Newly released photos show Epstein with Trump, Clinton, Bannon and others

A long list of powerful people, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, are shown with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in more than a dozen photographs released Friday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

The photographs are among 95,000 images that Epstein’s estate turned over to the Committee, which has been investigating Epstein’s sex trafficking organization and his ties to other people who may have been involved in his crimes.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called many of the photographs in the batch they received “disturbing,” and noted they were still sifting through them.

He added that the photos “raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”

—Miami Herald

Trump administration protesters sing modified Christmas carols in Sacramento

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Brian Cahill had never been to a protest caroling event in his life, he admitted.

Cahill, who is 66 and lives in Fair Oaks, was among 45 people who walked around downtown Sacramento on a chilly Thursday evening.

The group sang a medley of traditional songs and modified Christmas carols that protested Donald Trump’s presidential administration and deportations by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“I didn’t even know such a thing existed,” Cahill said of protest caroling. “But it seems like a combination that’s a great idea to put the two together.” The sentiment encapsulated an event where attendees were not afraid to try a different type of protesting with their songs, drawing a mix of responses.

—The Sacramento Bee

In search for autism's causes, look at genes, not vaccines, researchers say

Earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged that the search for autism's cause — a question that has kept researchers busy for the better part of six decades — would be over in just five months.

"By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures," Kennedy told President Trump during a Cabinet meeting in April.

That ambitious deadline has come and gone. But researchers and advocates say that Kennedy's continued fixation on autism's origins — and his frequent, inaccurate claims that childhood vaccines are somehow involved — is built on fundamental misunderstandings of the complex neurodevelopmental condition.

Even after more than half a century of research, no one yet knows exactly why some people have autistic traits and others do not, or why autism spectrum disorder looks so different across the people who have it. But a few key themes have emerged.

—Los Angeles Times

Russia rejects Zelenskyy's proposal for Donbass referendum

MOSCOW — Russia has rejected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's proposal to let the Ukrainian population decide on territorial concessions in the eastern Donbass region through a referendum.

"This area is Russian territory," Russian leader Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said, referring to Russia's 2022 annexation of the Ukrainian region, the Interfax news agency reported.

A few months after the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia unlawfully incorporated the Donbass – which includes the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk – as well as the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya into its state territory through a constitutional amendment.

Zelenskyy stated on Thursday that only the Ukrainian people could decide on territorial issues – for example, through a referendum.

—dpa