Democratic congressman Ro Khanna names six men appearing in unredacted Epstein files – live

The Trump administration on Thursday will roll back the mechanism allowing the government to regulate planet-warming pollution, the White House press secretary has told reporters.

“President Trump will be joined by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to formalize the recession of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said at a press conference on Tuesday. “This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history.”

The finding determined that CO2 other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, establishing a legal basis to regulate them under the Clean Air Act and forming the underpinning of virtually all federal climate regulations. Its reversal is certain to be challenged in court.

Climate experts are outraged at the planned decision.

“The Trump EPA is cynically pretending climate change isn’t a risk to Americans’ health and welfare,” said Meredith Hankins, federal climate legal director at the environmental advocacy nonprofit National Resources Defense Council. “This is the biggest attack ever on federal authority to tackle the climate crisis, and a devastating blow to millions of Americans facing growing risks of unnatural disasters.”

Zeldin submitted the repeal of the legal determination for White House review last month. After he announced the plan to repeal the finding in July, the agency received half a million comments on the proposal.

Among those comments was one filed by science group Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on behalf of its half a million supporters and network of more than 22,000 scientists, opposing the rollback.

“The American public deserves a government that will face the challenge of the climate crisis head on with proven policy solutions,” said Dr. Gretchen Goldman, UCS president who previously served in the Department of Transportation and the White House,”not actively serve as agents of destruction by worsening it to boost fossil fuel profits.”

In response to the latest images and video, shared by the FBI, of a masked suspect at Nancy Guthrie’s door the morning of her disappearance, her daughter – Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie – shared the recovered footage to social media.

“Someone out there recognizes this person,” Guthrie wrote. “We believe she is still out there. Bring her home.”

Susan Collins, the Maine Republican senator who is a top target of Democrats in this year’s midterm elections, on Tuesday launched her campaign for a sixth term in office.

She is expected to face one of the toughest re-election battles of the year, as victory in Maine is seen as essential to Democrats’ hopes of winning back control of the Senate, and putting a halt to Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

First elected in 1996, Collins is among the few Republican senators who occasionally defy the president, and is the only one representing a state that the president did not carry in his successful re-election bid two years ago.

“True leaders bring both sides together to seek common ground, not shout the loudest or seek the most social media clicks. I have a proven record of working for you, and I’m running for reelection because my experience, seniority and independence matter,” Collins wrote in an op-ed published in the Bangor Daily News of Bangor, Maine.

Collins has had a rocky relationship with Trump since beginning his second term. While she voted to confirm much of his cabinet, she opposed several of his most controversial nominees, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and FBI director, Kash Patel.

The president has recently lashed out at her, saying Collins and other senators who voted in support of a war powers resolution to block further attacks on Venezuela “should never be elected to office again”.

Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, is among the Democrats who are seeking to unseat Collins, along with Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and marine veteran. They will face off for the Democratic nomination in the 9 June primary.

Karoline Leavitt batted off a question about whether Donald Trump spoke to a former Palm Beach police chief about Jeffrey Epstein in 2006.

“Everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told Michael Reiter about the late sex-trafficker, according to an account of a conversation contained within the justice department’s release of 3m Epstein files. Reiter, who retired in 2009, later confirmed the conversation to the Miami Herald.

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Leavitt said. “What I’m telling you is that what President Trump has always said … that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep. And that remains true. And this call, if it did happen, corroborates exactly what President Trump has said from the beginning.”

This dramatically contrasts with the president’s public statements, where he has previously said that he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes before the pair allegedly fell out in the early 2000s.

“I’m sure many of you, when you read that, that alleged FBI report probably thought to yourself: ‘Wow, this really cracks our narrative that we’ve been trying to push about this president for many years.’ So we’re moving on from that,” Leavitt said.

Today, Chuck Schumer held a press conference with a small group of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to announce a law that seeks to eliminate the statute of limitations for certain sexual offenses.

“The bill exists because people refuse to accept silence as the end of the story. It’s that simple,” Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, said.

Schumer said the bill was named in honor of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most vocal Epstein survivors who died by suicide in April 2025.

“Justice should not expire, because for survivors healing does not run on a government clock,” he said. “For years, survivors of Epstein’s abuse were ignored ... Even when the world finally listened, too many survivors were still told by the law, ‘It’s too late, your justice has expired.’
“Virginia’s law changes that.”

