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      From California to Tehran, this year has been about the films that resist

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      Films such as One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent and It Was Just An Accident celebrate the importance of fighting back against oppressive forcesOn 8 March, Mahmoud Khalil became the first among several college campus pro-Palestinian protesters to be detained by ICE. He was held for three months, missing the birth of his first child, by an administration that smeared his opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza as cheerleading for terrorism, while abusing immigration policy to silence him.At the movies this year, I was repeatedly reminded of Khalil, and others who have seen their altruistic activism reframed as violent threats that need to be snuffed out, in characters whose plights followed similar tracts. In Wicked: For Good, Elphaba’s attempts to expose the lies told in Oz are twisted into death threats. In Superman, Kal-El is investigated for being a foreign agent when he defends a community suffering under violent US-backed occupation. Even in Zootopia 2, a bunny cop is framed for attempted murder because she is exposing an attempt to eradicate a marginalized population from their lands and erase their history. Continue reading… More

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      Trump news at a glance: Anger grows about redactions, apparent removal of Epstein files from DoJ website

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      Justice department hit with legal threats after authorities release limited, heavily redacted trove of files in apparent violation of Epstein Transparency Act. Key US politics stories from 20 December 2025Donald Trump’s justice department was hit with legal threats and scathing outrage after authorities released a limited, heavily redacted trove of Jeffrey Epstein files in an apparent violation of the law mandating the near-complete disclosure of these documents by Friday.“The justice department’s document dump this afternoon does not comply with [Republican] Thomas Massie and my Epstein Transparency Act,” Ro Khanna, the California Democratic congressman who co-authored the law requiring full disclosure of all Epstein files by 19 December, said in a video statement. Continue reading… More

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      Jeffrey Epstein files latest: New files, including transcripts, released by Department of Justice on Saturday – as it happened

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      Agency hit with legal threats and scathing outrage after Friday release includes limited, heavily redacted trove. This blog is now closed.Analysis: Trickle release signals move to bury Trump tiesPhotos from the first batch of Epstein filesA book titled Massage for Dummies was seen among the partial files released yesterday by the Department of Justice. It is mentioned as one of the “gifts” Epstein gave to a “girl” whose name is redacted.Various reports say Epstein would often request massages from his victims – for both himself and others in his circle.Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s. Continue reading… More

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      Bill Clinton spokesperson says White House is using him as scapegoat after Epstein files release

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      Angel Ureña said ex-president, pictured in some photos released by justice department, cut ties with Epstein in 2005A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X. Continue reading… More

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      US intercepts second merchant vessel off coast of Venezuela in international waters

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      Vessel does not appear to be on list of US-sanctioned vessels, which would represent escalation in blockadeUS forces on Saturday apprehended a second merchant vessel carrying oil off the coast of Venezuela in international waters in the midst of an American blockade against the country’s oil, according to the US homeland security department.The stoppage follows the seizure by US forces of another oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on 10 December. Both vessels were headed to Asia. Continue reading… More

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      Luigi Mangione lawyers fight death penalty, saying Pam Bondi is biased

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      Lawyers also attempting to throw out two federal charges, saying US attorney general has ties to UnitedHealth GroupLawyers for Luigi Mangione are attempting to avoid the death penalty and throw out two federal charges in the justice department’s case against him, arguing that attorney general Pam Bondi is biased because she used to work at a lobbying firm that represents UnitedHealth Group.In court documents filed on Friday, Mangione’s lawyers said that Bondi has a “profound conflict of interest” because her former employer, Ballard Partners, a DC-based lobbying firm founded by the Trump donor Brian Ballard, counts UnitedHealth Group as one of its clients. Continue reading… More

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      ‘The biggest transformation in a century’: how California remade itself as a clean energy powerhouse

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      The Golden State’s clean energy use hit new highs in 2025. As the Trump administration abandons US climate initiatives, can California fill the void?As officials from around the world met in Brazil for the Cop30 climate summit last month, the US president was nowhere to be found, nor were any members of his cabinet. Instead, the most prominent American voice in Belém was that of the California governor, Gavin Newsom.During the five days he spent in Brazil, Newsom described Donald Trump as an “invasive species” and condemned his rollback of policies aimed at reducing emissions and expanding renewable energy. Newsom, long considered a presidential hopeful, argued that, as the US retreated, California would step up in its place as a “stable, reliable” climate leader and partner. Continue reading… More

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      Epstein files: Democrats vow to fight Trump officials’ plan to hold back some documents, slamming ‘violation of federal law’ – live

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      Lawmakers accuse justice department of defying the Epstein Files Transparency ActUS legislators say justice department is violating law by not releasing all Epstein filesEpstein files to be released after months of delays from Trump officialsFBI director Kash Patel has said “no one is above the law” after a Wisconsin judge was found guilty on Thursday of helping a migrant evade a planned immigration arrest outside her courtroom.Patel is the latest member of President Donald Trump’s administration to celebrate what it sees as a victory in its effort to deter interference with its hardline immigration tactics. Continue reading… More