Jamie Raskin says he searched the unredacted Epstein files and President Trump’s name lit up the database like a Vegas marquee.

Ukraine has voiced strong opposition to a proposed economic cooperation initiative between Russia and the United States—reportedly valued at $12 trillion—citing concerns that it could undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and security. During a press conference with journalists on February 7, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukrainian intelligence has identified a draft initiative for economic collaboration between the US and Russia. We bring you stories from the ground. Your support keeps our team in the field.DONATE NOW The project is informally referred to as the “Dmitriev package,” named after Kirill Dmitriev, a key representative of the Russian government. Zelenskyy warned that certain provisions within the package may touch on issues affecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and national interests. “We clearly demonstrate that Ukraine will not support even the possibility of agreements made about us without us,” he said. The Ukrainian president emphasized that Kyiv will oppose any arrangement that contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine, including potential recognition of Crimea as Russian territory. “Even if we speak about compromises, they still must be fair,” Zelenskyy added, noting that Ukraine expects transparency in any deal involving its interests. Zelenskyy reiterated that no lasting resolution to the war can be reached without credible security guarantees for Ukraine. He stated that the signing of such guarantees must precede other agreements. “I would very much like us to first sign the security guarantees and then sign other documents. This is not only about fairness, but also about trust,” he said. Zelenskyy indicated that Russia is unlikely to support a US–Ukraine security agreement but stressed that Kyiv will proceed regardless. “Ukraine will receive security guarantees. Without them, there can be no end to the war,” he said. According to Zelenskyy, Washington is aiming to see the war concluded by June and may apply diplomatic pressure to keep negotiations on that schedule. He also acknowledged that domestic political dynamics in the US—such as upcoming elections and legislative processes—could be influencing the proposed timeline. “There is talk from the American side about ending the war by the beginning of summer,” Zelenskyy said, adding that no indications have been received suggesting the US might exit the negotiation process if that deadline is missed. “It is important that the Americans remain engaged,” he noted. He confirmed that Ukraine has long proposed a step-by-step “Sequence Plan” to define the actions and deadlines for all parties involved. The United States, according to Zelenskyy, has discussed the option of synchronizing the signing of multiple agreements, including those related to security. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed French President Emmanuel Macron’s renewed outreach to Moscow as “pathetic diplomacy,” following a visit to Russia by Macron’s adviser Emmanuel Bonne. Our reporters work on the frontlines to show what’s really happening in Ukraine. Your support helps them keep reporting.SUPPORT FRONTLINE REPORTS

Less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump's first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News. The official statistics contained in the DHS document, which had not been previously reported publicly, provide the most detailed look yet into who ICE has arrested during the Trump administration's far-reaching deportation operations across the U.S. The internal DHS figures undermine frequent assertions by the Trump administration that its crackdown on illegal immigration is primarily targeting dangerous and violent criminals living in the U.S. illegally, people Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have regularly called the "worst of the worst." The statistics show ICE has dramatically increased arrests since Mr. Trump's return to office. Nearly 60% of ICE arrestees over the past year had criminal charges or convictions, the document indicates. But among that population, the majority of the criminal charges or convictions are not for violent crimes. For example, while Mr. Trump and his aides often talk about immigration officials targeting murderers, rapists and gangsters, the internal data indicate that less than 2% of those arrested by ICE over the past year had homicide or sexual assault charges or convictions. Another 2% of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members. Nearly 40% of all of those arrested by ICE in Mr. Trump's first year back in office did not have any criminal record at all, and were only accused of civil immigration offenses, such as living in the U.S. illegally or overstaying their permission to be in the country, the DHS document shows. Those alleged violations of U.S. immigration law are typically adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil — not criminal — proceedings. While Mr. Trump's deportation program enjoyed majority support during the 2024 presidential campaign and his early months in office, public opposition to his crackdown has grown significantly because of concerns about agents' tactics in cities like Minneapolis and over who is being swept up by their operations. A CBS News poll last month found that Americans' support for Mr. Trump's deportation efforts had fallen to 46%, down from 59% at the start of his second term. Just over 60% of those surveyed said immigration agents were being "too tough." Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said in a statement after this story was published that "Drug trafficking, Distribution of child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, solicitation of a minor, human smuggling are all categorized as 'nonviolent crimes.'"What the statistics show about ICE arrests under Trump The DHS document obtained by CBS News indicates that ICE made roughly 393,000 arrests between Jan. 21, 2025, Mr. Trump's first full day back in power, and Jan. 31 of this year. ICE classified around 229,000 of those arrested as "criminal aliens," because they had criminal charges or convictions. About 153,000 of the arrests were categorized as "other administrative arrests," or detentions of immigrants lacking any criminal record. Nearly 11,000 of the arrests were "criminal arrests" of noncitizens taken into ICE custody due to new criminal allegations, like interfering with operations. In total, ICE made more than triple the number of administrative arrests, including of criminals, over the past year under Mr. Trump than the agency did in fiscal year 2024, when it recorded 113,000 administrative arrests during the Biden administration. The percentage of ICE arrests of those with criminal histories, however, went down, from 72% in fiscal year 2024, to nearly 60% in Mr. Trump's first year. The figures indicate that roughly 7,500 — or 1.9% — of the ICE arrests involved individuals accused of belonging to gangs like Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization with origins in Venezuela's prisons. Mr. Trump initially made the gang a focal point of his crackdown, deporting more than 200 men accused of being Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador. A CBS News and "60 Minutes" investigation last year found most of the men did not have any apparent criminal record. The internal DHS document lays out the most serious charge or conviction for those arrested by ICE with criminal histories. The document lists 2,100 arrests of those with homicide charges or convictions; 2,700 arrests of those with robbery offenses; and 5,400 arrests involving individuals charged with or convicted of sexual assault. Another 43,000 arrestees are listed as having assault charges or convictions. About 1,100 had kidnapping charges or convictions and 350 had arson offenses listed. Added together, the number of ICE arrests involving individuals charged with or convicted of the aforementioned violent crimes represents around 13.9% of all arrests. The document also says ICE arrested 22,600 individuals with charges or convictions involving dangerous drugs, while another 6,100 had weapons offenses on their records. Nearly 30,000 of those arrested by ICE had been charged with or convicted with driving while under influence or intoxicated. Another 5,000 arrestees had burglary charges or convictions. The document says another 118,000 detainees had criminal charges or convictions for "other" crimes. Those could include immigration-related crimes, like entering the U.S. illegally, a misdemeanor for the first-time offense, or re-entering the country after being deported, a felony. The data in the DHS document does not include arrests by Border Patrol agents, who the Trump administration has deployed to places far away from the U.S.-Mexico border, like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. In those cities, Border Patrol agents have undertaken aggressive and sweeping arrest operations, targeting day laborers at Home Depot parking lots and stopping people, including U.S. citizens, to question them about their immigration status. Julia Ingram contributed to this report. In:

Tesla, the company owned by a billionaire who briefly held a job seeking to cut federal government waste, received over $1.1 billion in federal income tax breaks from American taxpayers last year alone. Tesla’s annual financial report, released this morning, shows the company enjoyed almost $5.7 billion of U.S. income in 2025—almost doubling the $2.98 billion the company enjoyed in 2024—on which it reports precisely zero current federal income tax. Over the past three years, the Elon Musk-led company reported $12.58 billion of U.S. income on which its current federal tax was just $48 million. This means that over the past three years, Tesla paid just 0.4 percent of its U.S. profits in federal income taxes, which is another way of saying the company reported an effective federal income tax rate of 0.4 percent. This is a tiny fraction of the 21 percent tax rate profitable corporations are supposed to pay under the law. Tesla saved almost half a billion in taxes last year using accelerated depreciation. Tax breaks for executive stock options shaved $172 million off the company’s tax bill. R&D tax credits were good for $352 million of tax savings. Musk’s company also used net operating losses stored up from previous years to offset current year income, although it’s hard to know how much of that affects U.S. income rather than foreign income. The calculations reported are based entirely on data taken from Tesla’s most recent annual financial report. The pretax U.S. income reported by Tesla is adjusted for large accruals the company has made for warranty reserves in each of the last three years, and also excludes small amounts of non-controlling income on which Tesla is not required to pay tax. New income tax disclosure requirements, which took effect for all publicly traded companies in 2025, clarify the company’s tax situation a bit. Tesla’s cash income tax payments worldwide totaled $1.2 billion, of which over $1 billion was paid to China and other foreign governments. The company paid $28 million in cash taxes to the U.S. government, presumably related to tax years before 2025. (Current federal tax, the tax concept that is the basis for the “zero federal income tax” reported here, is the company’s best estimate of the tax they will pay, when returns are finalized, on current-year income, while cash tax represents the amount of money the company spent in 2025 related to any tax year, past or present.) There is nothing to indicate that the billion-dollar tax break Tesla received last year was illegal. But Tesla’s latest disclosure illustrates quite clearly that the corporate tax laws, as modified by Congress and the Trump administration last summer, have allowed a hugely profitable corporate to avoid paying even a dime of federal income tax on their 2025 U.S. profits. Author

