included in the publicly released files.

Nearly 6 in 10 Fox News viewers disapprove of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with almost half of voters wanting to slash the agency's funding, according to a new poll from the network.

The study also found that disapproval of ICE's activities is at a record high compared to any Fox poll conducted since 2018. Just 42 percent of respondents approve of the federal agency's performance.

The survey was conducted between February 28 and March 2, just days before DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was fired by President Trump.

Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster, told Fox News that the reason for ICE’s dismal disapproval score is clear.

“This isn’t a complicated story," Shaw said. “ICE’s tactics in Minneapolis, along with negative news coverage, have caused a sharp drop in approval, especially among independents and members of the out-party.”

The Florida Senate approved a bill Thursday giving the governor the ability to label groups as “terrorist organizations,” a move that targets college students and Islamic schools that receive state voucher money.

Under HB 1471, college students could be immediately expelled for supporting a group dubbed a terrorist organization — an apparent response to pro-Palestinian protesters who have opposed Israel’s war in Gaza on campuses.

It would also bar courts from considering religious codes, including Islamic Sharia law, in legal cases. Republican lawmakers said Sharia law sometimes comes up in contract and family disputes.

A report from the Labor Department Friday shows employers cut 92,000 jobs in February, when economists had expected the U.S. would continue adding jobs, albeit at a sluggish pace. The unemployment rate inched up to 4.4%.

Google is seeking to bypass data center zoning rules recently adopted by Linn County, Iowa, by annexing the land for its proposed campus into a city two miles away.

If approved by city officials in Palo, the move would free Google from the water-use and economic agreements that Linn County developed for unincorporated areas with input from the company’s representatives. Though Palo is part of the county, the data center would be subject to the city’s rules, not the county’s.

The workaround is “fundamentally wrong,” said Sami Scheetz, supervisor for Linn County’s 2nd District, in a statement issued by the county on Wednesday. “Let’s be clear about what is happening here. We negotiated in good faith. And Google’s response was to go find a local government that will ask for less.”

On Wednesday, the married father-of-six confirmed he had had a relationship with married staff member Regina Santos-Aviles.

Gonzales had previously dismissed the allegations as "blackmail" and a "co-ordinated" attack to unseat him.

Hours before his admission, the House Ethics Committee announced it was launching an investigation into whether Gonzales "engaged in sexual misconduct" towards one of his employees.

Regina Santos-Aviles died in September 2025, after setting herself on fire near her home in Uvalde, Texas. The medical examiner ruled her death a suicide, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.