White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said US President Donald Trump had a “good feeling” Iran was about to attack US assets in the region. Leavitt added US strikes were ordered over what she called an imminent threat.
The United States House of Representatives Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, demanding she give testimony to the committee regarding the Department of Justice’s management of records linked to the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a rare bipartisan rebuke, the motion, introduced by Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, passed on Wednesday with a vote of 24-19, including five Republicans joining Democrats in supporting the subpoena.
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Committee members are seeking clarity on how sensitive files were handled, archived, or potentially withheld during the long-running probe by the Justice Department into the deceased sex offender’s illicit network.
“AG Bondi will testify about missing Epstein evidence. The videos, the audio, the documents the DOJ is hiding,” Mace, of South Carolina, said in a post on X.
She said, “The American people deserve transparency. Survivors deserve justice. We’re delivering both. Accountability is coming.”
The Epstein files continue to haunt the administration of President Donald Trump more than a year after Attorney General Bondi faced intense criticism for sharing “no-reveal” binders of documents containing no new revelations with conservative influencers.
Tensions then peaked in July 2025 when the Justice Department claimed no Epstein “client list” existed, prompting a bipartisan congressional mandate for a full release of all documents in the investigation.
However, since that rollout of documents began in December, the administration has been under fire for allegedly fumbling the process and over-redacting files, while Justice Department officials maintain they are simply moving as fast as possible to legally vet millions of sensitive pages.
Bondi has staunchly defended the Justice Department’s handling of the files, accusing Democrats of stoking controversy over the documents to divert attention from President Trump’s accomplishments in office.
However, much of the sharpest backlash against Bondi has originated from within the president’s own party, where conservative lawmakers and supporters have expressed frustration over a perceived lack of transparency and the absence of new revelations despite the massive document release.
Congressman Thomas Massie, a prominent Republican and a vocal opponent of Trump – who co-sponsored the resolution alongside Representative Mace on Wednesday – has argued that the public has a right to know if their tax dollars were ever used to quietly settle sexual harassment claims involving members of Congress.
In a statement posted to X, Massie emphasised that government-funded settlements for personal misconduct should not be shielded from the taxpayers who paid for them.
The move to demand Bondi’s testimony comes a week after the Justice Department said it was looking into whether it had improperly withheld documents from the files after several news organisations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against Trump were not among those released to the public.
Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, recently appeared separately for closed-door depositions before the committee, addressing Bill Clinton’s longstanding connections to Epstein more than two decades ago.
“No one wants to fight for Israel.” US Senator Tim Sheehy joined police in forcefully ejecting anti-war protestor and former Marine Brian McGinnis from an Armed Services subcommittee meeting. McGinnis is running for the Senate as a Green Party candidate.
Israel closes Gaza crossings amid war with Iran, raising fears of famine. Tareq Abu Azzoum explains.
A power outage has struck most of Cuba, including the capital Havana, the state electric utility said, as the administration of United States President Donald Trump continues its attempts to cripple the Caribbean nation by curtailing vital oil shipments.
News of the widespread power outage on Wednesday emerged as the country’s diplomatic relations with Latin American neighbour Ecuador plummeted after the expulsion of Havana’s top envoy and diplomatic staff from the Ecuadorian capital Quito was announced.
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Cuban state media outlet Cubadebate said the blackout was caused by a fault at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, located about 100km (62 miles) east of Havana, which cut electricity from Pinar del Rio in the far west of the country to the eastern Las Tunas province.
In all, two-thirds of the country, including Havana, were left without power, according to the national electric company UNE, which said it was working to restore services.
In Havana, the outage briefly took Cuban state TV off the air. Its afternoon national news broadcast started more than half an hour after its scheduled airtime, with a presenter explaining the delay was due to the blackout.
Cuba’s electricity generation system has been in shambles for years. Daily power outages of up to 20 hours are the norm in parts of the impoverished island, which lacks the fuel needed to generate power.
The electricity crisis has become more acute since the US abducted Cuba’s top ally, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, in January.
Venezuela had supplied about half of Cuba’s fuel, but Washington cut off that supply after abducting Maduro and imposing an oil embargo on Havana, which it has eased somewhat, amid warnings from other Caribbean countries that it could trigger an economic collapse in the country.
