In reversal, Trump now backs Epstein files release; US buildup grows in Caribbean
In a major reversal, President Donald Trump is now urging House Republicans to vote to release the remaining Jeffrey Epstein files. After days of trying to stop the vote, Trump now says he has “nothing to hide.”
Plus, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group is now in the Caribbean, joining one of the largest U.S. naval footprints in the region in decades.
And good news for travelers: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ending the emergency limits on flights at 40 major airports, just in time for the Thanksgiving rush.
These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Monday, Nov. 17, 2025.
Trump tells GOP to ‘vote to release’ Epstein files
A late-night reversal from President Donald Trump has upended one of the most volatile fights on Capitol Hill. He’s now pushing Republicans to vote to release all remaining Jeffrey Epstein files.
After days of pressuring Republicans not to move forward, the president is now urging them to do the opposite.
On Truth Social, Trump said House Republicans should vote to release the files because, “We have nothing to hide.” He also called the Epstein fight a “Democrat hoax” and said it’s time for the GOP to “move on.”
The turnabout comes after a week of mounting pressure and a very public feud with one of his once-loyal allies: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The president referred to her as a “traitor” and “disgrace to our great Republican party!” on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, he again referred to her as a “traitor” that “no one cares about.”
“The most hurtful thing [Trump] said, which is absolutely untrue, is he called me a traitor, and that is so extremely wrong,” Green said. “And those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.”
Greene told CNN she’s now done with the toxic rhetoric.
“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics; it’s very bad for our country. It’s been something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated,” Green said. “I’m only responsible for myself and my own words and actions … and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics. I really want to just see people be kind to one another.”
The falling-out also comes amid a growing block of Conservatives, including Greene, who are pushing to release the files despite Trump’s earlier opposition.
Even before Trump’s reversal, the momentum was already shifting.
A bipartisan discharge petition hit 218 signatures, forcing a vote this week. It’s something the White House had tried to avoid.
On ABC, Thomas Massie, R-Ky., co-author of the bill, said GOP support is surging.
“I think we could have a deluge of republicans [voting for Epstein files release]. There could be 100 or more. I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote. And, you know, the president’s been saying this is a hoax. He’s been saying that for months,” Massie said. “But in 2030, he’s not going to be the president, and you will have voted to protect pedophiles if you don’t vote to release these files, and the president can’t protect you then. This vote, the record of this vote, will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency.”
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., one of Trump’s strongest defenders, says the president isn’t worried about the issue.
“He had nothing to do with it. President Trump has clean hands. He’s not worried about it. I talk to him all the time. He has nothing to do with this,” Johnson said. “He’s frustrated that they’re turning it into a political issue and it’s not surprising because the Democrats have nothing else to talk about. What have they accomplished in 10 months? Epstein is their entire game plan.”
The vote could come as early as Tuesday.
USS Gerald R. Ford carrier in Caribbean, US buildup nears Venezuela
The U.S. is making its biggest show of force in the Caribbean in a generation. At the same time, the pressure on Venezuela’s regime escalated again.
The Navy says the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the most advanced aircraft carrier in the fleet, crossed into the Caribbean Sea on Sunday.
The Trump administration calls it a counter-drug mission, but experts say it’s direct warning to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Just hours after the USS Ford arrived, the U.S. turned up the heat even more.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the U.S. will designate Cartel De Los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization.
He said the cartel, allegedly led by Maduro and top figures in his regime, is responsible for “terrorist violence” across the hemisphere and massive drug trafficking into the U.S.
The designation takes effect Nov. 24.
And Sunday night, Trump added a new twist, saying the U.S. may be having talks with Maduro, claiming the Venezuelan leader appears to want to engage.
“We may be discussing. We may be having some discussions with Maduro and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk,” Trump said.
The U.S. has already carried out strikes on at least 22 vessels in the region over the last two months.
The latest strike happened over the weekend. A drone hit a boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing three men on board.
So far, the administration hasn’t released any evidence that those killed were “narco-terrorists.”
Some key allies, including the U.K. and Colombia, have stopped sharing intelligence due to legal concerns about the U.S. operations.
The Ford, along with fighter jets and guided missile destroyers, is now part of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is calling “Operation Southern Spear.”
Commanders say it’s designed to protect the U.S. from “Narco-terrorism.”
Southern command says the Ford strike group, comprised of 4,000 sailors, dozens of fighter jets, and three warships, is now joining a growing U.S. naval force already positioned off Venezuela.
