00:01Seven weeks, countless standoffs, the longest shutdown in U.S. history, finally over.
00:06What ultimately broke the deadlock?
00:08Plus, the Jeffrey Epstein emails are out.
00:11Some mention Donald Trump.
00:12Now the fight over what they mean, truth or political theater.
00:16And Mother Nature puts on a show.
00:19The northern lights coloring the night sky as far south as Atlanta.
00:25The stories that matter, clear and credible.
00:28From across the country to around the world.
00:31These are your unbiased updates from Straight Arrow News.
00:36Good morning, I'm Craig DeGrelli.
00:38After 43 days, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history is finally over.
00:43President Trump signed the funding bill into law late last night.
00:47And that's where we begin this morning.
00:49The House voted 222 to 209 to pass a deal negotiated by Senate Republicans and eight Democrats,
00:55keeping the government open through January.
00:58The agreement also reverses the mass layoffs of federal workers and restores SNAP benefits for millions of Americans.
01:05Six House Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to vote yes, while two Republicans crossed the aisle to vote no.
01:12Many Democrats were opposed to the bill because it does not extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year.
01:19So I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this.
01:24When we come up to midterms and other things, don't forget what they've done to our country.
01:28So I'm always willing to work with anyone, including the other party.
01:31We'll work on something having to do with health care.
01:34We can do a lot better.
01:36We can do great.
01:36With the government reopening, the FAA is freezing flight cuts at dozens of major airports.
01:43The shortage of air traffic controllers had forced a 6 percent reduction in flights, a number that was set to grow to 10 percent by Friday.
01:50The Department of Transportation now says those decreases won't happen, though it's unclear when flights will fully return to normal.
01:57Newly released emails written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are sending shockwaves through Washington this morning, including mentions of President Trump and a bitter political fight over whether the public should see all the Epstein files.
02:12More than 20,000 emails sent by Epstein between 2011 and 2019 were made public by House lawmakers on Wednesday.
02:20In one 2011 message to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein claimed that then businessman Donald Trump, quote,
02:26spent hours at my house with a young woman who would later accuse Epstein of sex trafficking, calling Trump that dog that hasn't barked.
02:35In another email, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump, of course, knew about the girls and asked Maxwell to stop.
02:43And in a separate 2015 exchange, Wolff warned Epstein that if Trump denied ever visiting him, quote,
02:50I think you should let him hang himself.
02:52If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency, end quote.
03:00Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released those emails first, saying they raised new questions about what Trump knew and when.
03:08Republicans responded hours later with a 20,000-page dump of Epstein documents from the estate,
03:14accusing Democrats of, quote, cherry-picking to embarrass the president.
03:19Here's how the White House hit back on Wednesday.
03:21These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.
03:27And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein.
03:32Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.
03:40And this email you refer to with the name of a victim that was unredacted now and has since been reported on in this room,
03:48so I will go ahead and say it, Virginia Guffrey.
03:51And it was CBS's own reporting, Ouija, that recently wrote that Ms. Guffrey maintained, and God rest her soul,
03:57that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate she ever witnessed,
04:01that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her.
04:05The White House is calling the emails a hoax, arguing Trump hadn't had contact with Epstein in decades,
04:11and Democrats are trying to change the subject away from the government shutdown.
04:16Republicans note the woman Epstein referred to in that 2011 email, as you just heard there from Caroline Leavitt,
04:22is Virginia Guffrey, one of Epstein's best-known survivors, who died by suicide in April,
04:28and who never accused Trump of wrongdoing.
04:31The emails spanned from 2011, as Epstein rebuilt his social circle, to 2019, months before he died in federal custody.
04:39They include correspondence with Wolf, who later wrote a book about Donald Trump.
04:44Those documents surfaced on the same day the House returned from a seven-week shutdown recess,
04:50and its newest member, Arizona Democrat Adelaide Grijalva, was swept into the center of the Epstein fight.
04:56Moments after being sworn in, Grijalva signed the discharge petition to force a vote
05:01on releasing all government files related to Jeffrey Epstein, giving the effort its crucial 218th signature.
05:08With my signing, we move one step closer to the truth, the truth that they will try to deny,
05:15but that survivors deserve their day of justice, and the American people demand it.
