
Some Afghans trying to flee country face exorbitant costs as Blinken touts success of efforts to help Americans
CNN
Afghans desperate to flee the country are increasingly having to negotiate with private operators charging exorbitant sums while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Friday that all Americans who have asked to leave Afghanistan have been offered an opportunity to do so.
There are fewer than 100 American citizens in Afghanistan who are ready to leave, according to the State Department, and Blinken said Friday that there are a "couple hundred" more who, for now, want to stay.
But in addition to those Americans there are countless Afghans, including thousands who worked for or aided the US during the nearly 20-year war or believe they are in danger of being targeted by the Taliban, who are frantically trying to leave.

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.