FAA lifts flight restrictions beginning Monday
After weeks of delays and cancellations across U.S. skies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says operations can return to normal.
The FAA announced late Sunday that it’s lifting all restrictions on commercial flights, after previously placing emergency limits at 40 major airports during the record-long 43-day government shutdown.
Airlines went back to full schedules starting Monday at 6 a.m. ET.
The FAA and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said air traffic controller staffing has “steadily improved,” enough that the safety team now recommends ending the order.
The cuts led to thousands of cancellations, including 2,900 in a single day. Conditions eased as more controllers returned to work and Congress moved to end the shutdown.
Air traffic controllers were among the federal workers who worked without pay throughout the impasse.
Airlines said they expect operations to steady quickly, just in time for Thanksgiving travel.
Rev. Jesse Jackson on life support in Chicago
Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of America’s most influential civil rights leaders, remains hospitalized Monday morning in Chicago and is now on a form of life support to stabilize his blood pressure.
A family source told CNN that the 84-year-old founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition has been on medication to control his blood pressure after a significant drop over the weekend, and his medical team is working to wean him off.
CBS News reported Jackson has exhibited brief moments of awareness, but his condition is reportedly weakening.
Family and friends are currently traveling from all over the country to be with him.
Jackson has been under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare, degenerative neurological disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease.
ICE raid sparks pushback in Charlotte, NC
The Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown has spread from Chicago, Illinois, to Charlotte, North Carolina.
A weekend sweep resulted in dozens of arrests and loud opposition from local leaders who say they don’t want federal agents flooding into their city.
Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, who helped lead “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, posted a video of suspected undocumented immigrants now in custody in Charlotte.
He’s calling it “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” writing that “the breeze hit Charlotte like a storm” and that agents “go where the mission calls.”
But community groups say the situation on the ground is much more severe.
The executive director of Charlotte East told The Associated Press that the federal presence has been “overwhelming and difficult to quantify,” with reports of agents at churches, apartment complexes and local shops.
Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., expressed deep concern about border patrol and ICE activities in her district. She stated on X that she “will not stand by and watch her constituents be intimidated and harassed.”
Sheep take the streets of Nuremberg, Germany, for annual woolly parade
Hundreds of bleating, fluffy traffic jams filled downtown Nuremberg, Germany, on Sunday. About 600 sheep shuffled their way through the city on their annual move to winter quarters.
People paused, posed, and took selfies with the sheep, who didn’t seem to mind the paparazzi.
The herds spend their summers mowing the city’s meadows the old-fashioned way — one bite at a time.
Slow, eco-friendly and highly beneficial for biodiversity. Plus, they save the city a lot of money on lawn care.
More from Straight Arrow News:
Peanut allergies have long plagued kids. Inside the scientific U-turn that’s shaken trust in pediatrics
In the late 1990s, scientists and physicians increasingly reported a little-known health threat: peanut allergies. Estimates from the time suggest that only 0.4% of children had a peanut allergy. But the tide, it seemed, was changing — and changing fast.
In 1988, Canadian doctors published what is likely the first case study on the topic, recounting how a 24-year-old woman with a known nut allergy died moments after biting into a piece of cake topped with hazelnut icing. Hundreds more studies followed, documenting not only a rise in peanut allergies but an increasing number of people with allergies so severe that they resulted in death.
Americans took notice. Newspapers published alarming stories: “Peanut Allergies Have Put Sufferers on Constant Alert,” read one 1995 Wall Street Journal headline; “Nut Allergy Girl’s Terror; Girl Almost Dies from Peanut Allergy,” reported the Daily Mirror.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that by 1997, 3.4% of children were allergic to at least one food.
In response to these rising allergy rates, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has published guidelines recommending that parents avoid exposing infants to common food allergens until at least one year of age, and that nursing mothers also avoid consuming those foods. The guidelines’ authors acknowledged a lack of scientific evidence underlying their recommendations, including the push to delay introducing nuts until children were 3 years old. But the guidelines, they wrote, seemed “reasonable.”
For decades, this guidance was “gospel” among pediatricians and parents, according to medical experts who spoke with Straight Arrow News. However, skeptical scientists later disproved these recommendations, prompting the AAP to retract its guidelines in 2008 and reverse them in 2017.
By then, an untold number of parents had withheld peanuts and other allergenic foods from their kids, increasing the risk of food allergies. Outside of its policy reversal, however, the AAP offered little public acknowledgment of how its earlier recommendations may have contributed to the rise in peanut allergies. The debacle went down in the record as another misstep, fueling the public’s waning trust in science. Read the full story now>
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
