pelespirit

Note: These were collected by someone else and are what's missing from the Epstein files. They were previously released.

In the files, you can see that there was a witness willing to testify, so I took out "unsubstantiated" in the headline:

• YouTube video of Katie Johnson’s testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnib-OORRRod

• Full court docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4154484/katie-johnson-v-donald-j-trump/

• PDF of the initial complaint (WARNING very graphic): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4154484/1/katie-johnson-v-donald-j-trump/

Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents.

The Department of Justice did not release those records when it uploaded millions of pages of files related to Epstein beginning in December. The existence of the missing documents was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger and subsequently confirmed by NPR, causing outrage in Washington and sparking an investigation from congressional Democrats.

The Guardian obtained the missing FBI form 302 reports, which memorialize 25 pages of agents’ notes from the four interviews conducted in the summer and fall of 2019. The notes describe how the woman came forward to tell agents she recognized Epstein from a photo sent by a childhood friend. Only the first session, in which she did not name Trump, made it into the public release. The Guardian has chosen not to publish the woman’s name.

Most health care services in the U.S. cost at least twice what they do in other countries, and sometimes up to ten times as much.

How does this show up on your hospital bill? To break it down, meet a pair of fictional twins. Emma and Sarah live on either side of the U.S.-Canada border. Below, we break down roughly how much it will cost for each of them to have a baby. Then we share what you can do about the (possibly giant) number at the bottom of your next medical bill.

If you’re facing a large medical bill, resources like the Marshall Allen Project can help make sure your bill is accurate and fair. Here are three tips generated by the Marshall Allen Project’s MAC chatbot:

• Don’t pay your first bill – start by double-checking all the items on your bill to make sure you aren’t being double-charged or charged for a service you didn’t receive.
• Compare prices using resources like Fair Health Consumer, Billy and Healthcare Bluebook.
• If you spot errors or overpricing, contact your provider in writing to tell them. Ask for corrections, a cash price or financial assistance.

Fire his ass, it's just a job.

Airport security screeners across the U.S. received a fraction of their usual pay on Friday as the partial government shutdown drags on, increasing the risk that more officers will call in sick to take second jobs, or even quit.

Funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 13 after Congress failed to reach a deal on immigration enforcement reforms demanded by Democrats. That halted funding for the operation of several government agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which briefly kept the administration from waiving collective bargaining rights for employees at more than 20 agencies.

The appeals court panel had already stayed the lower court’s preliminary injunction last summer, but fully invalidated it in its ruling Thursday.

The Trump administration is free, for now, to continue rescinding collective bargaining agreements with most unions that represent federal employees.

A new lawsuit alleges that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using artificial intelligence to identify bystanders who are recording federal immigration enforcement operations and then adding those people to a secret database.

Two women from Maine filed the lawsuit and claim that federal agents threatened to add them to a database of domestic terrorists because they were legally recording the agents.

In a video included in the lawsuit, a woman behind the camera tells a federal immigration agent that "it's not illegal to record" and questions why he is apparently documenting her information. The agent responds by saying "we have a nice little database. And now you're considered a domestic terrorist, so have fun with that."

The Los Angeles Board of Education, before holding a closed-door emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the employment of school superintendent Alberto Carvalho, whose L.A. home and district office were raided by the FBI on Wednesday, heard from angry parents who blamed the board for inaction and causing a national “embarrassment.”

The Los Angeles district inked a $6 million contract with AllHere shortly before it collapsed. Carvalho heavily promoted the artificial-intelligence chatbot named Ed, which was to help develop individualized learning plans for students, the L.A. Times reported.

The Miami-Dade Public School System also selected AllHere for a $1.8 million three-year deal months after Carvalho left for L.A. in February 2022. A Miami-Dade school district spokesperson said nothing came from the contract.

The picture was located by “jmail,” a site run by two tech workers who have created a searchable version of Epstein’s Gmail inbox by downloading all of the latest releases.

The DOJ’s explanation for its removal was particularly shameless, given that more than 100 explicit photos of Epstein’s victims were accidentally uploaded to the portal before being removed and redacted.

The photo, which was found in a downloaded cache of Epstein files but was later removed from the DOJ’s dedicated site, appears to show Epstein and Lutnick walking on Little St. James, the Caribbean island where many of Epstein’s crimes took place.

It also shows three other unidentified men, all wearing baggy shorts and T-shirts or button-down shirts, while Epstein is dressed in a white T-shirt and pants.

In a statement to the Daily Beast, a DOJ official said the image was “part of a batch of files that had been flagged for nudity.”

The Trump administration is slowly dismantling the federal disaster management system that protects the nation from chemical catastrophes, such as fires and explosions at high-risk facilities.

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Response Management Program (RMP) requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to develop protocols to prevent catastrophes, or limit fallout, and was largely designed to protect workers, first responders, and fence-line communities.

In 2024, the Biden administration finalized a rule 12 years in the making that meaningfully strengthened protections. However, industry in early 2025 asked the incoming Donald Trump EPA to undo it because, chemical companies claim, its provisions are too expensive to implement.

The Trump EPA is now moving to kill most of the 2024 rules after it eliminated a public website that informs communities and first responders which chemicals are in use at facilities. The White House has also targeted the Chemical Safety Board, which reviews accidents and develops actions to avoid a repeat.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation argued the president hadn't followed proper procedure in tearing down the East Wing of the White House and soliciting private donations to fund the $300-million ballroom. In his opinion Leon wrote that he wasn't making a determination on the merits because of the way the suit had been framed. He concluded, saying that if the group were to amend its complaint "the Court will expeditiously consider it and, if viable, address the merits of the novel and weighty issues presented."

The group responded with disappointment, but said they would continue pushing to halt construction.

"While we are disappointed that the Court did not issue the preliminary injunction, we were pleased that Judge Leon ruled that the National Trust has standing to bring this lawsuit, as we have asserted from the start," Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust, said in a statement. "We are also pleased that he encouraged us to amend our complaint—specifically, to assert that the President has acted beyond his statutory authority—and we plan to do so promptly."