
Mounting problems test Biden's presidency and Democrats' hold on power
CNN
Presidents get into trouble when they are seen as controlled by events rather than the other way around. This is the situation now facing Joe Biden.
The President is confronted by a slew of intractable domestic and global crises he has no power to quickly fix, a bunch of political crunches caused and exacerbated by his own choices and a deepening sense of a White House under siege.
Rising gasoline prices and inflation, a global supply chain backup that could empty Santa's sled, and a pandemic Biden was elected to end but that won't go away dominate a testing political environment. The economy seems to have forgotten how to get people back to work. That's largely due to a summer Covid-19 surge powered mostly by conservatives who refuse to get vaccines and who view masking and mandates as an act of government oppression.

One year ago this week, Joe Biden was president. I was in Doha, Qatar, negotiating with Israel and Hamas to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The incoming Trump team worked closely with us, a rare display of nonpartisanship to free hostages and end a war. It feels like a decade ago. A lot can happen in a year, as 2025 has shown.

Botched Epstein redactions trace back to Virgin Islands’ 2020 civil racketeering case against estate
A botched redaction in the Epstein files revealed that government attorneys once accused his lawyers of paying over $400,000 to “young female models and actresses” to cover up his criminal activities

The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida Tuesday to volunteer over the “next several days” to help to redact the Epstein files, in the latest internal Trump administrationpush toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation for alleged censorship – sharply ratcheting up the Trump administration’s fight against European regulations that have impacted digital platforms, far-right politicians and Trump allies, including Elon Musk.









