Who decided which names to black out in Epstein files

8647 carved into federal grass eleven days after a court called it political speech

Someone etched "8647" into the grass on the west lawn of the Washington Monument, large enough to see only from the air, and the federal government responded with Park Police investigators, grass samples, and reportedly the National Guard. The symbol sits at the center of a live legal contradiction: a federal judge ruled eleven days ago that "8647" is constitutionally protected political speech advocating impeachment, while the Justice Department is simultaneously prosecuting James Comey on felony charges for posting the same numbers arranged in seashells. Whatever the U.S. Attorney's office decides to do next about the Mall etching will land on top of that unresolved collision between the administration's threat framing and the court's First Amendment ruling.

Epstein investigation keeps finding witnesses who were there and saw nothing

Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein's executive assistant for 18 years, told the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday that Epstein was a "master manipulator" who kept his crimes hidden from her — even as Democratic members said she confirmed arranging phone calls between Epstein and Donald Trump before his presidency, and even as survivor Marina Lacerda testified that Groff called her so often she dropped out of school before ninth grade. The testimony is the latest in a running series of closed-door interviews the committee has conducted with people who orbited Epstein or handled his files, a list that now includes Howard Lutnick, Pam Bondi, Sarah Kellen, and the Clintons, with Bill Gates scheduled for Wednesday. The investigation keeps producing the same structural result: witnesses who were demonstrably close to the operation and uniformly claim they saw nothing.

UFC Freedom 250 the lawsuit the paywall and the arena Trump wants to keep forever

UFC Freedom 250 is scheduled for June 14, 2026 — Flag Day, Trump's 80th birthday, a Sunday — when an 87-foot privately financed arena will go up on the White House South Lawn for the first professional sporting event ever held there, paywalled on Paramount+ for $8.99 a month. A federal lawsuit filed by two Virginia residents argues the $60 million buildout violates federal monument law, and the case got weirder when Trump posted a TikTok musing that the arena might never come down. This episode gets into the UFC-at-the-White-House story: the friendship between Dana White and Trump that made it possible, the date math that undermines the official "national celebration" framing, and what the lawsuit actually has to work with.

House votes 215 to 208 to halt Trumps Iran war as 4 Republicans break ranks

Speaker Mike Johnson tried to kill this vote two weeks ago by sending the House home early for recess. It didn't work: on Wednesday, four Republicans crossed over and the House passed a war powers resolution 215–208 directing Trump to end U.S. military action against Iran, the first time either chamber has formally voted to constrain the now three-month-old war. The resolution is likely headed for a veto, but the political signal is hard to ignore — Trump's own party is breaking with him on a war voters are feeling at the gas pump, and the Senate, where four GOP members already advanced a parallel measure, is next.

Trump replaced 7 canceling artists at the US 250th birthday concert with himself

Seven of nine acts dropped out of Freedom 250's Great American State Fair lineup within 48 hours of it being announced — most saying they'd been assured the event was nonpartisan and discovered it wasn't. Trump responded by mocking the artists on Truth Social for having "the yips" and volunteering himself as the replacement headliner, which Freedom 250 confirmed within hours. The story of America's 250th birthday concert series is now, inescapably, a story about whether it was ever anything other than a Trump rally with a patriotic paint job.