Jeffrey Epstein; State of the Union; El Mencho : NPR

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At this time’s high tales

Tens of millions of pages of Epstein recordsdata have been launched to the general public, however an NPR investigation reveals a niche: The Justice Division has eliminated or withheld dozens of pages associated to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor many years in the past. The Justice Division declined to reply NPR’s questions on the file about these particular recordsdata, what’s in them, and why they aren’t printed.

• 🎧 NPR’s Stephen Fowler tells Up First that an NPR evaluate of the recordsdata discovered an FBI e mail from final July itemizing numerous claims and ideas it acquired about Trump. One report accused Trump of sexually abusing a minor round 1983, when Jeffrey Epstein additionally allegedly abused her. A discipline workplace investigated the report, and the information present the FBI interviewed the accuser 4 occasions. Solely one of many accuser’s interviews was made public, but it surely does not point out Trump. In response to the DOJ’s monitoring system, the Justice Division didn’t make no less than 50 pages of the recordsdata public. The White Home and the Trump administration have constantly said that nothing within the paperwork incriminates the president.

Chaos erupted after Mexico’s army killed a person generally known as El Mencho, the nation’s strongest drug lord. Now, the nation’s cities are slowly returning to regular. Companies are set to reopen at this time, and faculties within the state of Jalisco will reopen tomorrow. However large questions stay about what El Mencho’s loss of life means for Mexico’s struggle towards organized crime.

• 🎧 NPR’s Eyder Peralta says the scene in Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, is eerie and feels much like the COVID lockdown. Streets are empty, and a few streets have burnt-out autos on the medians within the aftermath of the violence that erupted after the drug lord’s loss of life. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has repeatedly stated she does not wish to spark a brand new struggle towards organized crime, because it has sometimes led to bloodshed. As an alternative, she says the best way to sort out the problem is to deal with root causes reminiscent of schooling and jobs. Trump is pressuring Mexico for a extra frontal struggle towards the cartels and has threatened to take unilateral army motion to deal with it.

Trump will take heart stage tonight to deal with a joint session of Congress for the primary State of the Union handle of his second time period in workplace. The prime time handle provides the president a chance to tout his agenda and form his social gathering’s messaging forward of this 12 months’s midterm elections. Trump is anticipated to start out talking at 9 p.m. ET. If historical past is any indication, it is best to put together for an extended night time. This is what else you have to know forward of tonight’s speech.

A brand new federal class motion lawsuit alleges federal brokers are unconstitutionally retaliating towards observers recording immigration enforcement. The nonprofit Defend Democracy and the legislation companies Dunn Isaacson Rhee and Drummond Woodsum filed the go well with, alleging that federal brokers are gathering details about observers and labeling them as “home terrorists” after telling them they’d be added to a “watchlist.” After the lawsuit was filed yesterday, the Division of Homeland Safety advised NPR that it does not have a database for home terrorists. DHS additionally stated that it follows the U.S. Structure in its legislation enforcement strategies.

Watch this

Newsom in dialog with NPR host Ailsa Chang.

Bronson Arcuri/NPR

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Bronson Arcuri/NPR

From the most important names of their fields to consultants on essentially the most urgent subjects of our time, NPR is breaking down the tales that matter by means of our in-depth interviews. Immerse your self in these conversations in your favourite NPR platforms — together with the NPR App and NPR.org. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been spending his ultimate 12 months in workplace touring the U.S. and rallying voters for the midterm elections. Newsom, who hasn’t dominated out a run for president in 2028, actively challenges Trump, usually mocking the president’s aggressive fashion on social media. “I am placing a mirror as much as President Trump and I am preventing fireplace with fireplace and I’m punching a bully again within the mouth,” he tells NPR. Concurrently, Newsom has additionally engaged main right-wing figures like Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro, drawing criticism from his personal social gathering. The governor not too long ago spoke with All Issues Thought-about forward of the discharge of his memoir, Younger Man in a Hurry. He mentioned how his struggles with dyslexia formed his life, his technique for coping with Trump and the way the Democratic Occasion ought to meet this political second.

Learn extra about Newsom’s dialog with NPR’s Ailsa Chang or watch the interview. You may also try the dialog on NPR’s YouTube web page, Take into account This and the NPR App.

Behind the story

Native residents examine broken automobiles on the web site of a Russian assault in Odesa on Feb. 13, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures

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Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures

4 years in the past, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. NPR’s Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis and Russia correspondent Charles Maynes mirror on what it has been like reporting on the struggle and the toll it is taken on residents.

We have now documented Russia’s full-scale struggle on Ukraine for the reason that starting: the terrible human value, the hundreds of lacking Ukrainian kids, the exhausted entrance line cities, the best way this struggle has modified trendy warfare and geopolitics, in addition to Ukrainian and Russian society. An invasion that the Kremlin — and plenty of within the West — predicted would finish with Ukrainian capitulation inside days has now lasted 4 years, with huge casualties on each side, based on British and U.S. sources.

Ukrainians are exhausted. They’ve adjusted their lives to fixed Russian drone and missile assaults, to the turmoil and grief of defending the nation in an extended struggle. Many flinch when praised as resilient, as if, they are saying, there may be one other selection. “We have now paid too excessive a worth to surrender,” says Olha Chupikova, from the southern front-line metropolis of Kherson. Her son, a soldier, was killed in motion final 12 months. Volodymyr Mykolayenko, a former Kherson mayor who got here house final fall after years in Russian captivity, is skeptical that talks sponsored by the Trump administration will truly finish the struggle. “We used to see America as a defender of democracy,” he says. “Now they selected [Russian President Vladimir] Putin as their good friend.”

No matter Trump’s diplomatic intention, it hasn’t been sufficient to persuade Putin to cease his assault. Russians’ hope that Trump may ship peace has pale as Putin rejected even essentially the most beneficiant phrases on supply. Regardless of Kremlin claims on the contrary, Western sanctions are taking their toll on the financial system. State repression was aimed squarely on the political opposition. Now, even the invasion’s most ardent supporters have been focused. Authorities restrictions now more and more attain into the digital and cultural area — with bans on motion pictures, music and social media affecting almost everybody. Open criticism of the struggle was criminalized early on. But there is a rising sense that amid a battle ad infinitum, the state’s want for management, too, is infinite.

3 issues to know earlier than you go

LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 22: John Davidson attends the 2026 EE BAFTA Movie Awards at The Royal Pageant Corridor on February 22, 2026 in London, England. (Picture by Dominic Lipinski/Getty Pictures)

Dominic Lipinski/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures Europe

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Dominic Lipinski/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures Europe

1. The British Academy of Movie and Tv Arts Awards (BAFTAs) launched an apology yesterday after the BBC aired a delayed broadcast of the ceremony that included a person with Tourette syndrome shouting a racial slur.
2. Scientists found a brand new species of enormous, horned, fish-eating Spinosaurus dinosaur — the first in over a century. The dinosaur species dates again to the Jurassic interval, over 140 million years in the past.
3. Because the struggle in Ukraine enters its fifth 12 months, NPR’s Far-Flung Postcards brings you to Kyiv, the place candles are the final possibility throughout wartime blackouts.

This text was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.