Feed aggregator

President Donald Trump showed a classified map he retained from his first term in office to passengers on a 2022 private plane flight and retained another record so sensitive that only six high-ranking government officials had access to it, according to a prosecution memo released to Congress this week.

The Justice Department shared those findings, detailed in a January 2023 briefing document written by then-special counsel Jack Smith’s team, with lawmakers as they conduct a review of Smith’s now-abandoned efforts to prosecute Trump.

The memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, was penned as investigators moved toward indicting Trump on charges of illegally retaining sensitive government material after he left the White House. It offers a snapshot of an early moment in Smith’s investigation and adds new shading to the public understanding of Smith’s probes, even as a final report on his findings remains under court seal.

The memo, for instance, reveals that Smith’s team gathered at least some evidence to suggest that Trump had retained classified material pertinent to his personal business interests and that prosecutors were investigating whether his decision to hold on to those records was motivated by financial gain.

The eventual indictment – filed against Trump five months after the memo was written – did not mention Trump’s business interests as a possible motive. That could suggest prosecutors ultimately concluded they did not have sufficient evidence to prove that theory at trial. It is also not uncommon for prosecutors to leave some allegations out of their initial charging documents, even if they intend to prove them later at trial.

The memo recounts an alleged incident in which Trump, on a June 2022 flight to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, allegedly shared a classified map with passengers. Among them, according to the memo, was Susie Wiles, then the CEO of Trump’s super PAC, who has since become Trump’s White House chief of staff. The memo did not detail what the map showed.

Smith’s 2023 indictment of Trump included a similar claim that Trump in 2021 had shown others a classified map tied to a military operation and boasted that he had access to a “plan of attack” that the Pentagon had prepared for him.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and maintained that he was entitled to keep classified records when he left the White House in 2021. The case Smith filed against him was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida, who cited issues with Smith’s appointment as special counsel, before it could go to trial.

Smith was appealing that decision when Trump was elected to a second term in 2024, prompting him to abandon his efforts in line with Justice Department policies preventing the prosecution of a sitting president.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson on Wednesday panned the conclusions detailed in the newly released memo from Smith’s team.

“President Trump did nothing wrong, which is why he easily defeated the Biden DOJ’s unprecedented lawfare campaign against him and then won nearly 80 million votes in a landslide election victory,” she said in a statement.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, cited the memo in a Wednesday letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi in which he demanded more information on its allegations, including a full manifest of the passengers aboard Trump’s plane for that 2022 flight.

“It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses,” Raskin wrote. “It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them.”

Smith has been largely barred from publicly discussing the efforts of his investigative team in the classified-documents investigation. Last year, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon – the same judge who dismissed the case – issued an order preventing the release of Smith’s final report on the probe, saying doing so would unfairly damage the rights of people, including Trump, who had not been convicted at trial.

She made that order permanent at the request of Trump and his former co-defendants last month and additionally barred the public release of “any information or conclusions” from Smith’s findings in the classified-documents case.

Raskin suggested Wednesday that the Justice Department may have inadvertently included Smith’s memo in a larger batch of documents from Smith’s investigations of Trump that it has released in coordination with congressional Republicans over the past year.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, House and Senate Republicans have released scores of what Raskin described Wednesday as “cherry-picked” records from Smith’s probes in an effort to discredit his work as politically motivated.

Released documents have included records revealing that Smith’s team – as part of its separate investigation of Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election – sought phone records from Republican senators and Trump allies including Wiles and Kash Patel, now FBI director, during the years Trump was out of office.

Republicans have sought to paint that move as evidence Smith was pursuing a partisan vendetta. But the former special counsel has defended the decision as a routine investigative step as he was building a conspiracy case against Trump and investigating whom he was communicating with in the weeks after his election loss.

Raskin, in his letter to Bondi on Wednesday, suggested the coordinated dissemination of documents from Smith’s probes by the Justice Department and congressional Republicans in recent months has violated the spirit – and possibly the letter – of Cannon’s orders.

“Apparently blinded by the frenzied search to find any scrap of evidence that could be twisted and distorted to level an attack against Special Counsel Smith (despite constantly coming up empty-handed), you have, quite amazingly, missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon,” he wrote.

A Justice Department spokesperson rejected that assertion in a statement dismissing Raskin’s letter as little more than “a cheap political stunt.”

“We understand that [Raskin], much like Jack Smith, is blinded by hatred of President Trump,” it read. “However, he needs to get his facts straight – this Department of Justice is the most transparent in history in part because of our efforts to expose the weaponization of the Biden administration in full compliance with the law and the court.”

For his own part, Smith in testimony before Congress earlier this year defended his investigations and stood by his conclusion that Trump “willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold.”

