The Latest
President Donald Trump has lashed out at reporters raising questions about the Epstein files, demanding that the country “get onto something else,” but that’s highly unlikely. Many of the documents haven’t been released, and the ones now public were heavily redacted.
The Department of Justice will allow members of Congress to review unredacted files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein starting on Monday, according to a letter that was sent to lawmakers. The letter obtained by The Associated Press says that lawmakers will be able to review unredacted versions of the more than 3 million files that the Justice Department has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.
While investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.
Meanwhile, Trump said he won’t apologize for a racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama. The White House ultimately blamed the post on a staffer and Trump said “I didn’t make a mistake.”
And Dr. Mehmet Oz is urging people to get inoculated against the measles at a time of outbreaks across several states and as the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status. “Take the vaccine, please,” said Oz, “We have a solution for our problem.”
The Latest:
FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t running a sex trafficking ring for powerful men, files show
The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the world’s most influential people.
But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.
Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.
An examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.
While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he “lent her” to his rich friends, agents couldn’t confirm that and found no other victims telling a similar story, the records said.
Masks emerge as symbol of Trump’s ICE crackdown and a flashpoint in Congress
Beyond the car windows being smashed, people tackled on city streets — or even a little child with a floppy bunny ears snowcap detained — the images of masked federal officers has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
Not in recent U.S. memory has an American policing operation so consistently masked its thousands of officers from the public, a development that the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to safeguard employees from online harassment. But experts warn masking serves another purpose, inciting fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between the police and its citizenry.
Whether to ban the masks — or allow the masking to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.
‘Take the vaccine, please,’ a top US health official says in an appeal as measles cases rise
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listens as President Donald Trump speaks about TrumpRx in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A leading U.S. health official on Sunday urged people to get inoculated against the measles at a time of outbreaks across several states and as the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status.
“Take the vaccine, please,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator whose boss has raised suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines. “We have a solution for our problem.”
Oz, a heart surgeon, defended some recently revised federal vaccine recommendations as well as past comments from President Donald Trump and the nation’s health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the efficacy of vaccines. From Oz, there was a clear message on the measles. “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”
An outbreak in South Carolina in the hundreds has surpassed the recorded case count in Texas’ 2025 outbreak, and there is also one on the Utah-Arizona border. Multiple other states have had confirmed cases this year. The outbreaks have mostly impacted children and have come as infectious disease experts warn that rising public distrust of vaccines generally may be contributing to the spread of a disease once declared eradicated by public health officials.