Democrats, Hispanic adults report greatest drops since 2024 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The percentage of U.S. adults who anticipate high-quality lives in five years declined to 59.2% in 2025, the lowest level since measurement began nearly two decades ago. Since 2020, future life ratings have fallen a total of 9.1 percentage points, projecting to an estimated 24.5 million fewer people who are optimistic about the future now versus then. Most of that decline occurred between 2021 and 2023, but the ratings dropped 3.5 points between 2024 and 2025. Americans’ ratings of their current lives have also declined since rebounding in 2021 but not as steeply as their future life ratings. And current life ratings are not at a low point; that occurred in 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. These results are a part of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index. The 2025 results are based on data collected over four quarterly measurement periods, totaling 22,125 interviews with U.S. adults who are part of the Gallup Panel, a probability-based panel encompassing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To measure current as well as future life satisfaction, respondents were asked: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” “On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now?” Recent Declines in Future Life Ratings Greatest Among Democrats, Hispanic Adults Black adults — historically the most likely of the United States’ three major race/ethnicity groups to have high future optimism — had the greatest erosion in optimism between 2021 and 2024. But Hispanic adults showed a larger drop than Black adults did in the past year. All three major political identity groups dropped about five percentage points in future life optimism from 2021 to 2024. However, the groups showed differing patterns of change in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Democrats tumbled another 7.6 points in 2025, while independents edged down another 1.5 points and Republicans remained essentially unchanged. It is common for life ratings to swing negatively or positively among political partisans when party control of the White House changes. Between 2020 and 2021, Democrats’ optimism grew by 4.4 points, while Republicans’ dropped by 5.9, mostly canceling each other out across the full population. Overall Life Evaluation Closes Out 2025 Near Record Low As of Quarter 4, 2025, the percentage of American adults who rate both their current and future lives high enough to be classified as “thriving” dropped to 48.0%, down over 11 points from the 59.2% high measured in June 2021, six months after the first public rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The latest estimate is the sixth lowest of 176 (primarily monthly or quarterly) measurement periods dating to January 2008. The five measurements that were lower were during either the Great Recession (October, November and December 2008) or the early stages of the pandemic (in the first and the last half of April 2020). For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies respondents as "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering," according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from zero to 10, based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those who rate their current life a 7 or higher and their anticipated life in five years an 8 or higher are classified as thriving. While, as noted above, both the current life and future life ratings have declined since 2021, the future life metric has had an outsized influence over eroding thriving rates because it has declined much more substantially. This contrasts significantly with 2020, when the thriving rate plunged below 50%, ultimately tying its all-time low of 46.4% — a result of a major drop in current life satisfaction amid a modest improvement in future life satisfaction, which culminated in a near-record high for the latter that year. Implications The drop in future life ratings since 2021 likely indicates that multiple mechanisms are at work. For example, the steep drop from 2021 to 2023 — even as the pandemic was gradually receding — closely coincides with annual inflation rates that peaked at 7.0% in 2021 and eased only slightly to 6.5% in 2022, creating significant affordability challenges for U.S. consumers that continue to this day. During the four-year period from 2021 to 2024, the drop in optimism was greatest among Black adults, who disproportionately suffered the effects of inflation, with elevated levels of food, housing and healthcare insecurity compared with their White and Hispanic counterparts. But no differences were found among Democrats, Republicans and independents, suggesting that national challenges like a pandemic or inflation will have a similar negative influence on the optimism of Americans, regardless of political identity. This dynamic changed in 2024 and 2025, with the pandemic over and inflation significantly lowered (albeit still elevated). During this period, the reduction in life optimism has been much greater among Hispanic adults. More generally, the sharp divergence of changes in future life ratings for Democrats compared with independents or Republicans in this latter period versus the former also suggests that the change in political administrations is a contributing factor, a mirror image of the changes that occurred between 2020 and 2021. Stay up to date with the latest insights by following @Gallup on X and on Instagram. Learn more about how the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index works. Learn more about how the Gallup Panel works. All surveys are conducted with randomly selected adults aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The 2025 estimates are based on four quarterly surveys conducted throughout the year with 22,125 respondents as part of the Gallup Panel. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is about ±0.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, design effect included. For the race/ethnicity and political identity division subgroups, the margin of error will be larger, typically ranging ±1.0 to ±2.0 percentage points. Subsequent samples for 2024 to 2020 were also taken from the Gallup Panel with the following sample sizes: Year Sample Size 2024 23,895 2023 21,372 2022 14,183 2021 42,936 2020 121,548 The estimates for 2019 and 2018 are based on surveys conducted by mail and web with a random sample of 9,645 adults and 115,929 adults, respectively. The margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±0.7 and ±0.2 percentage points, respectively, at the 95% confidence level, design effect included. About 80% of all surveys completed were done by mail in both years. Prior years of measurement were based on telephone interviews conducted daily from Jan. 2-Dec. 30 of each year with roughly equally sized samples each month. From 2008 through 2017, 354,645, 353,849, 352,840, 353,492, 353,653, 178,067, 176,702, 177,281, 177,192, and 160,498 interviews were completed, respectively. The percentage of respondents interviewed by cellphone rose from 15% in 2008 to 70% by 2017, reflecting changes in American phone consumer habits. Additional minimum quotas by time zone and within region are included in the sampling approach. The margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±0.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, design effect included. The phone-based samples were weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density and phone status (cellphone-only/landline only/both and cellphone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2019 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Population density targets are based on the 2010 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting. The means of data collection (e.g., web only versus mail/web versus phone) can result in differing estimates for some metrics in randomized large population polling. Gallup has extensively studied these effects and has determined that the thriving rate, the current life satisfaction rate (when cut at 7 or higher) and the future life satisfaction rate (when cut at 8 or higher) is comparable across modes, thus effectively preserving past trending without need for an adjustment due to the change in the means of data collection. Comparisons of national weighted estimates from samples that fielded at similar time periods between the Gallup Panel and the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index demonstrated highly convergent results with statistically insignificant differences. Gallup weighted the obtained samples to correct for nonresponse. Nonresponse adjustments were made by adjusting the sample to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education and region. Demographic weighting targets were based on the most recent Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. USA All Gallup Headlines Life Satisfaction Wellbeing Search, examine, compare and export nearly a century of primary data. Learn More about Access Crucial Data for Your Research February 10, 2026 Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/702125/american-optimism-slumps-record-low.aspx Gallup World Headquarters, 901 F Street, Washington, D.C., 20001, U.S.A +1 202.715.3030

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Jamie Raskin says he searched the unredacted Epstein files and President Trump’s name lit up the database like a Vegas marquee.

Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) revealed that House Republicans are "investigating" Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show because they suspect it was "much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction."During a Tuesday interview on Real America's Voice, Alford told the hosts that he and other House Repu...

ICE’s quiet national office surge puts immigration enforcement next to schools, churches, and hospitals nationwide.

ICE’s quiet national office surge puts immigration enforcement next to schools, churches, and hospitals nationwide.

Epstein fallout widens, DOJ stumbles in court, Fed pick clashes with Trump, and Washington tests its own credibility

You may hear or read in the news that California suffered a loss in the administration's challenge to the California "No Secret Police" and "No Vigilantes" laws that were passed in California in November. The No Secret Police law bans law enforcement from wearing face coverings, with a few delineated exceptions. The No Vigilantes law requires law enforcement personnel to wear clear identification (name or number), again with a few delineated exceptions. Even though the laws were passed, California held off on putting them into effect because of the lawsuit. First let's cut to the chase: the reason the news is calling it a loss. The Court *did* issue a preliminary injunction against California implementing the No Secret Police law. That's what the news is reporting as the loss, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first look at all this winning: First, the Court ruled that the No Vigilantes law is fine. And in part that is because, second, the Court says: "The Court first considers whether the challenged provisions are within the powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. Cf. United States v. City of Arcata, 629 F.3d 986, 992 (9th Cir. 2010) (challenged ordinance "regulating the federal govermnent's military recruitment efforts is not a power reserved to the states."). Here, unlike in Arcata, the challenged provisions, restricting law enforcement officers in California from wearing masks indiscriminately and requiring visible identification, are within the state's police powers." Plain English: Remember how the 10th Amendment says that all powers not *expressly* granted to the Federal government are reserved to the states? This is the Court saying that yes, passing a mask ban and a requirement to wear identification *is* a proper exercise of the *state's* police power, even if it is being applied to Federal agents. Furthermore, "the Court finds that the United States has not met its burden to show that enforcement of the challenged provisions, which prohibit law enforcement officers in California from wearing masks and require law enforcement officers in California to have visible identification, would interfere with or take control of federal law enforcement operations. Although the challenged provisions dictate how a federal officer may carry out his law enforcement duties-prohibiting a facial covering and requiring the display of visible identification that includes their agency and either a name or badge number in non-exempted circumstances - the Court finds them analogous to traffic laws that, in a similar sense, dictate how a federal officer may operate a vehicle on state roads but are nonetheless enforceable against federal officers, subject to immunities." In fact, the 30-page opinion and order (hot off today's presses, and included for Notes from the Front members - you'll notice that it hasn't even yet been put into the orderly format of a published court opinion, it's in 'minutes' format) is almost entirely the Court explaining how the administration has a very weak case and California a pretty strong one. So what’s with the loss? You see, there is a fatal flaw in the California mask law. In fact, it's *such a stupid* flaw that California deserved to "lose" on it. The California law carved out one big exception in the masking law (which is why the masking law was no good, but the No Vigilante law stands): In what I can only imagine was the drafting of the law by an intern who got their law degree by drawing Squeaky from the back of a matchbook (remember those?), the California law *exempted* California state law enforcement from the "no masks" law. In other words, the law said that no law enforcement person operating within the state of California, whether Federal, city, or county, could cover their face; but hey, California state police and CHiP (remember them?), *you* get to cover your face. Well, that created a legal hole so big that the administration could drive an unmarked SUV through it. "No fair!" cried the administration, “that *discriminates* against Federal law enforcement!” And the Court agreed. Even before the ink dries on this opinion, the No Secret Police law is being rewritten to cure that fatal flaw. Said California State Senator Scott Weiner "Based on communications with the Governor’s office, we removed state police from the bill. Now that the Court has made clear that state officers must be included, I am immediately introducing new legislation to include state officers. I will do everything in my power to expedite passage of this adjustment to the No Secret Police Act." Notes from the Front members: The 30-page opinion and order is below for you. NOTE: To preserve original source documents before they can be tampered with, and to protect myself from claims of improper republication, and hey, the trolls, I make documents I find (and at times purchase out of my own pocket) privately available to Notes from the Front members. Often these are non-public documents, others may be public but I find the source originals for you and include explanations and insights based on my decades of law practice and as a law professor, with a side of snark. ;~) You can join below for immediate access to this and other documents, the archives, our private dropbox, and our private chat for $5 a month.