“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,” Smith told members of the House Judiciary Committee in January. “No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did.”

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Jeremy Roebuck, Maegan Vazquez 

President Donald Trump has installed a statue of Christopher Columbus on the White House grounds, his latest effort to remake the presidential campus and celebrate the famed and controversial explorer.

The statue is outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where it is visible from Pennsylvania Avenue NW and 17th Street NW. The White House had considered putting the statue on the South Lawn, The Washington Post reported in February.

The piece is a reconstruction of a statue that President Ronald Reagan unveiled in Baltimore in 1984. After it was dumped into the city’s harbor by protesters in 2020 as a racial reckoning swept the country, a group of Italian American businessmen and politicians, working with local sculptors, obtained the pieces and rebuilt the statue with financial support from local charities and federal grant funding.

“Destroyed July 4, 2020,” reads a panel affixed to the base of the sculpture. “Resurrected 2022.”

The panel also says that the sculpture was gifted to the White House last year and that Trump rededicated it in October.

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. The New York Times first reported Sunday that the statue had been installed.

The Columbus statue is just one of numerous sculptures that Trump has taken steps to place on the White House grounds and on other federal land. Several statues of revolutionary-era political leaders now stand in the White House’s Rose Garden, and the president is planning a large sculpture garden to commemorate 250 famous Americans, a project that he has dubbed the Garden of Heroes – and that could be erected in Washington’s West Potomac Park.

Trump is also planning to install a towering bronze statue of Caesar Rodney – a signer of the Declaration of Independence and an enslaver – on a plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol. The Rodney statue has been gathering dust in storage after being removed from public view in Delaware during the 2020 racial justice protests.

Trump condemned efforts in 2020 to tear down statues of Columbus and other historical figures, issuing an executive order that called those actions an “assault on our collective national memory” and creating a task force to rebuild monuments.

Columbus was long celebrated for his voyage in 1492 to the Americas, which opened up trade routes with Europe and built his reputation as a heroic discoverer. The Italian explorer’s journey also set the stage for colonization and enslavement, and academics and activists in recent years have called for an end to honoring him, noting the brutal treatment of Native people that followed his arrival on the continent.

Some U.S. states now recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day; Joe Biden in 2021 became the first president to mark the holiday.

Trump has framed his moves to honor Columbus as a political act. He campaigned in 2024 on promises to celebrate Columbus Day, and in October he signed a presidential proclamation to recognize Columbus as “the original American hero” and commemorate the annual holiday.

“You Italians are going to love me,” Trump said at a political rally last year, adding that Italian Americans had been “badly treated” by past efforts to remove Columbus Day and that he would restore the holiday.

Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates, was involved in efforts to recover the Columbus statue from the Baltimore harbor. He praised Trump’s plan to install it at the White House in an email to The Washington Post last month.

“This world is full of haters and screamers who want to silence our voices, our values, and our votes,” Mangione wrote. “President Trump is standing up to them because it is the right thing to do and I applaud his courage in doing so.”

Others have panned Trump’s plan, saying that installing a statue of the explorer would generate controversy. Jeff Miron, the vice president for research at the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian think tank, said that museums, documentarians and other outside groups are better positioned than the White House is to “present a complete perspective on Columbus.”

“President Trump’s decision to erect a Christopher Columbus statue at the White House exemplifies why government shouldn’t be in the statue business at all,” Miron said in a statement last month.

(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Dan Diamond, Olivia George 

Air travelers across the United States are facing some of the longest security lines in the history of the Transportation Security Administration, with certain passengers waiting more than four and a half hours to pass through checkpoints, a senior official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Appearing before the House Homeland Security Committee, TSA acting administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said the agency is struggling to maintain operations, noting that it is “being forced to consolidate” and warning that smaller airports could face closures if staffing shortages persist.

“It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation. We understand this is frustrating and disruptive,” she added. “This is unacceptable.”

McNeill disclosed that more than 480 Transportation Security Officers have resigned during the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, and cautioned that the number continues to rise.

She also highlighted a sharp increase in absenteeism among remaining personnel. On Sunday, the nationwide call-out rate reached 11.76%, the highest level recorded since the shutdown began on Feb. 14. At certain airports, absentee rates have surged to between 40% and 50%.

By comparison, before the partial shutdown, call-out rates hovered around 2%, according to McNeill’s deputy, Adam Stahl.

In additional testimony, McNeill said incidents of assaults against TSA officers have risen dramatically, increasing by 500%.

The acting administrator credited President Trump with helping ease the strain by deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to assist at airports nationwide.

She explained that these agents are currently handling “non-specialized screening functions.”

“We’ve been spending time training them the last few days,” McNeill claimed. “And we’re seeing relief, signs of early relief at the airports.

