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Epstein files: FBI memo says Israel ‘compromised’ Trump, Epstein had Mossad ties

Epstein files: FBI memo says Israel ‘compromised’ Trump, Epstein had Mossad ties

Middle East Eye reports: A declassified FBI memo from the Epstein files, released on Friday, includes incendiary allegations about US President Donald Trump. The memo says that Trump was “compromised by Israel”, that convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein worked with Israeli intelligence, and that a Jewish religious group calling itself Chabad-Lubavitch sought to hijack his first term in office. The memo, written in 2020, formed part of an FBI investigation into domestic or foreign influence over the US electoral process. It…

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Is being virtuous good for you – or just people around you? A study suggests traits like compassion may support your own well-being

Is being virtuous good for you – or just people around you? A study suggests traits like compassion may support your own well-being

Opportunities to show compassion often feel difficult, but exercising virtue seems to help people cope. FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images By Michael Prinzing, Wake Forest University Virtues such as compassion, patience and self-control may be beneficial not only for others but also for oneself, according to new research my team and I published in the Journal of Personality in December 2025. Philosophers from Aristotle to al-Fārābī, a 10th-century scholar in what is now Iraq, have argued that virtue is vital…

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Thousands of new ICE observers hit the streets after two murders

Thousands of new ICE observers hit the streets after two murders

The Washington Post reports: Jordan’s parents didn’t want her to become an ICE watcher. But on Tuesday, after a single day of training, she climbed into her Jeep and joined hundreds of neighbors patrolling the streets of this embattled city, where federal immigration agents have shot and killed two people this month who were monitoring and attempting to disrupt their activities. “I’m not really nervous, it’s more like, I want to prevent bad things from happening in my neighborhood,” Jordan,…

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‘That’s him. Get him.’ Witness at an earlier shooting was arrested at the scene of Alex Pretti’s killing

‘That’s him. Get him.’ Witness at an earlier shooting was arrested at the scene of Alex Pretti’s killing

The Intercept reports: Less than 40 minutes after federal immigration agents shot and killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis, Clayton Kelly was thrown face-first onto the sidewalk, tasting snow and street grime as a federal agent’s knee drove into his back. The incident, a video of which The Intercept reviewed and corroborated with an independent eyewitness, occurred not long after Kelly and his wife arrived in the area where Pretti was killed. With protesters amassing…

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An immigrant who ICE says ‘ran headfirst into a brick wall’ — an echo of ‘shot while trying to escape’

An immigrant who ICE says ‘ran headfirst into a brick wall’ — an echo of ‘shot while trying to escape’

After World War One, German nationalist paramilitary groups frequently used the phrase “shot while trying to escape” (Auf der Flucht erschossen) to cover up the elimination of political opponents. During the Nazi era, this pretext was used for a range of extrajudicial killings. The Associated Press reports: Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull. Immigration and…

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ICE expands power of agents to arrest people without warrants

ICE expands power of agents to arrest people without warrants

The New York Times reports: Amid tensions over President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota and beyond, federal agents were told this week that they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reviewed by The New York Times. The change expands the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up people they encounter and suspect are undocumented immigrants, rather than targeted enforcement operations in which they set…

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The blood-and-soil nationalism that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti

The blood-and-soil nationalism that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes: In the wake of poet and writer Renee Good’s killing, Donald Trump and his collaborators have done all they can to define her as an enemy of “The Homeland.” The administration claims, for instance, that Good was a “domestic terrorist,” a term it is now applying to Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse whom federal agents killed on Saturday. This rhetoric is employed to justify the state taking life, by associating the dead with national villainy. But the…

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What ICE should have learned from the Fugitive Slave Act

What ICE should have learned from the Fugitive Slave Act

Jelani Cobb writes: One measure of the numbing effect that the constant heedless and cruel assault on democracy and on simple reason that Trumpism has imposed upon American life is the fact that we no longer flinch at the word “unprecedented.” Now, a full decade since Donald Trump’s arrival on the national scene, we have reached a point where the violation of norms has become a norm in itself. At the same time, however, there has been a tendency to…

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MAGA is prying Christianity further and further away from the ethic and teachings of Jesus

MAGA is prying Christianity further and further away from the ethic and teachings of Jesus

Peter Wehner writes: Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has become an evangelist of a certain sort. During her tenure, her department has on multiple occasions released slick social-media recruitment videos in which scripture verses feature prominently. One video quotes from Isaiah 6:8 (“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’”); another quotes from Proverbs 28:1 (“The wicked flee when no…

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The case against Don Lemon is bogus, and dangerous

The case against Don Lemon is bogus, and dangerous

The Associated Press reports: Journalist Don Lemon, who dared the Trump administration to come after him after he covered an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church, was indicted for civil rights crimes. Lemon was arrested Thursday by federal agents in Los Angeles, while another independent journalist and two protest participants were arrested in Minnesota. The arrests brought sharp criticism from news media advocates and civil rights activists including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said the…

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ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare

ICE’s surveillance app is a techno-authoritarian nightmare

Moustafa Bayoumi writes: The lethal force Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is meting out on American streets is rightly drawing loud condemnations from politicians and editorial boards across the nation and around the world. Now is the time we must start paying attention to another highly damaging part of ICE’s arsenal: the agency’s deployment of mass surveillance. I’m referring specifically to Mobile Fortify, a specialized app ICE has been using at least since May 2025. (Usage of the app was…

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ICE deportation flights are getting longer and crueler

ICE deportation flights are getting longer and crueler

Mother Jones reports: Just before being put on board her deportation flight, Melissa Tran’s wrists and ankles were shackled to a chain around her waist. It had been more than 10 hours since she’d been given any food or water; for the last seven she had been sitting on a bus on the tarmac. There was no company name or logo on the Boeing 767, but she soon learned the airline was called Omni Air International. She’d never heard of…

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Atlanta FBI boss ousted after balking at 2020 election probe

Atlanta FBI boss ousted after balking at 2020 election probe

MS Now reports: The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office was forced out this month after questioning the Justice Department’s renewed push to probe Fulton County’s role in the 2020 election, two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW. Paul Brown was ousted after expressing concerns about the FBI’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s longstanding and unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the county anchored by Atlanta, and for refusing to carry out the searches…

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No, Kevin Warsh isn’t qualified to become Fed chair

No, Kevin Warsh isn’t qualified to become Fed chair

Paul Krugman writes: So Kevin Warsh will be the next Fed chair. The silver lining to his appointment is that he shouldn’t be able to do much damage, although with one big caveat (see below). The Fed is a republic, not a dictatorship; key decisions are made by a committee in which the chairperson has only one vote. Fed chairs can only drive policy through persuasion — and Warsh lacks the intellectual and moral credibility to be effective on that…

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