Federal records obtained by WIRED show that over the past several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations. In El Paso, Texas, for example, the agency is moving into a large campus of buildings right off of Interstate 10 near multiple local health providers and other businesses. In Irvine, California, ICE is moving into offices located next to a childcare agency. In New York, ICE is moving into offices on Long Island near a passport center. In a wealthy community near Houston, Texas, ICE appears poised to move into an office building blocks away from a preschool. The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings and functions as the government’s internal IT department, is playing a critical role in this aggressive expansion. In numerous emails and memorandums viewed by WIRED, DHS asked GSA explicitly to disregard usual government lease procurement procedures and even hide lease listings due to “national security concerns” in an effort to support ICE’s immigration enforcement activities across the US. “GSA is committed to working with all of our partner agencies, including our patriotic law enforcement partners such as ICE, to meet their workspace needs. GSA remains focused on supporting this administration’s goal of optimizing the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission,” Marianne Copenhaver, GSA associate administrator for communications, tells WIRED. “GSA is following all lease procurement procedures in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.” DHS, ICE’s parent agency, did not reply to requests for comment. Since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, ICE has more than doubled in size. DHS claims the agency now has 22,000 officers and agents stationed around the country and is still in the process of hiring more. The agency received nearly $80 billion in funding as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, giving it virtually unlimited resources to combat what the administration has consistently portrayed as an “invasion.” With new employees comes a desperate need for office space, and the possibility of deployment to new areas of operation. In September, as NPR and The Washington Post reported, a number of GSA employees were added to an “ICE surge” team responsible for finding new office locations and expanding preexisting offices for ICE employees. More specifically, according to documents viewed by WIRED, workers at the Public Buildings Service (PBS), the department within GSA that handles government buildings and leases, were assigned to actively support ICE’s physical expansion and told to find leasing spaces for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) divisions across the country. ERO is tasked with immigration enforcement, including the arrest, detention, and removal of immigrants, and previously operated out of only 25 field offices in the US; OPLA is the legal arm of ICE, and lawyers with OPLA litigate “all removal cases including those against criminal aliens, terrorists, and human rights abusers,” for DHS, according to ICE’s website. Records reviewed by WIRED show that the ICE surge team has successfully found spaces for ICE across the country. In addition to expanding previously held ICE offices, it has moved or is moving ICE into new buildings, or into space the government controlled under the terms of existing leases, in almost every US state and major city. Starting in September, GSA was pushed to bypass the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) that requires open competition among bidders for federal building and lease procurements, because ICE requested that leases fall under the “unusual or compelling urgency” government statute. The statute states that the procuring agency’s “need for the supplies or services is of such an unusual and compelling urgency that the Government would be seriously injured unless the agency is permitted to limit the number of sources from which it solicits bids or proposals, full and open competition need not be provided for.” A training kickoff for PBS staff assigned to the ICE surge team the same month cited the “Big Beautiful Bill” and the aim of hiring 13,000 new ICE employees, as the “trigger event” for the new team. These team members were told that around 250 new locations were needed for ICE employees, and this would be potentially achieved by new lease acquisitions and by locating ICE in existing federal spaces. The “primary focus is securing a space. Renovations are secondary,” shows documentation viewed by WIRED. Employees were instructed to move as quickly as possible, without getting “hung up” on issues like “needing paint and carpet before occupancy.” In a memorandum dated September 10, 2025, an OPLA representative asked GSA’s office of general counsel to look past the usual leasing procedures with the “unusual and compelling urgency justification,” in accordance with Trump’s executive order on immigration. “In the next three months, OPLA will grow to more than 3,500 attorneys and 1,000 support staff,” the memorandum states. “OPLA has critical space needs that require the ability to identify office locations nationwide that OPLA can readily occupy as soon as possible.” GSA’s ICE surge team began visiting potential leasing locations and worked to finalize deals within days. A DHS official sent GSA an email on September 24, 2025, asking that the agency not publicize leasing information, recognizing that this request was outside of the “normal” process. “Due to national security concerns and recent attacks against ICE, publicizing new lease locations puts our officers, employees, and detainees in grave danger,” the email stated. While many ICE locations have attracted protests, there have not been known attacks on ICE offices. GSA was instructed in January 2025 to pause most acquisitions, deliveries, and modifications, except for projects under $50,000 and those related to supporting security measures for the president’s office. But on September 25, 2025, a GSA commissioner emailed other leaders at the agency that “an exception to the acquisition pause has been approved for all actions supporting the ICE hiring surge, regardless of dollar value.” By September 29, GSA had already awarded leasing projects, and the ERO division at ICE had sent the ICE surge team a list of requirements for specific leasing locations, including sally ports—a secure entryway system with interlocking doors used by military troops, prisons, and police stations—and other security measures. ICE also came to GSA with a specific request: that any new location be within a 10-mile radius of an existing ERO facility. By early October, the ICE surge team was working through the government shutdown, even as other critical government work was put on hold. Days after the shutdown began, GSA was still awarding leases. On October 6, 2025, a signed internal memorandum stated that GSA should “approve of all new lease housing determinations associated with ICE hiring surge,” in light of ICE’s “urgent” space requirements and the purported impact of delays on the agency’s ability to “meet critical immigration enforcement deadlines.” On October 9, the same day that Trump announced in a cabinet meeting that the government would be making “permanent” cuts from “Democrat programs” during the shutdown, GSA received a list from OPLA with requests for office locations, including expansions and new leases, in 41 cities around the country. In a memorandum dated October 29, 2025, a representative from Homeland Security Investigations—one of the two major departments within ICE, along with ERO, and tasked with a wide range of investigative work in cases ranging from human trafficking to art theft—asked GSA’s office of general counsel to engage in nationwide lease acquisition on behalf of DHS “using the unusual and compelling urgency justification,” in accordance with Trump’s executive immigration order. “If HSI cannot effectively obtain office space in a timely manner, HSI will be adversely impacted in accomplishing its mission—a mission that is inextricably tied to the Administration’s priority in protecting the American People Against Invasion,” the memorandum states. By early November, according to documents viewed by WIRED, 19 projects had been awarded in cities around the US, including Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Sacramento, California; and Tampa, Florida. Multiple projects were days away from being awarded in Miami, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and New Orleans, Louisiana, among others, and emergency requests for short-term space had been made in eight cities, including Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; and Newark, New Jersey. In documents viewed by WIRED, ICE has repeatedly outlined its expansion to cities around the US. The September memorandum citing “unusual and compelling urgency” for office expansion states that OPLA will be “expanding its legal operations” into Birmingham, Alabama; Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, and Tampa, Florida; Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Long Island, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; Spokane, Washington and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The memorandum also states that the existing offices are at maximum capacity and will “require additional space” to accommodate the new employees hired. At the time, the memo states that OPLA had selected almost 1,000 attorneys to hire. Months after the “surge” began, ICE’s expansion to American cities is well underway, according to documentation viewed by WIRED. The table below gives a detailed listing of planned ICE lease locations as of January, and includes current ICE offices that are set to expand and new spaces the agency is poised to occupy. It does not include more than 100 planned ICE locations across many states—including California, New York, and New Jersey—where WIRED has not viewed every specific address. WIRED reached out to the owners of private properties at which ICE is planning to lease space, or to agents and managers associated with these properties; they did not respond to our inquiries, or declined comment. As of January, ICE’s expansion is heavily concentrated in a few key states. Texas has at least 9 leasing projects underway. In Harlingen, located near the US border with Mexico, a lease has been awarded at 222 East Van Buren, in the same building as the city’s Department of Labor–aligned outpost. (ICE has already detained dozens of Harlingen-area residents.) In the Woodlands, a district near Houston, ICE appears poised to move into an office building at 1780 Hughes Landing Boulevard, blocks away from a Primrose preschool. In El Paso, ICE is moving into the Epicenter Office Community, a large campus of buildings right off Interstate 10 near many local health providers and other businesses. In San Antonio, ICE is considering a move into a building located at 15727 Anthem Parkway, near apartment buildings, dozens of restaurants, and the Methodist Hospital Landmark. In Eagle Pass, ICE appears to be looking at a move into a building at 3381 US Highway 277, where at least one government office—the Drug Enforcement Administration—is already located. A Trump administration official recently told WIRED that California and New York are “next” for the type of fraud investigation that culminated in 3,000 ICE agents in Minneapolis. At least seven leasing projects are underway in California. In Sacramento, ICE has installed security features at the John E. Moss building ahead of further expansion. The location is already the site of a Justice Department immigration court. In Irvine, a city in Orange County located an hour’s drive from Los Angeles, ICE is moving into offices on 2020 Main Street, located right next to the airport and a childcare agency. In Van Nuys, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, ICE is expanding its offices at the James C. Corman federal building that also has offices for the IRS and Health and Human Services. Further expansion of ICE offices is also underway throughout the state, in federal buildings in Los Angeles, at San Diego’s Edward J. Schwartz Courthouse and federal building, and in Santa Ana’s federal building. The Santa Ana federal building is located within blocks of a church, the stadium for one of the nation's top high school football programs, and many government services. In New York and New Jersey, ICE is expanding its physical footprint rapidly. In Roseland, New Jersey, less than an hour’s drive from New York City, ICE is moving into a building at 5 Becker Farm Road. The building is located near the Roseland Child Development Center. In Woodbury, New York, a hamlet in Long Island, ICE is moving into offices located at 88 Froehlich Farm Boulevard, near an expedited passport center. In New Windsor, New York, a town within driving distance of New York City along the Hudson River known for the Storm King Art Center, ICE is moving into offices at 843 Union Avenue. All three of these locations are within an hour and a half from a warehouse in Chester, New York, that DHS is pursuing as an immigrant detention center. The same pattern plays out in dozens of other cities across the US. ICE’s expansion includes not just its own preexisting space—or sharing an office with other government agencies—but also situates its agents near sensitive civilian locations. That often includes places of worship. In Hyattsville, Maryland, ICE is expanding its offices at the Metro 1 building on 6505 Belcrest Road, which sits a few blocks from a Lutheran church. In Tennessee, OPLA is planning to move into the Nashville House office building, a business center in the city near multiple churches. The One City Center building in Portland, Maine, where ICE plans to expand its offices, is within walking distance to at least six churches, a mosque, one synagogue, and a Salvation Army adult rehab center. Several planned ICE office spaces are located near schools and early-childhood care centers. ICE is poised to move into a building on 1000 Westlakes Drive in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, suburb of Berwyn; the Hillside Elementary School is about a mile away. In Hartford, Connecticut, OPLA is poised to expand existing ICE office space in the Abraham A. Ribicoff federal building, which sits two blocks from the Betances elementary school. Back in Tennessee, ICE is ready to move into offices at 5904 Ridgeway Center Parkway in Memphis, in a building near the private all-girls Hutchison School. In the Columbus, Ohio, suburb of Westerville, OPLA appears ready to move into a small office building at 774 Park Meadow, near the Oakstone Academy High School. In Meridian, Idaho, ICE is moving into the Portico at Meridian Center, which is located near the Spalding STEM Academy high school. And in Oakbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, ICE is moving into the Oakbrook Gateway, an office building located near both a Bright Horizons daycare center and a hospice center. Many other planned locations are near hospitals and medical offices. In York, Pennsylvania, ICE’s OPLA division has leased space at Yorktowne Medical, a facility with multiple medical offices. In Columbia, South Carolina, ICE is poised to move into offices at 1441 Main Street, which sits blocks away from the Prisma Health Baptist Hospital. In Naples, Florida, ICE is poised to move into offices at 75 Vineyards Boulevard, close to Physicians Regional Pine Ridge campus hospital. Other locations appear to be strategically situated near buildings that ICE either currently uses or could use to detain immigrants. The Hyattsville location is about an hour and a half from a warehouse DHS recently purchased that ICE has said will be used to detain immigrants, as is a second office marked for OPLA use in Cockeysville, Maryland. Among the many ICE leasing projects underway in Florida is Research Commons, a building located in Orlando at 12249 Science Drive that’s less than 25 minutes away from another warehouse identified by the Post as a potential large-scale detention center. The York, Pennsylvania, location is also an hour and 20 minutes away from a warehouse recently purchased by ICE for nearly $90 million that a Republican congressman said will be used as a processing and immigrant detention facility. In Alexandria, Louisiana, ICE is moving into a building on 1201 3rd Street, located right in the city’s historic downtown center and a 16-minute drive from the Alexandria Staging Facility, where immigrants have been detained, transferred, and then deported. Alexandria has emerged as a key location for ICE’s activities in the state and around the country, and an investigation from The Guardian alleged a pattern of abuse and alleged due process violations at the Alexandria facility that’s operated as a deportation “hub.” This is just a sampling of the dozens and dozens of lease locations in the process of being awarded to ICE in every single GSA leasing region, which spans the entire country and US territories. ICE agents and officers will share buildings with doctors, restaurants, and businesses. They’ll expand existing offices and move in with unrelated government agencies—at 801 Arch Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for example, they’ll share space with the DMV. Together, the leasing plans give a clear picture of where ICE is going next in the US: Everywhere. Additional reporting by Matt Giles and Tim Marchman.

