Good morning.
The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, told ABC News yesterday that prosecutors’ review of the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking case “is over”, and in a separate interview to CNN said “victims want to be made whole”. “And we want that,” Blanche said. “But that doesn’t mean we can just create evidence or that we can just kind of come up with a case that isn’t there.”
But a victims’ attorney, Jennifer Freeman, said the justice department’s “handling of the Epstein files has been a mess from the start”.
She said the victim-survivors and their advocates “won’t allow the federal government to simply dump a couple million documents and wash their hands of one of the largest law enforcement failures in US history”. She also accused the justice department of “hiding the names of perpetrators while exposing survivors”.
What are the latest disclosures to emerge from the huge dump of 3.5m documents related to Epstein on Friday? Some of the documents suggest that other men were involved in his sexual abuse, prompting questions about officials’ contentions that there isn’t evidence to investigate third parties for potential involvement in the late financier’s crimes.
Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar win big in Grammys ceremony filled with anti-ICE sentiment
Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar took home major Grammy awards on a night when musicians hit back at Donald Trump’s ICE occupation.
From Justin Bieber to Carole King, artists wore anti-ICE pins while others also spoke out during their speeches. Bad Bunny, who is performing at the Super Bowl next weekend, took home three awards, including for album of the year – the first Spanish-language artist to win it – and used his time on stage to call out anti-immigration sentiment.
Billie Eilish, who won song of the year for Wildflower, also used her speech to speak to the same issue. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said on stage.
What did Bad Bunny say? “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens, we’re humans and we are Americans … The only thing more powerful than hate is love so please we need to be different.”
Two federal agents reportedly identified in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti
Government documents have identified the two federal officers who fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as Jesus Ochoa, a border patrol agent, and Raymundo Gutierrez, an officer with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to ProPublica.
According to those records, Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, were the agents who fired their weapons during the confrontation last weekend that resulted in Pretti’s death. The shooting sparked widespread demonstrations and renewed demands for criminal inquiries into federal immigration enforcement actions. Immediately following Pretti’s killing, the Trump administration repeatedly pushed false claims about the shooting.
What else do we know about the agents and what happened? CBP, the agency that employs both men, has declined to publicly name the agents involved and has released little additional information about the shooting.
In other news …
John Lithgow has called JK Rowling’s views on transgender rights “ironic and inexplicable”, saying that backlash to his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter series “upsets me”.
Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that Donald Trump won by 17 points when he clinched a second presidency in 2024.
The John F Kennedy Center will halt entertainment events for two years starting on 4 July during renovations, Donald Trump posted yesterday on Truth Social. Trump’s effective takeover of the institution has seen dozens of performers withdraw.
Building power: How Mormon women fought a Republican-led redistricting initiative in Utah – and won
Mormon Women for Ethical Government began as a Facebook group in 2017, when mostly conservative Mormon women sought a safe faith-based space to discuss Donald Trump’s policies. That safe space of engagement and belonging soon evolved into one of the state’s most effective civic forces. MWEG’s first major action: suing the Utah state legislature for redistricting congressional seats to favor Republicans.
Stat of the day: Melania film earns $7m in US opening weekend against cost of $75m
Amazon’s Melania Trump documentary has reportedly recorded the strongest start of any documentary in over a decade, taking $7m at the US box office during its lavishly promoted opening weekend, but also cost quite a lot more than a typical documentary: $40m to make and $35m to promote.
Don’t miss this: Lisa Bloom on the fight for Epstein’s victims – ‘So many powerful men were enablers’
The US lawyer speaks in an exclusive interview about her fearsome reputation, the criticism she faced for advising Harvey Weinstein, and how 40 years of legal experience did not prepare her for the Epstein files, about which she says: “I have really been flabbergasted, and it takes a lot to shock me, having done these cases for so long.”
… or this: Why TikTok’s first week of American ownership was a disaster
A little more than one week ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalized citizen. Ever since, the video app has been fighting for its life. TikTok’s calamitous emigration began when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to sell the app to a group of US investors. Since then the app has endured a major outage and user backlash over perceived censorship. Now it’s facing an inquiry by the California governor and an ascendant competitor.
Climate check: Fossil fuel firms may have to pay for climate damage under proposed UN tax
Fossil fuel companies could be forced to pay some of the price of their damage to the climate, and the ultra-rich subjected to a global wealth tax, if new tax rules are agreed under the UN. Negotiations on a planned global tax treaty will resume today.
Last Thing: Likeness of restored angel to Giorgia Meloni triggers investigations in Rome
Italy’s culture minister and the diocese of Rome have launched investigations after claims were made that an angel in a landmark church in Rome was restored in the likeness of the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
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