“It’s been incredibly helpful to alleviate the burden on our workforce. And we’re getting positive feedback from passengers and our field leadership.”

Despite the short-term assistance, McNeill warned that the prolonged shutdown could have serious consequences for aviation security, including the agency’s ability to prevent potential terrorist threats.

She pointed to the extensive six-month training process required for Transportation Security Officers, expressing concern that staffing shortages could hinder readiness for major upcoming events, including the 2026 World Cup, which is set to begin in June and conclude with the final at MetLife Stadium on July 19.

“As the shutdown drags on, we will likely see our attrition rates continue to spike, which means that we may not have the adequate headcount to staff the airports that are supporting the FIFA locations adequately,” she explained.

“The ongoing shutdown is also impacting our ability to procure and deploy technology, from checkpoint technology to some of our counter UAS [unmanned aerial vehicle] technology, in advance of the FIFA World Cup,” McNeill continued. “So we’re really running short on time.”

{Matzav.com}

A new AP-NORC survey finds that most Americans believe recent U.S. military operations against Iran have exceeded appropriate limits, while a growing number are anxious about the cost of gasoline as the conflict continues.

Now entering its fourth week, the war involving the United States and Israel is beginning to pose political challenges for President Trump, even as his overall approval ratings remain largely unchanged, according to data from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Although the administration has increased its military presence in the Middle East, including additional ships and personnel, roughly 59% of Americans say the U.S. response in Iran has been excessive.

At the same time, economic concerns are rising. About 45% of respondents say they are “extremely” or “very” worried about affording gas in the coming months, a notable increase from 30% in a similar poll conducted shortly after Trump’s reelection, when he had pledged to lower living costs.

There is broad agreement on at least one major policy goal: preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Approximately two-thirds of Americans say this objective should be considered “extremely” or “very” important. However, a similar proportion also prioritizes keeping domestic oil and gas prices from climbing, creating a potential conflict in policy priorities for the administration.

About 40% of adults in the U.S. continue to approve of Trump’s job performance, a figure that has remained stable since last month. His approval ratings on foreign policy are slightly lower but have also shown little change.

Trump has not clearly outlined his next move regarding Iran. While issuing strong warnings, he has also suggested that diplomacy could still bring an end to the fighting. Many Americans, however, remain uneasy about his judgment when it comes to using military force overseas, and there is broad opposition to more aggressive steps such as deploying ground troops.

Concern about fuel prices cuts across party lines, with large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats saying it is important to prevent increases at the pump.

Around three-quarters of Republicans and roughly two-thirds of Democrats say keeping oil and gas prices stable should be a top priority. Still, the level of concern differs significantly between the parties. Only about 30% of Republicans say they are “extremely” or “very” worried about paying for gas in the near future, compared to about 60% of Democrats.

Republicans also place greater emphasis on stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While about two-thirds of Americans overall view that goal as highly important, roughly 80% of Republicans say it is at least “very” important, compared with about half of Democrats.

The war has also fueled debate over the role of Israel in U.S. foreign policy, particularly after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu advocated for military action against Iran. Only about 40% of Americans say preventing Iran from threatening Israel should be a major priority.

Even fewer Americans support the idea of regime change in Iran. About 30% say it is at least “very” important for the U.S. to replace Iran’s government with one more aligned with American interests.

Public opinion on the military campaign itself shows a clear divide. About 90% of Democrats and 60% of independents believe the U.S. strikes in Iran have “gone too far.”

Republicans are more split. Roughly half say the level of military action has been “about right,” while relatively few support escalation. Only about 20% believe the U.S. has not gone far enough, while around one-quarter say it has already exceeded appropriate limits.

Previous AP-NORC polling has shown that about 60% of Americans feel Trump has “gone too far” on various issues, including tariffs and executive authority. That figure closely mirrors his overall approval rating, suggesting that while his approach to Iran is unpopular, it aligns with broader perceptions of his presidency.

Further escalation could shift those views. Around 60% of Americans say they “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, including about 80% of Democrats and roughly half of Republicans. Opposition is also notable when it comes to airstrikes targeting Iranian leadership or military infrastructure, with just under half opposed, about 30% in favor, and another 30% undecided.

Trust in Trump’s decision-making on military matters remains limited. About half of U.S. adults say they have “only a little” trust or “none at all” in his ability to make the right choices regarding the use of force abroad, consistent with findings from a February poll.

Roughly 34% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of foreign policy, nearly unchanged from 36% earlier this year. That level of support has remained steady despite a series of controversial actions, including tensions over Greenland and a strike on Venezuela.

Similarly, the new poll shows that about 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the situation with Iran, closely matching his broader foreign policy ratings.