Skip to the content Music Feb 09, 20268:29 AM When you make history, it only makes sense to throw a party—and when it comes to parties, there are none bigger than the Super Bowl halftime show. Going into Sunday night, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, better known to the world as Bad Bunny, was fresh off a historic Album of the Year win at last week’s Grammy Awards, the first for a Spanish-language artist. It was the latest in a long list of remarkable achievements for the Bayamón-born recording artist, whose dazzling ascent to record-breaking touring act and the most streamed artist on Earth has made his career a point of pride for Latin Americans everywhere, and Puerto Ricans especially. And again: It’s meaningful that he’s done this as a Spanish-language artist, something once deemed impossible and still considered controversial. Slate Crossword: Name on a Jersey at Super Bowl 60 … but Not During the Game (Six Letters) Everyone, however, knows what to do at a party, Spanish or not: You dance. You dance salsa and perreo, you soft-shoe and twerk, in sugarcane fields and in parking lots and on rooftops, all lovingly reproduced midfield at California’s Levi’s Stadium as Benito took the world on a grand tour of Puerto Rican history in a breathtaking 13-minute extravaganza. It was a show that gave viewers the sort of surprise appearances they might expect from a Super Bowl halftime show (Lady Gaga! Pedro Pascal! Cardi B! Karol G! Alix Earle, for some reason!), plus a palpable intimacy that spectacles of this sort rarely seem to have room for. (That wedding you saw? Real!) It was also a watershed moment in pop culture history: The world has changed, and this is what our pop culture looks and sounds like now. The idea of U.S. cultural hegemony as represented by a lily-white, English-language media, is on the decline. And: good! This is the Gospel of Benito, proclaiming “God bless America,” then reciting the names of nearly every country in the Americas, marching with their flags flying behind him, on a literal level playing field. This is the Gospel of Benito, proclaiming “God bless America,” then reciting the names of nearly every country in the Americas. The days of an imagined safe white English-speaking median audience, if it ever really existed, are over in the United States, and the appetite abroad for entertainment catering exclusively to that audience is waning. The idea of this default audience is not even a useful fiction anymore. This is a world where an anime film can win the top spot at the U.S. box office, where the highest-grossing movie of the year is Chinese, where the most-watched Netflix show of all time is Squid Game, and where the longest-reigning No. 1 song of the past year is by a group of K-pop demon hunters. Six years ago, as Parasite was on its way to becoming the first non-English-language movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Bong Joon Ho talked about the riches that await viewers willing to overcome the “1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,” and it would seem that most of the world has cleared it. Once upon a time, Latin artists were said to “cross over” to mainstream acceptance. During the 1999 Latin explosion, acts such as Ricky Martin (given a powerful halftime moment here, belting the chorus of Benito’s furious anti-colonization ballad “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii”), Enrique Iglesias, and Christina Aguilera crossed over largely by singing in English. This worked well: Iglesias and Aguilera themselves played the Super Bowl the following year, in a Disney World–themed performance titled Tapestry of Nations, alongside Phil Collins. And by then, Gloria Estefan had already played the Super Bowl twice, both in 1999 (alongside Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Stevie Wonder) and in 1992 (alongside figure skaters, in a tribute to the Winter Olympics). Even Bad Bunny has played the Super Bowl before, as a special guest, in 2020, under co-headliners Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. But Benito, who has grown several times more popular since then, is leading a new wave of Spanish-language musicians that doesn’t have much interest in crossing over anymore. Instead, these performers are focused on luring audiences over to them. A generational shift is happening. And often, this generation is harking back to the sounds of their parents and grandparents. The corridos tumbados of artists like Natanael Cano and Peso Pluma are putting a modern trap spin on the rich Mexican (and American) tradition of the corrido, to critical acclaim and viral success. Cumbia, the unmistakable rhythm that Central and South American country folk have danced to for generations, is once again in the spotlight, after bands like Son Rompe Pera catapulted to COVID-era viral fame, bringing rock star energy to an eclectic blend of decades-old sounds. This new strategy, too, is working well, both within the U.S. and without: Peso Pluma just headlined a major U.S. concert of his own at the College Football Playoff. Bad Bunny playing Levi’s Stadium is a victory lap for a long struggle for Latin American mainstream acceptance that started before Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, or many of his fans, was born. This is cause for celebration. How could anyone watch that show and think otherwise, with it choreographed to consistently surround Bad Bunny with performers and dancers who represented the diaspora’s perseverance in the face of adversity, from the pointed power-grid staging of “El Apagón,” and the Nuyorican legend Toñita serving shots next door to a barbershop, to the tender moment when Bad Bunny gave his Grammy to a kid watching his acceptance speech from the week before, saying it was for him too? Yet because he’s a Puerto Rican artist whose songs are almost entirely in Spanish, his elevation to such a position is a subject on which culture war can be waged. Turning Point USA, the conservative activist group headed up by Erika Kirk, went so far as to organize a protest halftime show, an “all-American” event headlined by Kid Rock and three other white country singers (Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett). Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem threatened to sic ICE on the Super Bowl—an empty threat, from the looks of things. To conservatives in power, Puerto Ricans are no different from any other brown or Spanish-speaking people: potential criminals one and all, here to take something from good (white) Americans. To their liberal opposition party, they are taken for granted as a demographic that has no choice but to be aligned with them, with families on the mainland expected to vote blue alongside other Latino citizens, without much more than the most feeble outreach. So of course a Super Bowl halftime show full of exuberant, inclusive joy is an existential threat to proponents of the current regime. It’s a vibrant display of everything they are fighting to erase from public life. It is violence to them, that so many might love art that affirms they can no longer assert a claim to the cultural mean. It is a reminder that their deadly, state-sponsored tantrum is ultimately futile. Our government, and the culture warriors it sees as its sole constituency, is trying to push back the tides and is destroying anything that the world wanted from the United States to begin with, as tourism to the U.S. dips and the nation finds itself politically isolated from the rest of the free world. What if it didn’t have to be this way? What if the United States could proudly list itself with its neighbors in the Americas, and what if we could all sing in Spanish, dance to the horns in “Baile Inolvidable,” and “dance,” as Benito said in Spanish during his performance of the song, “without fear. Love without fear.” It can be trite for artists to trot out a message of love and hope when the world’s eyes are on them. It can be an easy and agreeable moral, readily given to hollow platitudes without demonstration of what that love looks like. But Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio did the work: showing that love to nail salons and piragua stands, marquetas and trucks with kick-ass sound systems. He did it with protest songs and love songs and songs about getting down in ways you can’t talk about in front of your mother (but maybe in front of your tití). He did this in front of an audience that included people who have no shame in saying they want him gone, want me gone, want you gone, sooner or later. But it’s too late: We’ve changed everything. God bless America. Seguimos aquí. Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more. Latin America Latinos Puerto Rico Super Bowl Lady Gaga