Several of Giuffre’s relatives were emotional as they spoke at the event in the US Capitol. Her brother, Sky Roberts, was asked about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced former British royal photographed with Giuffre and Epstein’s fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, in a now infamous image.

“He should show up in front of our Congress and answer questions,” Roberts said. Mountbatten-Windsor has been accused of “hiding” from a congressional request for testimony.

New York Democrat Dan Goldman asks what guidance ICE agents have been given about asking people on American streets to show proof of citizenship.

Todd Lyons says ICE “conducts targeted, intelligence-driven operations. We don’t walk around the streets asking people about their American citizenship.”

Goldman asks if that means all the American citizens who have been randomly asked are lying.

Lyons concedes that if ICE are conducting an investigation they’ll ask someone their nationality (which … isn’t the same thing).

Goldman makes the point that that, by definition, isn’t “targeted”, because “they’re asking all sorts of American citizens, including off-duty law enforcement officers.”

Seth Magaziner then makes a broader point, which I think is worth posting in full.

There has been no accountability in your agency under the Trump administration – none.

Your agency has repeatedly been caught on tape using unnecessary violence against civilians and you can’t even tell me if any of these agents have been investigated and disciplined.

You’re supposed to be making people safer and instead your agents are being unnecessarily violent, and that is why the Trump administration has lost the trust of the American people on immigration.

Understand, it’s not just the actions of the agents in the field; it’s the lack of accountability from the top that has caused public trust to erode, and there need to be major reforms before we vote to give any of you any funding.

Your agencies need to act like other law enforcement agencies. Take off the masks, wear badge numbers, enforce discipline with real standards of conduct – but accountability starts at the top.

Kristi Noem is completely unfit and should be removed from office. And all of the operations we have just seen were overseen by commander Gregory Bovino who himself engaged in excessive use of force.

He even admitted that he lied to a federal judge when he claimed he had been hit by a rock when he threw a teargas canister at a crowd of civilians, but after the footage came out and that turned out to not be true, he admitted that he lied about it.

He asks what disciplinary action they are going to take against Bovino, to which Rodney Scott says he can’t comment.

Asked if there was an investigation, Scott gives a vague answer about every allegation regarding use of force being investigated and reviewed.

Magaziner now highlights an incident in which a federal agent sprayed pepper spray directly into the face of an individual who had already been pinned to the ground by three other agents (here’s the clip, via CNN).

Is this proper procedure for the use of pepper spray, he asks.

Scott says he can’t comment on that because “you’re only showing one piece and that subject is clearly not compliant – ”.

Magaziner interrupts to reiterate that this is not the intended use of pepper spray. Scott says the intended use is to de-escalate.

Magaziner says being pinned to the ground by three other agents would suggest the individual had been de-escalated.

He then asks if there has been any investigation into the agent that did this, to which Scott says there are many open investigations and he’ll get back to him.

Magaziner turns to an incident from last year in which an Illinois man and his US citizen family – including his one-year-old daughter – were pepper-sprayed in their car by federal immigration agents during a shopping trip in a Chicago suburb.

Is it proper procedure to aim pepper spray into the window of a moving vehicle, he asks.

At first, Rodney Scott, commissioner of CBP, says he’s not familiar with all the details on this and it’s an ongoing investigation, before conceding, “we try to avoid that - no, it’s not proper procedure.”

Scott begins to talk about intentional vs unintentional, before Magaziner says that “from the video, this was clearly intentional”.

Asked if any of the agents involved were ever investigated and disciplined, Scott says the investigation is ongoing.

Todd Lyons is asked by Rhode Island Democrat Seth Magaziner whether ICE has hired anyone who was charged with a crime related to the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.

After a brief pause, Lyons says he doesn’t have that information, “but I would say no.”

Magaziner asks if him to find out and please report back, to which Lyons agrees.

Asked if he would hire someone who had attacked police officers on January 6, even if they were “unfortunately” pardoned by the president, Lyons replies:

Sir, we take assault on law enforcement very serious and we have a good, strenuous vetting program.

In response to a line of questioning by California Democrat Lou Correa, Todd Lyons said that an American citizen “shouldn’t feel the need” to carry a passport to prove their legal status in the country. This comes amid several instances of US citizens being profiled, searched and detained by federal immigration officers during the crackdown in Minnesota and across the country.

“The number of cases of Americans being detained, being taken in, some being held for five days …What do we do with those people in that situation? What do we tell them?” Correa said.

