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A top House Democrat on Monday accused the justice department of making “mysterious redactions” to documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that obscured the names of abusers, while also allowing the identities of the disgraced financier’s victims to become public.
Jamie Raskin, the House judiciary committee ranking member, criticized the department after reviewing the unredacted Epstein files at a government facility in Washington DC on the first day they were made available to lawmakers. “I saw the names of lots of people, who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,” Raskin said.
In other news, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of child sex trafficking charges, refused to answer questions during a deposition by the House oversight committee.
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What did Raskin say? He told reporters “there were tons of completely unnecessary redactions, in addition to the failure to redact the names of victims, and so that was troubling to us”.
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What happens next? “We’re going to start by posing questions directly to attorney general [Pam] Bondi about the process that produced such flawed results, and that has created such mystery,” Raskin said.
US sinks to new low in global Corruption Perceptions Index
The US sank to a new low in the Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International, amid a “worrying trend” of democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists.
The report identified backsliding in established democracies, warning that events during Donald Trump’s presidency and the revelations contained in the Epstein files could fuel further deterioration.
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How bad does it look? The US fell from 28th place to 29th, overtaken by Lithuania, recording its lowest ever score of 64. (Transparency International said the score did not factor in all of the events of 2025.)
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What about globally? The report identified an overall global deterioration, as 31 countries improved their score while 50 declined.
RFK Jr misled Senate during confirmation, Congress members and Hawaii governor say
Three members of Congress say the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during his Senate confirmation hearings in response to newly revealed emails that undermine his testimony that a trip he took to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines”.
The governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the crisis, also spoke out – saying that the disclosure of the emails by the Guardian and the Associated Press show Kennedy misled the Senate and that he should step down.
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What is the background? Kennedy, a lawyer and longtime anti-vaccine activist, was asked about the trip several times during two days of confirmation hearings last year. He repeatedly denied that his 2019 visit had any relation to vaccines.
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And what do the emails show? That staff at the US embassy and the UN wrote emails shortly before Kennedy’s visit saying he was visiting because of his concerns about vaccine safety. The Samoan measles outbreak sickened thousands and killed 83 people, mostly children under age five.
In other news …
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About 6,000 public schoolteachers in San Francisco went on strike on Monday, in efforts to secure, among other things, fully funded family healthcare and a 9% salary raise over two years.
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The US military said it carried out another strike in the eastern Pacific on Monday and killed two alleged drug smugglers. Legal experts have described the campaign as “extrajudicial killings”.
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The Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa has been detained by security forces just hours after being released from prison, as the country sends mixed signals over post-Maduro political reform.
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An Irish man has spent five months in ICE detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.
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The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said on Monday he was “not prepared to walk away” despite Labour’s leader in Scotland urging him to resign – as the fallout from revelations of deeper links between the UK’s former US ambassador and Jeffrey Epstein continues.
Stat of the day: People who drink 2-3 teas or coffees a day have 15-20% lower risk of dementia, study finds
People who routinely drink two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of caffeinated tea daily have a 15-20% lower risk of dementia than those who go without, according to a large study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Culture pick: Cover-Up – ‘the government will deny and stonewall, until faced with something flagrant and undeniable’
Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and US torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, gets a moment in the spotlight in this documentary, now on Netflix, from Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus. Hersh is “always on the hunt for things that powerful people would prefer to stay hidden”, our December review says.
Don’t miss this: ‘My helicopter went into freefall – inside an active volcano’
In 1992, filming while flying low over Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, the engine of the helicopter carrying Christopher Duddy failed. “We didn’t even realise where we were when we jumped out. Then we started looking around and realised we were inside the volcano, about 50 yards away from the lava pool,” he tells Emma Russell.
Climate check: Chemical firm Corteva to stop producing herbicide called ‘toxic cocktail’ by critics
Corteva, the US chemical company, announced it would discontinue production of Enlist Duo, a herbicide containing Agent Orange and glyphosate – both linked to cancer and ecological damage. The move will end a decade of pressure campaigns to ban it, and some advocates are celebrating it as a win.
Michael Roberts writes about trying to cut down screen time after finding himself struggling lately. “I’m replacing the sleek oblong of my smartphone with something a little more fuzzy and nostalgic,” he says: a Game Boy Advance. It feels “wonderfully low stakes compared to a social media ecosystem”.
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