05:22Her signature means the House must now hold a vote on a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Thomas Massey
05:28and Democrat Roe Khanna, requiring the Justice Department to release all Epstein files with the victims' names redacted.
05:36All 214 Democrats and four Republicans have signed on.
05:41House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed late Wednesday he will bring the bill to the floor next week, earlier than expected.
05:47The vote will force members of both parties to go on the record about making the full Epstein files public,
05:53an issue that has drawn support from Trump allies and Democrats alike.
05:57As for Grijalva, her swearing-in ended a seven-week delay that Democrats say was designed to keep her from signing that petition.
06:04It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona's 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them.
06:13This is an abuse of power.
06:17One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons.
06:27Johnson insists the delay was procedural, not political, as well as delayed by the shutdown.
06:33The Speaker says he followed House custom and that Grijalva didn't miss a vote.
06:38A federal judge in Illinois has ordered hundreds of people arrested in the government's immigration crackdown in Chicago,
06:45known as Operation Midway Blitz, to be released, ruling that many of the arrests may have been unlawful and violate a previous court order.
06:53U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the first 13 detainees freed by tomorrow,
06:58and more than 600 others released into ICE's Alternatives to Detention programs by next Friday.
07:04Immigration advocates argued that federal agents were arresting people preemptively out of fear they might flee before a warrant was issued,
07:13a direct violation, they say, of a 2022 consent decree recently extended into 2026.
07:19Cummings agreed, saying Homeland Security and ICE have repeatedly violated that order.
07:24He also directed the government to hand over a complete list of everyone detained by ICE or Border Patrol by next Wednesday,
07:32so advocates can identify who was wrongfully arrested.
07:35Just this week, President Trump touted Operation Midway Blitz as a big success,
07:40claiming shootings, robberies and carjackings have fallen in Chicago and saying the full surge is still to come.
07:47Also from Chicago this morning, civil rights leader the Reverend Jesse Jackson is in the hospital.
07:52The 84-year-old founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition is under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy,
08:00a rare neurodegenerative disorder that impacts balance, movement and eye control.
08:06In a statement, his organization says Jackson was first diagnosed with Parkinson's disease years ago,
08:11but doctors confirmed earlier this year that his actual condition is PSP.
08:16The coalition says he's been managing the illness for more than a decade and remains surrounded by family.
08:21In good spirits, as he receives care.
08:25Finally this morning, a rare and stunning sight in the night skies.
08:29A powerful solar storm lit up the heavens across much of the United States,
08:34bringing the northern lights to places that almost never see them.
08:37The colorful glow of the aurora borealis shimmered over cities as far south as Atlanta,
08:43with faint ribbons of pink and green even visible above the skylines.
08:47In the northern states, the show is nothing short of spectacular, brilliant streaks of color
08:53stretching across the skies in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Minnesota.
08:58By the way, if you missed it on Wednesday night, don't worry, you might still get another shot tonight.
09:02NOAA says the storm is strong enough that the northern lights could again be visible across much of the country.
09:09Just check out their online aurora map for your best viewing window, so to speak,
09:13and keep your eyes on the sky.
09:14By the way, we had a neighbor capture the spectacular reds here in the Midwest,
09:18and then she shared it on a group text so everybody in our cul-de-sac pretty much could see it.
09:24It was really, really neat and spectacular.
09:26That certainly is the right word.
09:29All right, a packed Thursday ahead, starting in New York,
09:31where a judge takes up a major challenge from former FBI director James Comey
09:36and Attorney General Letitia James both want their criminal cases thrown out,
09:40arguing the Trump-appointed prosecutor was never legally chosen.
09:44At noon, we'll check the latest mortgage rates from Freddie Mac,
09:47a key snapshot of the housing market.
09:49Later this afternoon, President Trump signs a new executive order alongside the first lady.
09:55And tonight, the stars come out for the Latin Grammys,
09:57with music's biggest names hitting the red carpet in Las Vegas.
10:01Hey, skip the drama, skip the rumors, just wake up smarter.
10:04Sign up for our Unbiased Updates newsletter, san.com slash newsletters.
10:09Those are your Unbiased Updates for this Thursday.
10:11We'll see you back here tomorrow, Friday.
10:13We'd love that.
10:14For all of us here at Straight Arrow News, I'm Craig DeGrelli.
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