Lyons was resolute that he was unaware of any examples of Americans detained by ICE.

Correa pushed Lyons on whether immigration enforcement is surveilling citizens, particularly protesters. “I can assure you, there is no database that’s tracking United States citizens,” Lyons replied.

Asked if there were plans to release any footage from body cameras worn by federal agents in Minnesota, in the spirit of transparency to regain public trust, Todd Lyons said:

100%, sir. One thing I’m committed to is full transparency, and I fully welcome body cameras all across the spectrum and all of our law enforcement activities. Yes sir, body camera footage will be released.

ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, did not confirm how many agents have been fired under his leadership when probed by Democratic lawmaker Eric Swalwell.

“I’m not going to speak about personnel actions, but I’ll get you that data,” Lyons said.

“Are you telling us you can’t even say one person’s been fired?” Swalwell pushed back.

Later, Lyons refused to comment when Swalwell asked if the he would apologize to the family of Renee Good, after Trump administration officials labelled her a “domestic terrorist”, after she was fatally shot by an ICE agent. The president, for his part, called Good a “professional agitator” and “very violent”, despite video footage showing her driving away from law enforcement when she was killed.

“I welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private, but I’m not going to comment on any active investigation,” Lyons said at today’s oversight hearing.

Lyons responded to questions from Andrew Garbarino about the training that ICE agents and officers receive.

“They are taught in defensive tactics, personal safety, but as well as laws to include first, second, fourth, fifth, 10th, 14th amendment,” Lyons said. “The officers are trained before they go out into the field. And then while they’re in the field, there are specialized training when disturbance control and other special tactics.”

Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that agents go through a 117 day Academy, while officers attend a 103 day training program.

Bennie Thompson pressed both Lyons and Scott about the body-warn cameras by federal immigration enforcement. The acting ICE director said that roughly 3,000 officers out of around 13,000 wear cameras. While Scott said around half of CBP’s 20,000 agents are fitted with cameras.

One note for today, the Rules committee will take up the SAVE America act, paving the way for a possible House floor vote. A reminder, this is the legislation – backed by the president and many Republican members of Congress – that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote.

Voting rights experts have long warned this requirement would act as a barrier to participating in elections, and noncitizens voting is both illegal and extremely rare.

Donald Trump has spent recent weeks reviving his baseless claims that US elections are “rigged,” even urging GOP lawmakers to “nationalize” voting, despite states running election administration, not the federal government.

The Trump administration has launched TrumpRx, but there are other sites offering discounts on more medications, and the new government site will appeal to a very limited group of patients, experts say.

Trump has promised reforms on the unusually high drug prices in the US, and he called the announcement “the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history” at a press conference on Thursday. Yet the site only lists 43 medications, more than half of which are available in generic form at significantly cheaper prices elsewhere.

The site may make some weight loss and fertility drugs not covered by insurance more accessible, but overall “it is not a solution for high drug prices in the United States”, said Sean Sullivan, professor of health economics and policy and former dean of pharmacy at the University of Washington.

“Consumers can probably get a cheaper version of these medicines through insurance and their pharmacies, or via cash pay services like Cost Plus Drugs than by the deals offered through TrumpRx,” Sullivan said.

“Healthcare is really complicated in America, and even the supply of prescription drugs is really complicated in America, and this has added to the complexity, instead of reducing complexity,” said Rena Conti, associate professor of markets, public policy, and law at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

The best course is likely still to “ask your local pharmacist what the best deal is”, Conti said.

Read Melody’s full report here:

Donald Trump is in Washington today. As of now, he’ll have time signing time in the Oval Office, followed by a policy meeting. However, none of these events will be open to the press. We will hear from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who will brief reporters at 1pm ET.

We’ll bring you the latest lines as it happens.

Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, accused the justice department of making “puzzling, inexplicable redactions” to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while allowing the identities of the disgraced financier’s victims to become public.

Raskin told reporters that he wanted to view the complete files to better understand how the justice department handled the redaction process.

Watch the video below…

An Irish man who has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for five months despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record says he fears for his life and has appealed for help from Ireland’s government.

Seamus Culleton said conditions at his detention centre in Texas were akin to “torture” and that the atmosphere was volatile. “I’m not in fear of the other inmates. I’m afraid of the staff. They’re capable of anything.”

