US News

A year before convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein died in a prison cell under mysterious circumstances, a friend who was teaching at Arizona State University worried about accusations of sexual harassment and asked for help, which led Epstein to suggest he turn to Donald Trump's White House.

According to Politico's Bianca Quilantan, the texts and emails show Epstein believed Trump's efforts to weaken protections for sexual misconduct accusers could provide physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was teaching at ASU, an escape route from disciplinary proceedings.

"My friends in the White House HATE the title ix c----," Epstein wrote to Krauss in April 2018, using a crude sexist slur to describe his contempt for women protected by Title IX enforcement.

"Ironic but he might be your out," Epstein added without clarifying who he was specifically discussing, Politico is reporting.

Krauss, a noted Trump critic, was willing to give it a shot, replying,: "Ironic indeed! But I will take it."

According to Quilantan, the text and email exchanges also illuminate Trump's Title IX agenda and attitude toward women. Advocates for sexual assault survivors say the Epstein emails prove what they've long argued: the Trump rollback was designed to shield accused men from accountability, not to protect fairness.

"This Epstein email and essentially his blessing and support of the Trump 2020 rule, it just really affirms what we've been saying all along," Shiwali Patel, senior director of Education Justice at the National Women's Law Center told Politico. "It's meant to be an anti-survivor rule. I don't know if it could be made any more clear after the Epstein files revealed his role in support of it."

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr got a tongue-lashing on Thursday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing as Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) brought up his much-ridiculed HHS video using aging rocker Kid Rock to promote better health.

According to the fuming Sanchez, who repeatedly had to speak over the Trump appointee, the controversial secretary has been wasting money while not doing his job warning the public about serious health issues like the growing measles outbreak.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon again blocked the majority of construction on President Donald Trump's White House ballroom.

In a 10-page opinion on Thursday, Leon noted that the circuit court had ordered him to revise an earlier ruling after Trump claimed that a national security exception would allow him to construct the entire ballroom.

A Donald Trump attorney who was nominated for a lifetime appointment on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was lambasted by MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire on Thursday morning for being afraid to admit President Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020.

On Wednesday, Justin Smith was grilled by Democrats sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee and, in an exchange with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), was asked, “Who won the popular vote in the 2020 election?“

President Donald Trump claimed credit for a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

The 79-year-old president had announced that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would hold direct talks Thursday, which Lebanese officials later denied, but Trump claimed on Truth Social that he had spoke to both leaders and helped broker a ceasefire.

President Donald Trump's advisers are scrambling to cobble together a message as the Iran war and his erratic behavior threatens to consume Republican midterm campaigns.

The Trump administration's had crafted a midterm campaign strategy focused on tax refunds and economic gains, but those plans have been derailed by the Iran war, leaving Republicans facing potential losses of congressional control just seven months out from the November election, reported CNN.

Right-wing host Tucker Carlson explained that "there are signs" that suggest President Donald Trump "could be" the Antichrist.

After Trump posted an image of Jesus, Carlson insisted that the president was "mocking Jesus."

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) scolded Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he denied saying that "every Black kid" should be "re-parented" instead of getting mental health treatment.

During a Thursday hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, Sewell noted that Kennedy had made the remarks in a 2024 podcast on the 19Keys Online Show.