https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/12/jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump-russia-emails-00648919

Nearly a month before President Donald Trump met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Jeffrey Epstein attempted to pass a message to Russia’s top diplomat: If you want to understand Trump, talk to me.

“I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” Epstein wrote in a June 24, 2018, email to Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway who was leading the Council of Europe at the time of the exchange. Lavrov was an apparent reference to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s longtime foreign minister.

In the email exchange, one of hundreds released Wednesday by congressional investigators, Epstein indicated he had previously talked about Trump with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s forceful ambassador to the United Nations, before Churkin died in 2017.

“Churkin was great,” Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, wrote. “He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.”

The exchange was among dozens that showcase Epstein’s extraordinary network of international associates, whom he often corresponded with about Trump’s first-term policy decisions.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/09/senate-democrats-shutdown-vote-00644146

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia
Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire

The 8 Senate Democratic Caucus members who voted to end the shutdown

Eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus broke ranks Sunday and voted to advance a deal to reopen the federal government.

That’s fewer than the 10 Democrats who broke ranks in March to advance a previous GOP-led stopgap funding bill — a move that sparked a huge backlash against Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

There are few obvious threads connecting the group who broke the partisan impasse this time. Some of them helped broker the agreement with Republicans over the opposition of Schumer and most other Democrats, who wanted a guaranteed extension for expiring federal health insurance subsidies.

Most, but not all, previously held state-level office — including four former governors. Most, but not all, come from presidential swing states. Two have announced they are retiring from the Senate after their current terms end, and two are senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

None are up for reelection in 2026.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/b1681efe-06d3-459b-8a2a-8d352c4eb20d?shareToken=0ff4c221fec45c63a6ba21fe55449f54
The International Olympic Committee is set to announce a ban on transgender women in female competition early next year after a science-based review of evidence about permanent physical advantages of being born male.

The IOC’s guidance to Olympic sports has until now been that transgender women can compete with reduced testosterone levels but leaves it up to individual sports to decide. That is now set to change under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has promised to protect the female category.

The committee’s medical and scientific director, Dr Jane Thornton, last week presented to IOC members at a meeting in Lausanne the initial findings of a science-based review into transgender athletes and competitors with differences of sexual development (DSD) competing in female sport.

Sources said the presentation by Thornton, a Canadian former Olympic rower, stated that scientific evidence showed there were physical advantages to being born male that remained with athletes, including those who had taken treatment to reduce testosterone levels.
“It was a very scientific, factual and unemotional presentation which quite clearly laid out the evidence,” one source said. Another IOC insider said there had been hugely positive feedback from IOC members about the presentation.

It is understood the IOC is likely to announce its new policy early in the new year, possibly around the IOC session at the Milan-Cortina winter Olympics in early February.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. economy is strong and insisted polls showing Americans are feeling economic pain are "fake" during an interview on Fox News that aired on Monday night.

Trump said bad news about the economy amounted to a "con job by the Democrats," adding Democrats "feed" major news network anchors with the message the economy is bad and then "every anchor" does "exactly what they say."

"I'll never forget, they used a word like 'manufactured,'" Trump said in the interview. "You remember the word 'manufacture'? It's a 'manufactured' economy. Nobody uses that word. Every anchor broke in 'manufactured.' They do exactly what they say. It's such a rigged system."

The U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.8% in the second quarter in the government's final estimate, besting a 3.3% rate issued in its second estimate and far exceeding a 3% initial estimate. But consumer prices rose 3% in September compared to a year ago, with inflation at its highest level since January, the most-recent government data showed. The inflation reading came in lower than economists' expectations.

Trump defended his handling of the economy, saying that costs are "way down" across the board.

"So are you ready? Costs are way down," Trump said. "Gasoline is going to be hitting $2 pretty soon, or around $2.

The average consumer price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was $3.072 on Tuesday, according to AAA, which said the average price was $3.083 a gallon a year ago.

Trump was also pressed about a rollout by his administration for a 50-year mortgage option, something that faced criticism on social media as critics pointed out that the extended payoff timeline would mean Americans would pay more in interest than they would through the life of a shorter loan.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-downplays-economic-woes-partisan-spin-costs/story?id=127407410

The senate has reached a deal and the shutdown is ending tonight. Republicans are folding like lawn chars.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/09/government-funding-deal-on-track-to-advance-sunday-night-00644110
Senate reaches deal on ending the shutdown

Senators have reached a deal to end the government shutdown.

The agreement, which was negotiated in part by Sens. Angus King, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan as well as GOP senators, has “more than enough” members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to advance, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose the terms.

Senate Republicans are expected to support the agreement.

The Senate is poised to vote later Sunday night to advance the House-passed stopgap, which will later become the vehicle for the larger funding deal.

That vote would tee up consideration later this week of a legislative package that would fund the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects, and the operations of Congress, for the full fiscal year — the product of months of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations. All other agencies would be funded through Jan. 30, according to text of a continuing resolution released Sunday.

As part of Democrats’ agreement to end the shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is promising Senate Democrats a vote in December to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year short of Congressional action. Democrats will also get to determine what extension bill gets a vote.

The government-opening agreement also guarantees that federal employees laid off during the shutdown are re-hired and gives federal employees backpay.

> Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VDuLiqCmDE

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/11/politics/trump-domestic-talent-jobs-h1b-visas

> Trump says United States doesn’t have talented people to fill jobs domestically

President Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview that aired Tuesday night the United States doesn’t have talented workers to fill jobs needed domestically, defending the H1-B skilled worker visa program.

Pressed by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on whether his administration would reduce H1-B visas over concerns it would depress wages for American workers, Trump told Ingraham, “I agree — but you also do have to bring in talent.”

When the Fox host responded, “We have plenty of talented people here,” Trump replied, “No, you don’t, no you don’t … you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn. You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles.’”

The president pointed to the September ICE raid of a Georgia Hyundai facility, which saw authorities arrest and deport hundreds of South Korean contractors over their immigration status, as evidence of the country’s need for skilled foreign workers.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2025/11/10/pittsburgh-airport-terminal-opening-1/stories/202511070097?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.newsweek.com/panic-on-us-aircraft-carrier-island-after-us-venezuela-strikes-report-10975598
Tension is rapidly growing in the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago after a U.S. newspaper reported that the U.S. was poised to strike military targets in Venezuela, as the U.S. military buildup in the region continues.

The Miami Herald wrote on Friday that the Trump administration had decided to attack military installations inside Venezuela, information it said it obtained from sources with knowledge of the situation.

According to these same sources, the strikes, which they claimed would be the latest escalation in the president’s campaign against the Soles drug cartel, could “come at any moment”—whether that is a matter of days or even hours.

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has flatly denied the Miami Herald’s story.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump has recently increased pressure on Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to curb the flow of drugs from the country into the U.S. Over the past several weeks, the U.S. military has conducted a number of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea which the Trump administration said it suspected of smuggling narcotics, killing more than 60 people.

Maduro has accused Trump of trying to topple his government and seeking a regime change in Venezuela, which in recent years has suffered an economic collapse and is still in the midst of a socioeconomic and political crisis.

Trump, on the other hand, has accused Maduro of being the leader of a drug-trafficking organization—an accusation that the Venezuelan leader has repeatedly denied.