The fuel scarcity has also forced Cuba’s government to ration key services, including waste collection and public transportation.
In another sign of intense US pressure, Ecuador declared Cuban Ambassador Basilio Gutierrez and his diplomatic staff “persona non grata”, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday, giving them 48 hours to leave the country.
Authorities did not explain why Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s government made the decision, but cited Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which allows a country to declare – at any time – any member of a diplomatic mission persona non grata – unwelcome or unacceptable – in the receiving country.
President Noboa is a close ally of US President Donald Trump, who in recent days suggested that the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
Ecuador did not address whether the move against the Cuban embassy implied a formal break in diplomatic relations with Havana.
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla fired back in a post on social media, saying he rejected “in the strongest terms the arbitrary and unjustified decision of the government of Ecuador to expel all personnel from the Cuban Embassy in that country”.
“It does not seem coincidental that this decision was taken in a context characterised by the intensification of US aggression against Cuba and the strong pressures from that country’s government on third states to join that policy,” he said on the X platform.
At moments like this, all you can do is say the right things.
Say the defeat was disappointing, that the performance was not what was hoped for and that lessons will be learned. Say the team will respond in a positive way.
It is not in Michael Carrick’s nature to throw players under the bus.
Unlike his predecessor, he will never say “this is maybe the worst team in the history of Manchester United”, Ruben Amorim offering that opinion just over a year ago after a home defeat by Brighton.
But Carrick is no-one’s fool either. He knows the 11 days between the chastening 2-1 defeat by 10-man Newcastle at St James’ Park and the visit of Aston Villa to Old Trafford on 15 March could be the most important of his season.
If he gets it right and Manchester United follow Chelsea’s lead by beating Villa, Carrick will have done two things. Firstly, he will have put his club in pole position to qualify for the Champions League, which few thought was realistic when he stepped into Amorim’s shoes.
In addition, from a personal perspective, he will also have shown he really can learn from defeats and respond.
As his old boss Sir Alex Ferguson used to say, “every team loses, it is part of the game; it is what you do about it that counts”.
“We are bitterly disappointed,” said Carrick. “It hurts.
“We came here in good shape. The way it panned out is very disappointing. There is no two ways about that.”
But results never tell the whole story.
Four games ago at West Ham, Manchester United were “stodgy'” by Carrick’s own admission. It took an injury-time Benjamin Sesko goal to salvage a point.
At Everton, Sesko finished off the only notable passage of play from either side. On Sunday, Manchester United’s response to going behind early to Crystal Palace was muted until Matheus Cunha won the penalty that also brought the red card that turned the game on its head.
Carrick’s team have been getting results. However, their most-recent performances have not matched those that beat Manchester City, Arsenal and Fulham at the start of his time at the helm.
Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo have not been a goal threat; Kobbie Mainoo’s performance levels have dipped, while penetration from full-back areas has reduced.
It is a basic reality that they do not have limitless numbers of top-quality players. By the final whistle at St James’ Park, Matthijs de Ligt, Mason Mount, Lisandro Martinez, Noussair Mazraoui and Patrick Dorgu were all absent because of injury. Casemiro and Luke Shaw were off the pitch feeling the effects of two hard games in four days. Carrick does not have the squad depth to cover those losses and still keep standards high.
So, embarrassingly, Manchester United lost against 10 men for the second time in just over three months. The damage was done by William Osula – a player who, as an 11-year-old, appeared on the pitch at Old Trafford to collect a Soccer Schools World Skills final victory prize.
His goal came after he got the better of Tyrell Malacia, who was making only his second appearance of a season he started as a member of Amorim’s ‘bomb squad’. The previous one was against Newcastle too.
The damage is not too bad though. Liverpool lost 24 hours earlier against the league’s bottom club before Aston Villa suffered a heavy home loss to Chelsea on Wednesday.
Manchester United remain third. They remain, out of the sides scrapping it out for three Champions League places in addition to the ones Arsenal and Manchester City will claim, the ones with no European or domestic cup distractions.
“We need to learn from this,” said Carrick.
“There is no sense in not learning lessons and understanding how tonight happened.
“We can’t lose sight of the bigger picture though – we have put ourselves into a position that can be really exciting.
“We’ve got to be positive going into the next game and look forward to it because there is a lot to play for.”
Carrick is right about that.