{Matzav.com}

OpenAI is discontinuing its Sora video platform less than a year after launching it, signaling a major change in direction as the company turns its attention toward productivity-focused tools and positions itself for a possible public offering.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI has decided to phase out Sora, a consumer-oriented product that debuted with significant hype but has since receded from public attention. The move reflects a broader shift away from consumer entertainment products and toward enterprise and software development solutions.

CEO Sam Altman informed employees of the decision on Tuesday, explaining that all products tied to the company’s video-generation models would be wound down. This includes not only the Sora app itself, but also its developer tools and video-related features within ChatGPT.

The decision is part of a wider restructuring effort aimed at directing OpenAI’s computing power and engineering resources toward tools designed to boost productivity for both businesses and individual users. The change comes as the company lays the groundwork for a potential initial public offering that could take place as soon as the fourth quarter.

Last week, OpenAI outlined plans to merge several of its key offerings—including the ChatGPT desktop app, its Codex coding tool, and its browser—into a single integrated platform described as a “superapp.” The company believes this unified system will help streamline its efforts and concentrate its workforce on a single strategic vision.

Sora was originally introduced in September as part of OpenAI’s push to expand its presence in the consumer market. The platform included a social feed similar to TikTok, allowing users to generate and share AI-created video content. Following the launch, Altman encouraged users to experiment creatively, including inserting themselves into well-known scenes from popular media.

Internally, however, some employees questioned the scale of resources devoted to Sora, particularly given the lack of clear demand from users. Despite those concerns, Altman urged the company to continue pursuing ambitious ideas, including plans for a future AI-powered hardware device.

The rollout of Sora also drew criticism early on. Initially, the platform lacked sufficient safeguards to prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted material, leading to a brief legal dispute over intellectual property. OpenAI later introduced measures that allow content owners to restrict the use of their likenesses and protected works.

In December, Disney announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, with plans to license more than 200 characters for use on the Sora platform. The agreement would have enabled users to create AI-generated videos featuring iconic figures, placing themselves alongside characters such as Luke Skywalker or within scenes from Toy Story.

That partnership will now not proceed. A Disney spokeswoman stated, “As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere.”

{Matzav.com}

A jury on Wednesday ruled that Meta and YouTube are responsible for designing platforms that contributed to harmful and addictive behavior among young users, marking a significant decision that could influence future lawsuits against social media companies.

Jurors awarded $3 million in damages to the lead plaintiff, a woman identified in court documents as Kaley, or “KGM,” who claimed that early exposure to YouTube and Instagram led to compulsive use and played a role in her mental health struggles, including depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal thoughts.

The verdict follows a trial that spanned several weeks and featured testimony from high-profile executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who were called to defend their platforms. The case drew comparisons to litigation against tobacco companies in the 1990s. The jury deliberated for more than a week in a Los Angeles courtroom and at one point informed the judge that they were having difficulty reaching agreement regarding one of the defendants.

Kaley filed the lawsuit in 2023 against Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, as well as Google-owned YouTube. TikTok and Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, were initially included in the complaint but reached settlements before the trial began in late January.

Now 20 years old, Kaley testified that she spent extensive time on social media and experienced an emotional “rush” from likes and notifications, which kept her constantly engaged with her phone.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options,” a Meta spokesperson told CBS News, noting that jurors were not unanimous in issuing the decision.

Her attorney, Mark Lanier of Lanier Law Firm, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Throughout the proceedings, Lanier argued that both Meta and YouTube knew their platforms could harm younger users but chose to prioritize profits over user safety.

The case centered on two primary claims against the companies: negligence and a failure to adequately warn users about potential health risks associated with their platforms.

For years, social media companies have defended against similar claims by invoking Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for content posted by users.

This lawsuit, however, focused not on user-generated content but on the design of the platforms themselves.

In a separate but related development on Tuesday, a New Mexico jury found that Meta violated state laws regarding child exploitation and ordered the company to pay $375 million in civil penalties. That verdict was reached after just one day of deliberations.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on X that the company plans to appeal that ruling, adding that “we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.”

The New Mexico case marks the first time a state has successfully held a major technology company liable for harm caused to young users.

During the Los Angeles trial, both Meta and YouTube denied that Kaley’s social media use was the cause of her mental health difficulties. Their legal teams argued that other factors—including family background, challenges at home and in school, and learning disabilities—were more significant contributors to her condition.

“Not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News earlier this month.

Several mental health professionals who treated Kaley testified during the proceedings. Among them was Victoria Burke, a former therapist who worked with her in 2019, who said that social media and Kaley’s identity “were closely related,” and that activity on the platforms could “make or break her mood.”

Attorneys for the companies also maintained that Kaley used social media as a way to cope with existing emotional struggles, rather than those platforms being the source of her problems.

{Matzav.com}