Speaking from the El Paso facility to Ireland’s RTÉ radio, Culleton implored the taoiseach, Micheál Martin, to raise his case with Donald Trump when he visits the White House next month for St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

“Just try to get me out of here and do all you can, please. It’s an absolute torture, psychological and physical torture,” Culleton said, adding he did not know how much more he could take. “It’s just a horrible, horrible, horrible place.”

Originally from County Kilkenny, Culleton, 42, runs a plastering business in the Boston area. After buying supplies at a hardware store on 9 September 2025 he was followed by ICE agents and arrested.

Culleton entered the US in 2009 on a visa waiver programme and overstayed the 90-day limit but after marrying a US citizen, Tiffany Smyth, and applying for lawful permanent residence, he obtained a statutory exemption that allowed him to work, according to his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye.

The detention prevented him from attending the final interview in October for his green card that would have confirmed his legal status, said Okoye. “It’s inexplicable that this man has been in detention.”

Donald Trump has done a number of U-turns on the Epstein files since his campaign in 2024.

The president wants the latest batch of files to be the last, but Democrats are pushing for three million more to be released.

The Guardian US reporter Richard Luscombe gives an overview of the latest findings after the Department of Justice released the files…

Americans’ hope for their future has fallen to a new low, according to new polling.

In 2025, only about 59% of Americans gave high ratings when asked to evaluate how good their life will be in about five years, the lowest annual measure since Gallup began asking this question almost 20 years ago, AP reported.

It’s a warning about the depth of the gloom that has fallen over the country over the past few years. In the data, Gallup’s ‘current’ and ‘future’ lines have tended to move together over time - when Americans are feeling good about the present, they tend to feel optimistic about the future. But the most recent measures show that while current life satisfaction has declined over the last decade, future optimism has dropped even more.

“While current life is eroding, it’s that optimism for the future that has eroded almost twice as much over the course of about that last 10 years or so,” said Dan Witters, the research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index.

Gallup assesses people who rate their current life at a 7 or higher and their anticipated future at an 8 or higher as “thriving.” Fewer than half of Americans, about 48%, are now in that category.

Police departments across the US are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist Donald Trump’s mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by the 74 reveals.

Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month show police are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related investigations.

The audit logs originate from Texas school districts that contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that manufactures artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers and other surveillance technology. Flock’s cameras are designed to capture license plate numbers, timestamps and other identifying details, which are uploaded to a cloud server. Flock customers, including schools, can decide whether to share their information with other police agencies in the company’s national network.

Multiple law enforcement leaders acknowledged they conducted the searches in the audit logs to help the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enforce federal immigration laws. The Trump administration’s aggressive DHS crackdown, which has grown increasingly unpopular, has had a significant impact on schools.

Educators, parents and students as young as five have been swept up, with immigrant families being targeted during school drop-offs and pick-ups. School parking lots are one place the cameras at the center of these searches can be found, along with other locations in the wider community, such as mounted on utility poles at intersections or along busy commercial streets.

The data raises questions about the degree to which campus surveillance technology intended for student safety is being repurposed to support immigration enforcement.

A federal judge on Monday blocked a California law from going into effect that would ban federal immigration agents from covering their faces, but they will still be required to wear clear identification showing their agency and badge number.

California became the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings under a bill that was signed by Gavin Newsom, the governor, in September, following last summer’s high-profile raids by ICE officers in Los Angeles.

The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in November challenging the law, arguing it would threaten the safety of officers who are facing harassment, doxing, and violence. The Department of Justice claimed the law violated the constitution because California would be directly regulating the federal government. The agency argued that federal officers should be able to choose a whether to wear a face covering.

“Denying federal agencies and officers that choice would chill federal law enforcement and deter applicants for law enforcement positions,” the justice department wrote in its lawsuit.

Judge Christina Snyder said she issued the initial ruling because the mask ban as it was enacted did not also apply to state and local law enforcement authorities, thus it discriminated against the federal government.

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, called the ruling a “key court victory” in a post on social media, saying federal agents are “attacked on a regular basis just for doing their jobs”. She added that the justice department “will ALWAYS have the backs of our great federal law enforcement officers”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will prioritise discussions on negotiations with Iran when he meets with US president Donald Trump in Washington this week.

“On this trip we will discuss a range of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course first and foremost the negotiations with Iran. I will present to the president our views regarding the principles for the negotiations,” Netanyahu said before heading to the United States, where he will meet Trump on Wednesday.

Their meeting comes days after Iran and the United States held talks in Oman last week, after which Trump said another round of negotiations would follow, AFP reports.