The Justice Department on Tuesday said a letter in the trove of Epstein files addressed from Jeffrey Epstein to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar is fake and that the handwriting "does not appear to match" Epstein's.
Why it matters: For a short time, the graphic letter appeared to be one of the strongest links yet between President Trump and Epstein, as it referred to "our president," who was Donald Trump at the time.
But the Justice Department says the FBI has confirmed the letter is not real.
Though Trump is mentioned multiple times in Tuesday's batch of files, he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The National Guard is deploying to New Orleans in the latest of President Trump's moves to send federal troops to back up local law enforcement across the country.
The latest: The deployment of 350 troops will begin in time for the new year and last through February, Gov. Jeff Landry (R) announced Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News.
Newly released Justice Department records reveal federal prosecutors learned in 2020 that President Trump flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet more often in the 1990s than they had previously known.
The big picture: The revelation is found in nearly 30,000 pages of new documents released after the DOJ was slammed for an earlier, heavily redacted rollout.
The Trump administration will begin to garnish wages from student loan borrowers who are in default next month, the Department of Education confirmed on Tuesday.
The big picture: The stepped-up collection effort follows several moves this year that will make things more difficult for holders of student loans.
Driving the news: The Department of Education has said for months now that it will begin to forcibly seize pay from borrowers, and it's set to begin the week of Jan. 7.
The department will start to notify about 1,000 defaulted borrowers of plans to withhold some of their wages, a spokesperson told Axios in a statement.
Notices will increase "in scale on a month-to-month basis," the department said.
What they're saying: "This Administration's decision to garnish wages from defaulted student loan borrowers is cruel, unnecessary and irresponsible," Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in a statement.
State of play: After a five-year penalty pause, the 5.3 million borrowers in default could now see their wages garnished if they don't resume payments.
All student loan collections activities "are required under the Higher Education Act of 1965 and Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 and conducted only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans," the department said.
Yes, but: TheConsumer Credit Protection Act limits how much of a worker's pay can be garnished at a time.
For "ordinary garnishments" — those not for support, bankruptcy or any state or federal tax — "the weekly amount may not exceed the lesser of two figures: 25% of the employee's disposable earnings, or the amount by which an employee's disposable earnings are greater than 30 times the federal minimum wage," per the Department of Labor.
By the numbers: Credit reporting agency TransUnion reported in September that 29% of borrowers — or 5.4 million people — were delinquent on their loans in June, meaning that they had not made a payment in at least 90 days.
That's down slightly from a record high of 31% in April.
About42.7 million borrowers owe more than $1.6 trillion in federal student debt, according to the Department of Education.
What we're watching: The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed into law in July, cuts the number of repayment plan choices that federal student loan borrowers have down to two from five.
The law phases out the SAVE plan, which 8 million loan holders were enrolled in as of October 2024, per the Brookings Institution.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have pushed for the Justice Department's releases of the Epstein files.
Why it matters: The unlikely bipartisan pair has threatened to find Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for the incremental release of documents.
The Department of Justice released a new batch of Epstein files on Tuesday, sending journalists and the public scrambling to read them.
Why it matters: The DOJ's massive file dumps — which come without warnings, context or descriptions — have caused widespread concern among the public, with many deeming the files inaccessible and unhelpful to understand the probe into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) publicly shared Tuesday that he was diagnosed last week with "stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die."
Why it matters: Sasse, 53, has been one of the few Republicans willing to buck MAGA forces in his party. He shared the devastating news in a lengthy post on X, pointing to the hope he finds in his Christian faith.
The U.S. economy expanded at a4.3% annualized pace in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report Tuesday that had been delayed by the government shutdown.
Why it matters: Despite consumers' low marks on the Trump economy, growth is booming, helped by stronger consumer spending and AI investment.
Most kids are still counting on Santa Claus to make an appearance this Christmas,despite concerns that kids these days are too cool to believe, a new YouGov poll finds.
The big picture: Belief in the jolly old Saint Nick has remained fairly steady over time, though 2025 data shows a slight dip from recent years.
Today, the movement's most consequential fights are unfolding beyond the control of its term-limited president — empowering rival factions to shape MAGA in their own image.
Why it matters: MAGA entered the year with a sheen of invincibility, riding the high of Trump's victory and united in his promise of a new "Golden Age." It's ending 2025 locked in an existential war over the future of conservatism.
ICE has turned green card interviews into nightmares for some families, as immigrants leave in handcuffs instead of with paths to legal status.
Why it matters: For years, people felt safeshowing up for court cases and green card interviews as ICE targeted "the worst of the worst" for arrests. But federal buildings are no longer safe(ish) spaces for undocumented immigrants.
George Conway, the prominent Republican lawyer-turned-prolific critic of President Trump, filed paperwork Monday to run for an open U.S. House seat in New York as a Democrat.
Why it matters: Conway is one of several candidates with a large online presence and national profile running to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) in a district that covers much of midtown and uptown Manhattan.
A Democratic member of Congress filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at stopping the Trump administration from renaming the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the "Trump-Kennedy Center."
Why it matters: Democrats have raged against the name change, which they argue cannot be done unilaterally by the venue's board because its name is set by federal law.
CBS News staffers and viewers are alleging censorship following editor-in-chief Bari Weiss' decision to pull a story about President Trump's deportations.
The big picture: The move escalated concerns that CBS News and, more broadly, parent company Paramount Skydance will tailor its coverage to appeal to the Trump administration.