Seamus Culleton, originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, with his wife Tiffany Smyth, a US citizen An Irishman living in the United States for more than 20 years has been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials since being arrested last September. Originally from Glenmore, Co Kilkenny, Seamus Culleton is married to a US citizen and owns a plastering business in the Boston area. He was arrested on September 9th, 2025, and has been in an Ice detention facility in Texas for nearly five months, despite having no criminal record, “not even a parking ticket”. In a phone interview from the facility, he said conditions there are “like a concentration camp, absolute hell”. Culleton said he was carrying a Massachusetts driving licence and a valid work permit issued by the US government when he was pulled over by Ice on the way home from work in September. His work permit was issued as part of an application for a green card which he initiated in April 2025. He has a final interview remaining. After his arrest, Culleton was allowed a brief phone call to his American wife Tiffany Smyth. She said she “broke down and cried. To know he was just taken, and he or I had no idea where they were taking him, was traumatising”. For five days, Culleton was held in a small cell overflowing with other detainees, then flown to a Buffalo, New York, Ice facility. In Buffalo he was interviewed by an Ice agent, who asked if he would sign a form agreeing to his deportation. Culleton said he refused, and instead ticked a box where detainees can state they wish to contest their arrest. He wrote down that his grounds for contesting were that he was married to a US citizen and had a valid work permit. He was then flown to the Ice facility in El Paso, Texas. He said he has been locked in the same large, cold and damp room for 4½ months with more than 70 men. He said detainees are constantly hungry because meals served at tables in the centre of the room offer only child-sized portions. Fights often break out over food, “even over those little child-sized juice containers”. Toilet areas are “filthy”. He said there is little to do but lie on a bed all day. Most detainees do not speak any English. He said he has been allowed outside for air and exercise fewer than a dozen times in nearly five months. The atmosphere is full of “anxiety and depression”, he said. [ Are you a fearful Irish immigrant in the US due to Ice raids? Tell us your story ] At a November bond hearing, a judge approved his release on a $4,000 bond, which his wife paid. When nothing further happened towards his release, they learned the US government had denied the bond, initially without explanation. This is unusual, as is the length of time Culleton has been held. According to a recent New York Times article, US courts are being “deluged” with Ice detainee bond hearings, as “federal judges have found that the Trump administration has been ignoring longstanding legal interpretations that mandate the release of many people who are taken into immigration custody if they post a bond”. Most applicants are now being released on bond. Culleton’s attorney, Ogor Winnie Okoye of BOS Legal Group in Massachusetts, then appealed the case to a federal court, where two Ice agents claimed that in Buffalo, Culleton had signed several documents agreeing to be deported. Seamus Culleton with his wife Tiffany Smyth However, he is adamant he did not and says the signatures are not his. “My whole life is here [in the US]. I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here,” he said. Although the judge noted numerous irregularities on Ice’s court documents, she ultimately sided with the agency. Under US law, Culleton cannot appeal, though he would like the signatures to be examined by handwriting experts and believes a video of his interview with Ice in Buffalo would prove he refused to sign any deportation documents. He has no idea what will happen now and said the waiting is “psychological torture”. He says facility officials tried to get him to sign a deportation order last week, but he refused. [ Use of Shannon Airport to deport Palestinians from US ‘reprehensible’ ] “You have one section of the government trying to deport me, and another trying to give me a green card,” he said. Okoye said Culleton’s case is very unusual and that before the current Trump administration, a person in his situation – with a valid green card application made on the basis of marriage to a US citizen – would not have been detained and would almost certainly be granted the residency and employment permissions applied for. She said Culleton was picked up on a random sweep for immigrants and continues to be held without charging documents, adding that the US government has acted in an “inept” and “capricious” manner. In a case such as Culleton’s, the government has a “discretionary” option to simply release him but inexplicably has not done so, she said. “Here’s a gentleman who is a model immigrant. He owned a successful business, he’s married to a US citizen,” and is properly going through the green card legal process, she said. It makes little sense that he would have agreed to be deported, she said. Culleton’s wife Tiffany said she has endured “five months of heartbreak, stress, anxiety and anger”. “I would never wish this on anyone or their family. I am still praying for a miracle every day.” His sister Caroline Culleton said what concerns the family most “is Seamus and how he is coping, his physical and emotional state; the conditions that he is forced to bear are beyond comprehension. “We are totally devastated by this situation, it’s a torment on a daily basis. We can only hope that this whole nightmare will come to an end very, very soon.” A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the department is “aware of this case and is providing consular assistance. As with all consular cases, the department does not comment on the details of individual cases”. Ice has been contacted for comment. Are you an Irish person in the US concerned about Ice raids? Share your story below. Understand world events with Denis Staunton's Global Briefing newsletter Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date Listen to In The News podcast daily for a deep dive on the stories that matter

The Morning Sixpack - 02/10/2026 Epstein fallout spreads, DOJ hits court losses, Fed drama threatens mortgages, and Trump world keeps colliding with reality

The Morning Sixpack - 02/10/2026 Epstein fallout spreads, DOJ hits court losses, Fed drama threatens mortgages, and Trump world keeps colliding with reality

