Category: Culture

CloseZelensky reports ‘constructive engagement’ in Florida on peace talksVladimir Putin’s top foreign policy official has rejected the latest amendments to a Donald Trump-backed peace plan – despite admitting that he hasn't actually read them.
Yuri Ushakov, who played a key role in drafting the original version of the plan that was widely dismissed as being too pro-Russia, also played down the prospect of a three-way summit between the US, Moscow and Kyiv
“I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace,” Yuri Ushakov said.
The senior Kremlin official said he had not seen the exact proposals and that his criticism was “not a forecast”.
His remarks came after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida over the weekend with Ukrainian and European negotiators.
“Our shared priority is..

President Donald Trump has criticized the release of thousands of documents from cases against Jeffrey Epstein, warning they could “ruin the reputation” of high-profile figures who were “innocently” photographed alongside the convicted sex offender and “deflect” from his administration’s accomplishments.
In his first public remarks since the Department of Justice started to publish thousands of images and heavily redacted materials, the president said the release of images of former President Bill Clinton and others photographed with Epstein is a “terrible thing.”
“You probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago,” Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. “A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein, but they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin the reputation of somebody.”
Growing pressure from members of Congress t..

Saturday Night Live's cold open mocked President Donald Trump over the heavily redacted Epstein files and his renaming of the Kennedy Center in a scathing Christmas episode.
James Austin Johnson continued his streak as the president and ridiculed the Trump administration over its claim to be the “most transparent in history” after hundreds of pages of the long-awaited documents were redacted when they were partially released Friday by the Justice Department.
Trump only appeared in the tens of thousands of documents a handful of times, and one of the photographs that appeared to show the president was removed by the DOJ Saturday, Democrats said. Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing.
“With regard to files, we're being very transparent,” Johnson’s Trump began. “Because Jeffrey Epstein was a terrible man, and I didn't know him, and I liked him a lot.”
“We released all the files, and I come out looking, frankly, very good,” he parodied. “We had to redact a few sensitive th..

CloseTop Trump administration official defends removal of photos from released Epstein filesLawmakers and Jeffrey Epstein survivors alike continue to press the Trump administration to do more to immediately release its remaining Epstein files.
Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who led the initial House push to force the files to be released, are threatening to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress, arguing the DOJ has failed to comply with the terms of a November law ordering the files to be made public by this Friday.
The DOJ has acknowledged hundreds of thousands of pages of materials have not been released yet, but it argues it is withholding certain materials to protect the identities of victims.
The continued delays prompted Rep. Robert Garcia of California to call for whistleblowers to come forward about what’s still being withheld.
“What they need to understand is that there are hundreds of FBI agents and others that are good American patriots that have worked..