
US leans on Saudi Arabia over rising oil prices as OPEC meets
CNN
The United States has stressed the importance of "affordable" energy to Saudi Arabia ahead of a meeting of major oil producers, which will decide whether to pump more barrels following a sharp increase in prices.
Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, said on Wednesday that she had a "positive" call with Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz Bin Salman. "We reaffirmed the importance of international cooperation to ensure affordable and reliable sources of energy for consumers," Granholm said on Twitter. The timing and substance of the call suggest that the United States would like to see oil supplies increase following a 70% spike in the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, over the past five months. US gasoline prices have also risen sharply to an average of $2.88 per gallon.
The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida Tuesday to volunteer over the “next several days” to help to redact the Epstein files, in the latest internal Trump administrationpush toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation for alleged censorship – sharply ratcheting up the Trump administration’s fight against European regulations that have impacted digital platforms, far-right politicians and Trump allies, including Elon Musk.