President Donald Trump has threatened to block the opening of a bridge between Michigan and Ontario, claiming Canada is trying to “take advantage of America” and calling for compensation in the latest flash point in the simmering tensions between the United States and its northern neighbor.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI. The Gordie Howe International Bridge — a six-lane bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, that has cost about $4.7 billion to build — has been under construction since 2018 and is due to open early this year, according to the organization behind it. On Monday, Trump said he “will not allow” it to open in a post on Truth Social, saying Canada had treated the U.S. “very unfairly for decades” and that the U.S. would not benefit from the project. “I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve,” he said. It was unclear how Trump would be able to delay or block the project from opening. Follow Trump’s second term “We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset,” he said, adding that the revenue generated from the project “will be astronomical.” The bridge, named after Canadian ice hockey legend Gordie Howe, who played for the Detroit Red Wings, has been labeled a “once-in-a-generation undertaking” by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, the Canadian government entity responsible for delivering it. It is set to have U.S. and Canadian entry ports and an interchange connecting to Michigan’s road network. The bridge is financed by the Canadian government but is publicly owned by the governments of Canada and Michigan, with terms outlined in a 2012 Crossing Agreement. The agreement stated all iron and steel used in the project must be produced in the U.S. or Canada. Canada will recoup the costs of funding the bridge from toll revenue, the Canadian government said in 2022. Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said regardless of whether Trump’s threat is real or an attempt at creating uncertainty, “blocking or barricading bridges is a self-defeating move.” “The path forward isn’t deconstructing established trade corridors, it’s actually building bridges,” she said in an emailed statement. The complaint is the latest in a string of blows he has leveled at Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney, rupturing the traditionally close relationship between the two allies. Last month, Trump threatened to decertify and impose tariffs on Canadian-built aircraft in a move that sparked fears of wide ramifications for U.S. air travel. He also traded barbs with the Carney on the world stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and later revoked his invitation for Canada to join the Board of Peace, an entity that Trump has claimed will resolve global conflicts. The latest comments mark a sharp contrast to Trump’s previous support for the project. In a February 2017 statement with then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump highlighted the closeness of the two countries and praised the bridge as a “vital economic link.” The Gordie Howe International Bridge is set to absorb traffic from the nearby Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, which is owned by Detroit’s Moroun family and responsible for about a quarter of all trade between the U.S. and Canada. The owners have appealed to Trump to stop construction of the new bridge and sued the Canadian government for approving it, claiming it will infringe on their right to collect revenue. Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that Trump’s post was “insane,” noting that U.S. steel was used in construction on the Michigan side of the bridge. “I really can’t believe what I’m reading,” Dilkens said. “The faster we can get to the midterms and hopefully see a change, the better for all of us.” He also mocked Trump’s suggestion — made in the social media post without any supporting evidence — that if Canada makes a trade deal with China, China would “terminate” Canadian ice hockey and eliminate the Stanley Cup. “Thankfully the bridge was named after Gordie Howe before China terminates hockey and eliminates the Stanley Cup!” Dilkens quipped on X. U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) said Trump’s threats to tank the bridge project meant he was “punishing Michiganders for a trade war he started.” “The only reason Canada is on the verge of a trade deal with China is because President Trump has kicked them in the teeth for a year,” she wrote in a post on X. “The President’s agenda for personal retribution should not come before what’s best for us. Canada is our friend — not our enemy. And I will do everything in my power to get this critical project back on track.” The Canadian government, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Tuesday.correctionA photo caption in a previous version of this article incorrectly identified the date of the photo. It was taken in February 2025, not earlier this month.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The general counsel for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday warned the attorney for an anonymous government employee not to directly share a top-secret complaint about Gabbard’s handling of classified material with members of Congress. The letter to attorney Andrew Bakaj is the latest escalation in the back-and-forth accusations over the classified complaint, which alleges that Gabbard withheld top-secret material for political reasons. Two inspectors general for the intelligence community reviewed the claim and found that particular allegation did not appear to be credible. Gabbard has denied any wrongdoing and said she did all she could to ensure the report reached Congress. Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees have blasted Gabbard’s office over the handling of the complaint, questioning why it took eight months for it to be sent to select members of Congress as required by law. Here’s what to know about the complaint and the next steps: What is known about the complaint The anonymous author of the complaint works for a U.S. intelligence agency and in May filed a report claiming that Gabbard withheld classified information for political reasons. Gabbard oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies. The complaint made two allegations, according to a memo sent to lawmakers by the current inspector general, Christopher Fox: The first is that the “distribution of a highly classified intelligence report was restricted for political purposes,” while the second accuses Gabbard’s general counsel of failing to report a potential crime to the Justice Department. In June, the inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, found that the claim Gabbard distributed classified information along political lines did not appear to be credible, Fox said in the memo to lawmakers. Johnson was “unable to assess the apparent credibility” of the accusation about the general counsel’s office, Fox wrote. The watchdog said he would have deemed the complaint non-urgent, meaning it never would have been referred to lawmakers. “If the same or similar matter came before me today, I would likely determine that the allegations do not meet the statutory definition of ‘urgent concern,’” Fox wrote. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that the complaint stemmed from a call between two foreign nationals that mentioned someone close to President Donald Trump and was intercepted by the National Security Agency. The news reports, which cited anonymous sources, said the discussion involved Iran and that Gabbard notified the White House personally, while the complaint accused her of blocking the NSA from reporting the interaction to other agencies. The AP could not immediately confirm the reports. The NSA declined to offer details about the complaint Monday, saying in a statement that it works closely with the FBI and others to investigate the mishandling or disclosure of classified information. Gabbard’s office warns attorney Bakaj, a former CIA officer and an attorney for the person making the complaint, offered to meet with certain lawmakers or their staffs to discuss the allegations and his concerns about Gabbard’s review. ODNI’s general counsel warned against that in its letter Monday, noting that Bakaj or his client could face criminal charges if they improperly revealed classified material during the briefing. “The highly classified nature of the underlying complaint increases the risk that you or your client inadvertently or otherwise breaks the law by divulging or mishandling classified information,” the general counsel’s office wrote. “You may have other means of appearing in front of Congress, but this is not it.” Bakaj did not immediately respond to questions Monday about the letter. Under federal law, intelligence whistleblowers are entitled to ask to refer their complaints directly to key lawmakers even if the inspector general finds them non-credible, so long as they deem the allegations urgent. That determination was made by the original watchdog, but the complaint didn’t reach lawmakers until last week. Copies of the top-secret complaint were hand-delivered beginning last week to the “Gang of Eight” — a group comprised of the House and Senate leaders from both parties as well as the four top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees. Additional meetings for the remaining members are tentatively set for Wednesday. Democrats decry delay as GOP backs Gabbard Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he will push Gabbard for more answers about the underlying complaint and why it took so long to get the report to lawmakers. The number of redactions make it hard to evaluate the allegations, he said. “The fact that this sat out there for six, seven, eight months now and we are only seeing it now, raises huge concerns in and of itself,” Warner said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” The Republicans who lead the intelligence committees are backing Gabbard, making it less likely the panels take further steps to investigate the complaint. “It seemed like an effort by the president’s critics to undermine him,” Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairman, wrote Saturday on X.Intelligence chief responds to critics Gabbard noted in a lengthy social media post Saturday that Johnson was appointed interim inspector general for the intelligence community during President Joe Biden’s administration. She included a detailed timeline that she said shows she acted quickly to ensure the complaint reached Congress. Gabbard wrote that she was aware of the complaint in June and believed the investigation had ended after it was found non-credible, only for the inspector general’s office to inform her in December that the complaint had to be reviewed, redacted and sent to members of Congress. “I took immediate action to provide the security guidance to the Intelligence Community Inspector General who then shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week,” Gabbard wrote. She also accused Warner and the media of trying to use the complaint to smear her name.

Trump administration Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday admitted he and his family had lunch on the private island of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein years earlier. “I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation” in 2012, Lutnick said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies,” he said. “I had another couple with — they were there as well, with their children.” “And we had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,” he said. “And we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation,” he said. The secretary’s admission came as he faces bipartisan calls to resign following the release of records showing that his business and personal relationship with Epstein was more extensive than previously known.U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on February 10, 2026 in Washington, DC. Lutnick is facing bipartisan calls for his resignation after revelations that came to light in the latest release of Epstein files. Lutnick previously said that he cut off contact with Epstein after 2005 — years before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a state-level charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution, which required him to register as a sex offender. But analyses of the latest batch of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice show Lutnick and Epstein were in communication years later. In December 2012, Epstein invited Lutnick to lunch at his private island in the Caribbean for lunch, the documents showed. The two men also had business dealings as recently as 2014, CBS News reported. In his testimony Tuesday morning before the Appropriations panel’s subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies, Lutnick insisted that he “barely had anything to do with that person.” “I’m glad to be here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein when he moved, when I moved to a house next door to him in New York,” the Cabinet secretary testified. “Over the next 14 years, I met him two other times that I can recall, two times,” he said. “So six years later, I met him, and then a year and a half after that, I met him, and never again.” “Probably the total — and you’ve seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents — there may be 10 emails connecting me with him ... Over a 14 year period.” “I did not have any relationship with him,” Lutnick said. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the subcommittee’s ranking member, replied, “There’s not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the fact that you ... misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements suggesting that you cut off all contact, when, in fact, you had not.” Asked by Van Hollen if he saw anything inappropriate during his visit to the island, Lutnick said that he did not. “The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island,” he testified.

Taino “Tai” Lopez was living proof the American dream was still attainable for young men willing to bet on themselves. The entrepreneur hosted parties at a mansion in Beverly Hills and boasted about the black Lamborghini in his garage. The college dropout had made a name for himself on social media by offering get-rich-quick advice and self-help courses. He urged his followers to invest in a new company he had started that was scooping up distressed retailers on the cheap—RadioShack, Pier 1 Imports, Dressbarn, Modell’s Sporting Goods and Linens ‘N Things—with a promise to turn them into e-commerce winners. Sean Murphy saw Lopez’s posts on his Facebook and Instagram feeds and was drawn in by the brand names and a promise of 20% returns. He invested $175,000 in the company, called Retail Ecommerce Ventures, and related Lopez ventures. All told, Lopez raised more than $230 million from hundreds of mostly small investors. Murphy, an Illinois grandfather, got a $10,000 Pier 1 gift card and monthly checks of about $1,000 for about two years. What he didn’t know was that his payouts allegedly were funded mostly by other investors. “These guys lied,” he said. “They conspired. They led people on.” The payments stopped abruptly in late 2022, and the struggling retailers were taken over by some of the company’s creditors. Last September, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Lopez and his partners, accusing them of running a Ponzi scheme, misleading investors and misappropriating $16.1 million. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been contacting investors as part of a criminal investigation into what happened, according to people familiar with the matter. No charges have been filed. Lopez and his lawyer, Marty Ready, didn’t respond to requests for comment, and the FBI and SEC declined to comment. Court filings indicate that lawyers for Lopez and the other defendants are in settlement talks with the SEC. On his podcast “The Tai Lopez Show” and in his social-media posts, Lopez, who is 48 years old, hasn’t addressed the company’s collapse and the heavy losses incurred by his investors. The day after the SEC filed suit, Lopez posted on X: “Never doom. No matter how horrible the situation, don’t ever think you’re doomed. Unless you are dead, all defeat is psychological.” Some of Lopez’s investors said in interviews that they believed in the brands he was buying and his message and were reassured by the monthly payments they were collecting—until the checks stopped arriving. “Lopez seemed credible,” said Nelson Rowe of New Iberia, La., an 82-year-old retired real-estate broker who invested $300,000. “The story sounded so good. They had all these brands.” Tai Lopez, pictured at a Los Angeles Lakers game in 2017, ran conferences where he shared what he said were his secrets for getting rich. Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images In podcasts, Lopez has described growing up with his mother in a mobile home in California while his father was in prison for selling cocaine. After high school, he said, he spent several years working on farms, including with the Amish in Lancaster, Pa. He had about $47 in his bank account and was living in a mobile home in Raleigh, N.C., he said, when on the advice of his uncle he started looking for a sales job. He landed at an insurance company where he cold-called clients. Lopez has said his breakthrough came when he figured out how to write snappy copy for Google ads, which generated quality leads that produced substantial sales commissions at the insurance company, and later at a financial-services company he said he founded. He went viral in 2015 with a series of YouTube videos titled “Here in My Garage.” In the first, Lopez, wearing a crew-neck shirt, glasses and a scruffy beard, stands in his garage in front of a black Lamborghini. What he likes a lot more than material things, he tells viewers, is knowledge. The camera swings to another side of the garage. “In fact,” he says, “I’m a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed to hold the 2,000 new books that I bought.” That video spawned a slew of parodies. Around the same time, Lopez launched “67 Steps,” an online course designed to help people find what he calls the “good life” by focusing on health, wealth, love and happiness. Lopez ran conferences where he shared what he said were his secrets for getting rich. “Our biggest mistake is almost always thinking too small,” he said in a social-media post. He hosted influencer-fueled parties at a Beverly Hills mansion he rented with a pool and basketball court. In one 2015 video, billionaire Mark Cuban visited Lopez at the house. The two shot hoops and talked about life lessons. “For those people who want to be an entrepreneur, what’s the best advice?” Lopez asked. “Find something you love to do, be great at it and sell it,” Cuban responded. Cuban told The Wall Street Journal that he filmed that video at the request of a mutual acquaintance. “I wasn’t happy about it,” he said, adding that he and Lopez are not friends. Lopez teamed up with Alex Mehr, a mechanical engineer who had co-founded an online dating app that sold for $255 million. In 2019, they formed Miami-based Retail Ecommerce Ventures, or REV, to snap up distressed retail brands. Alex Mehr, who teamed up with Lopez to co-found REV. Retail Ecommerce Ventures Lopez was CEO and Mehr was president. Lopez’s younger cousin Maya Burkenroad was chief operating officer. According to the SEC complaint, she had previously worked as a substitute preschool teacher, a radio-station promoter and an assistant at an online educational company that Lopez started. A spokesman for Mehr said he believed in REV’s business model, put over $5 million of his own money into the company and suffered substantial losses when the business was hit by what he called “severe postpandemic macroeconomic headwinds.” Burkenroad is represented by Ready, Lopez’s lawyer, who didn’t respond to requests for comment. REV’s first notable acquisition came in 2019 when it paid about $5 million for the e-commerce rights to the Dressbarn name. The discount apparel chain’s owner had decided to close its 544 stores. REV relaunched it online. After the Covid pandemic hit, REV went on a shopping spree. In July 2020, it purchased home-furnishings retailer Pier 1 Imports out of bankruptcy for about $31 million, followed later that year by two more bankrupt chains: sporting-goods retailer Modell’s for $3.6 million and discounter Stein Mart for $6 million. REV added electronics retailer RadioShack, home-goods chain Linens ‘N Things and collectibles company Franklin Mint for undisclosed sums. Lopez told the Journal in 2021 that he was borrowing the “endless aisle” concept pioneered by other online retailers. At Pier 1, he said, the number of items available for purchase had doubled since he took it over. “We’re selling more couches, chairs and coffee tables,” he said. “We’re taking the Amazon model, but no one has done it with older brands.” To help finance the acquisitions, Lopez and his partners raised more than $230 million from at least 660 investors. The SEC alleges that $112 million of it came through fraudulent securities offerings. As part of its shopping spree, REV bought home-furnishings retailer Pier 1 Imports out of bankruptcy for about $31 million. Chris Urso/Tampa Bay Times/Zuma Press During weekly Zoom calls for investors, Lopez and Mehr pitched new investment opportunities by touting the purported success of earlier REV deals, according to former employees and the SEC. At his self-help conferences, Lopez would tell audiences that they could share in his success by investing in REV brands, attendees recalled. Joseph Bertao of Santa Maria, Calif., a 44-year-old who works in construction sales, went to an investor meeting at a Los Angeles hotel. Bertao recalled the message being: “Give us as much money as you can. These deals are poppin’ off and we can’t get them fast enough.” He invested about $350,000. Marketing materials provided to potential investors lacked detailed financial information. In one Pier 1 pitch deck, investors were told they would receive $200,000 after the first year if they invested $1 million—a 20% return. Lopez’s plan for RadioShack was to revive the electronics retailer as an e-commerce site. Al Behrman/Associated Press Lopez told investors in a February 2021 email that Dressbarn and Stein Mart—two clothing chains with years of shrinking sales—were “on fire” and that “cash flow is strong,” according to the SEC. John and Nadya Melton, who live in Maryland, invested $1.43 million in REV entities over a two-year period. “Tai and Alex repeatedly conveyed that their companies were thriving,” Nadya Melton wrote in a July 2025 email to an FBI agent, a copy of which was reviewed by the Journal. “We were receiving monthly payments and reassured by frequent investor Zoom calls. At no point were we told that the businesses were struggling financially.” Pivoting to e-commerce proved challenging for some of REV’s brands. None of the companies REV owned were profitable, according to former employees and the SEC. REV’s leaders seemed focused on raising money for the next deal rather than fixing the businesses they already owned, the former employees said. Funds were moved from one retailer to another to cover shortfalls, according to the SEC and the former employees. In November 2020, $1.7 million in new investor funds were transferred from RadioShack to Stein Mart, contrary to written and oral representations to investors about how the proceeds would be used, according to the SEC. Lopez and his team hosted frequent Zoom calls to try to raise more money. An investor gathering in November 2022 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas proved to be the last. Shortly after that, some investors started to complain that they weren’t receiving their checks. On Dec. 27, 2022, investor John Melton texted Lopez to ask why he wasn’t responding to inquiries about his investment. Lopez said that he would have an update later in the week. “Ok but is my 500k safe?” Melton asked. Lopez stopped responding. A text chain between investor John Melton and Tai Lopez. A text chain between investor John Melton and Tai Lopez. By then, REV had stopped making investor payments. The following December, a group of the company’s secured debtholders foreclosed on REV’s assets, putting them in a new entity called Omni Retail Enterprises. Murphy, the Illinois investor, said he lost most of his $175,000 investment—money he had planned to use to pay for college for his two sons. Rowe, the retiree, and Bertao, the construction salesman, are out about $300,000 apiece. Bertao said he had planned to retire early but now must keep working. “They painted a picture that the brands were making money,” he said. “It was all a lie.” Lopez, for his part, has been sending out emails offering his services as an independent marketing expert. In one dated Dec. 16, 2025, he wrote: “I’ve already scaled well past $50 million in revenue, and I have a network of marketers who know how to do the same. Click here and let’s talk.” “I didn’t win because I’m smarter. I won by catching trends earlier. Over and over,” Lopez wrote in another email the next day. “Walk into the new year knowing how to Trend Stack. That’s the skill that made me wealthy.” His email offered a chance to get an online program he called the “Good Life Money Bundle” at 80% off, so long as the purchaser bought it before midnight on Jan. 2. He continues to host his podcast. The latest episode, on Jan. 13, was about why 90% of new businesses fail. A surer bet, Lopez told listeners, is to buy a franchise like a McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Write to Suzanne Kapner at suzanne.kapner@wsj.com and Alexander Gladstone at alexander.gladstone@wsj.com

President Donald Trump has made housing affordability a centerpiece of his economic agenda, repeatedly emphasizing his desire to see mortgage rates fall. But Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, has spent years criticizing the central bank’s enormous bond portfolio. Any push to significantly shrink the Fed’s $6.6 trillion balance sheet of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities could push mortgage rates higher, working against the president’s goals. The tension between those two goals highlights a potential clash between Trump’s political priorities and the policies embraced by Warsh, who has sharply criticized the Fed’s balance sheet as bloated and distortionary — a shorthand for his view that a giant central-bank portfolio holds long-term interest rates below their natural level and inflates asset prices. Warsh must still be confirmed by the Senate, but Trump intends for him to start leading the central bank in mid-May, when Jerome H. Powell’s term as Fed chief expires. Follow Trump’s second term “If all he does is move to a smaller Fed balance sheet, it’s hard to see how that would be consistent with lower mortgage rates, and that creates some tension with the president,” said Bill English, a Yale professor and former director of the Fed’s division of monetary affairs. The Fed influences borrowing costs by adjusting its short-term benchmark interest rate, a lever that ripples through the finance sector and helps shape what consumers pay for car loans, mortgages and other loans. Policymakers have also relied on a second, less conventional tool: the Fed’s balance sheet. By buying trillions of dollars in longer-term securities, the central bank sought to push down longer-term interest rates. Those purchases make borrowing cheaper because they push Treasury yields lower, which, in turn, influence rates across the economy. The potential conflict comes as Trump faces political pressure to deliver on promises about housing costs. Mortgage rates, which briefly topped 7 percent in early 2025, have become a flash point for home buyers locked out of the market. Trump has pledged to bring these down, though he has offered few specifics. “We can drop interest rates to a level, and that’s one thing we do want to do,” he said last month. “That’s natural. That’s good for everybody. You know, the dropping of the interest rate, we should be paying a much lower interest than we are.” Warsh, a former Wall Street banker and Fed governor, has been a vocal critic of “quantitative easing,” programs designed to rein in longer-term interest rates by ballooning the Fed’s balance sheet during and after the financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2022, the Fed’s assets jumped from about $900 billion to roughly $9 trillion, before shrinking to $6.6 trillion as of last week. In speeches and writings, Warsh has characterized the massive bond portfolio as an unwelcome legacy of crisis-era policies that should be unwound. Warsh says the Fed’s bond buying encouraged large federal deficits and, ultimately, fueled inflation. “Each time the Fed jumps into action, the more it expands its size and scope, encroaching further on other macroeconomic domains,” he said in a speech in April. “More debt is accumulated … more capital is misallocated … more institutional lines are crossed … risks of future shocks are magnified … and the Fed is compelled to act even more aggressively the next time.” The Fed holds about $4.3 trillion in Treasury securities and about $2 trillion in mortgage-backed securities — remnants of the extraordinary measures taken to support the economy during the recession in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. The bulk of the securities are long-term instruments. The tension is rooted in basic economics: When the Fed buys large quantities of bonds, it pushes up bond prices and drives down their yields, which translates to lower borrowing costs across the economy. Reversing that process — selling bonds or simply letting them mature without replacement — would probably have the opposite effect, allowing rates to rise as private investors demand higher yields to absorb the supply that might otherwise be purchased by the Fed. To be sure, many factors influence mortgage rates beyond the Fed’s balance sheet. The central bank’s short-term interest rate policy, inflation expectations, global economic conditions and the health of the housing market all play roles. And it remains unclear exactly what Warsh would do if confirmed as Fed chair — he has not laid out a detailed plan for balance sheet reductions, and his views could evolve once in office. Warsh and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment. Some economists say the tension may be overstated. The underlying balance sheet issues are so complex and thorny, they say, Warsh may have no choice but to kick the can on addressing them. “I suspect Warsh’s desire to reduce the balance sheet will collide with reality and he’ll end up reducing it very gradually, perhaps excusing himself by arguing that the problem is so big it cannot be solved overnight,” said Jason Furman, a former Obama administration economist now at Harvard University. Though Warsh got the nod in part because the president expects him to cut the Fed’s short-term rate, that doesn’t mean market-driven long-term rates will fall. The Fed has shaved 1.75 points off short-term rates over the past 18 months, yet mortgage rates are roughly the same as in September 2024. “Almost everywhere you look, Warsh is kind of hamstrung, including on the balance sheet,” said Jon Hilsenrath, a visiting scholar at Duke University’s economics department who focuses on central bank issues.

Watch: Massie, Khanna suggest Epstein file redactions protect at least six men US lawmakers say files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were improperly redacted ahead of their release by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Members of Congress on Monday were allowed to begin a review of the unredacted versions of the approximately three million pages of files released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) since December. "The core issue is that they're not complying with... my law, because these were scrubbed back in March by Donald Trump's FBI," Democratic Representative Ro Khanna told MS NOW. At least one document has been unredacted since the lawmakers' complaint, with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche saying on X: " The DOJ is committed to transparency." Reuters The files' redactions came under scrutiny last week after lawyers for Epstein's victims said the latest tranche of files included email addresses and nude photos in which the names and faces of potential victims could be identified. Survivors issued a statement calling the disclosure "outrageous" and said they should not be "named, scrutinized and retraumatized". The DOJ said it had taken down all the flagged files and that mistakes were due to "technical or human error". After viewing the unredacted documents, Massie and Khanna, who co-sponsored the law which compelled the release of the Epstein files last year, told reporters they had a list of about 20 people in which every name was redacted except for Epstein's and his convicted sex trafficker associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Six of the names could even belong to men who are "likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files", Massie said outside the DoJ on Monday night, before posting a screenshot of the redacted file online and demanding an explanation. These names were "inappropriately" redacted, Khanna said on MS NOW. In response to their concerns, Blanche said his department "just unredacted all non-victim names from this document. The DOJ is committed to transparency." He linked to what appears to be a new version of the file - which he said contains the names of Epstein victims, whose identities the EFTA law orders the government to conceal - with only two names now blacked out. Blanche also responded to two other files highlighted by Massie, saying those files do not obfuscate any substantive information. But Khanna said those measures taken after the documents' release are still not in compliance with the EFTA law, which passed nearly unanimously in Congress and was signed by President Trump in November. "Trump's FBI scrubbed these files in March," Khanna said on social media. "The documents (the Department of) Justice [received] had the redactions that the FBI made back then. "They need to unscrub the FBI files so we know who the rich and powerful men are who raped underage girls." Massie said the incorrect redactions show the justice department "need to do a little more homework" in their handling of the files. "What we found out is those 302 forms were redacted before they got to the DOJ," in contradiction of the law's order for the FBI - which is part of the DOJ - to un-redact information before sending it to Blance and Attorney General Pam Bondi's office. Who is in the Epstein files? Among the redactions flagged by Massie on Monday night was a document appearing the show an email exchange between Epstein and an unknown person discussing a "torture video" and travel between China and the United States. Massie claimed that "a Sultan seems to have sent this" and demanded the hidden identity be revealed. Blanche quoted Massie's post on X, saying the blacked-out text is an email address. "The law requires redactions for personally identifiable information, including if in an email address. And you know that the Sultan's name is available unredacted in the files," he said. "Stop grandstanding," he added. Massie also complained that the name of a "well known retired CEO" was missing from the publicly available version of an FBI document listing potential Epstein co-conspirators. Within hours, Blanche said that name - which already appears elsewhere in the files - had also been uncovered. "DOJ is hiding nothing," he wrote. Representatives Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, and Lauren Boebert, a Republican, were among the lawmakers who viewed the documents on Monday. "I think there are folks who are definitely implicated" named in the files, Boebert said. Raskin complained that the limited way in which lawmakers could view the unredacted files amounts to a "cover up". "The DOJ is giving Members of Congress just four computers in a satellite office to read the unredacted Epstein File of more than 3 million documents," he wrote on X, calculating that it would take Congress seven years to read it all.

Washington — Democratic leaders say a proposal from the White House is "incomplete and insufficient" as they demand new restrictions on President Trump's immigration crackdown and threaten a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday that a White House counterproposal to the list of demands they transmitted over the weekend "included neither details nor legislative text" and doesn't address "the concerns Americans have about ICE's lawless conduct." The White House proposal wasn't released publicly. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., depart after speaking to reporters at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 8, 2026. J. Scott Applewhite / AP The Democrats' statement comes with time running short, with another partial government shutdown threatening to begin Saturday. Among the Democrats' demands are a requirement for judicial warrants, better identification of DHS officers, new use-of-force standards and a stop to racial profiling. They say such changes are necessary after two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis last month. But Republicans depict the demands as "unrealistic and unserious." Earlier Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had expressed optimism about the rare negotiations between Democrats and the White House, saying there was "forward progress." Thune said it was a good sign that the two sides were trading papers, and "hopefully they can find some common ground here." But coming to an agreement on the charged issue of immigration enforcement will be difficult, especially with rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties skeptical about finding common ground. Republicans have balked at the Democrats' requests and some have demands of their own, including the addition of legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans can register to vote and restrictions on cities they say don't do enough to crack down on illegal immigration. And many Democrats who are furious about Immigration and Customs Enforcement's aggressive crackdown have said they won't vote for another penny of Homeland Security funding until enforcement is radically scaled back. "Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before a DHS funding bill moves forward," Jeffries said earlier Monday. "Period. Full stop." Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after Mr. Trump agreed to a Democratic request that it be separated out from a larger spending measure that became law last week. That package extended Homeland Security funding at current levels only through Feb. 13, creating a brief window for action as the two parties discuss new restrictions on ICE and other federal officers. Democrats made the demands for new restrictions on ICE and other federal law enforcement after ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, and some Republicans suggested that new restrictions were necessary. Renee Good was shot by ICE agents on Jan. 7. While he agreed to separate the funding, Mr. Trump hasn't publicly responded to the Democrats' specific demands. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said late last week that the Trump administration is willing to discuss some items on the Democrats' list but "others don't seem like they are grounded in any common sense, and they are nonstarters for this administration." Schumer and Jeffries have said they want immigration officers to remove their masks, to show identification and to better coordinate with local authorities. They have also demanded a stricter use-of-force policy for the federal officers, legal safeguards at detention centers and a prohibition on tracking protesters with body-worn cameras. Among other demands, Democrats say Congress should end indiscriminate arrests, "improve warrant procedures and standards," ensure the law is clear that officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant and require that it's verified that the person is not a U.S. citizen before a person can be detained. Republicans have said they support the requirement for DHS officers to have body-worn cameras - language that was in the original DHS bill - but have balked at many of the other Democratic asks. "Taking the masks off ICE officers and agents, the reason we can't do that is that it would subject them to great harm, their families at great risk because people are doxing them and targeting them," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Monday. "We've got to talk about things that are reasonable and achievable." Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said on "Fox News Sunday" that Democrats are "trying to motivate a radical left base." "The left has gone completely overboard, and they're threatening the safety and security of our agents so they cannot do their job," Hagerty said. In addition to ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the homeland security bill includes funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. If DHS shuts down, Thune said last week, "there's a very good chance we could see more travel problems" similar to the 43-day government closure last year. Lawmakers in both parties have suggested they could separate out funding for ICE and Border Patrol and pass the rest of it by Friday. But Thune has been cool to that idea, saying instead that Congress should pass another short-term extension for all of DHS while they negotiate the possible new restrictions. "If there's additional time that's needed, then hopefully Democrats would be amenable to another extension," Thune said. Many Democrats are unlikely to vote for another extension. But Republicans could potentially win enough votes in both chambers from Democrats if they feel hopeful about negotiations. "The ball is in the Republicans' court," Jeffries said Monday. On CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, Jeffries said, "Either (Republicans are) going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves so that they're behaving like every other law enforcement agency in the country, or they're making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA and shut down TSA, and that would be very unfortunate." In: