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Lawyers for Joe Biden have said five additional pages with classified markings were found at the president’s home in Delaware on Thursday.

White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement on Saturday that a total of six pages of classified documents were discovered during a search of the president’s private library.

Previously, the White House said only a single page had been found.

Mr Sauber said he travelled to Mr Biden’s home in Wilmington on Thursday to facilitate the handover to the Department of Justice of a document with classified markings that was found there earlier.

In a statement, he said: “While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.”

Mr Sauber’s statement did not address why the White House waited two days to provide an update on the number of classified records.

Earlier this week, Mr Biden’s legal team acknowledged it had found classified documents relating to his time as vice-president in the Obama administration at his home, including some in his garage.

Aides previously found another batch of classified documents at his residence, and at a Washington think tank he was associated with.

The apparent mishandling of classified documents and official records from the Obama administration is under investigation by a former US attorney, Robert Hur, who was appointed as a special counsel on Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

On Saturday, Mr Sauber reiterated that the White House would cooperate with Mr Hur’s investigation.

The discoveries have trickled out over the past week, causing concern among the president’s allies that his office does not have a handle on the growing scandal.

Officials are trying to ‘own’ this crisis – but the President himself is not performing well

Officials at the White House are now, belatedly, making every effort to ‘own’ this crisis. But will it work?

President Biden’s special counsel is at pains to point out – in a lengthy public statement – that the five additional documents were discovered with the single classified document which was found at the president’s Delaware residence in the week.

The reason for the delay between the announcement of the single-page discovery and the subsequent five pages is, we are told, because the lawyers who found the single page didn’t have security clearance so they stopped when they found that one.

The special counsel himself, who has clearance, then travelled to Delaware to continue the search. He found the others.

On the face of it, beyond the real scandal that documents were found, it’s a logical excuse.

But to critics, it’s all detail that doesn’t matter: hypocrite Biden has done what he so sanctimoniously criticised Mr Trump over, they say, nevermind that there are distinct differences between the two cases.

While some of Biden’s team are trying to ‘own’ this crisis, Mr Biden himself and his spokesperson are not performing well.

In a series of extremely awkward appearances and briefings this week, the president and his press Ssecretary performed very badly in the face of what is now, increasingly, a full-blown political crisis.

Read more:
One man’s gaffe, another man’s gift?

What we know about the Biden classified documents discovery
Special counsel appointed to investigate classified documents

Republicans have sought to compare the investigation of Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents to the ongoing probe into how former president Donald Trump handled classified documents after his presidency.

The White House, however, says the two cases are different because Biden’s team has cooperated with authorities in their probe and turned over documents.

Mr Trump had resisted doing so until an FBI search at his Florida home.

The DOJ historically imposes a high legal bar before bringing criminal charges in cases involving the mishandling of classified information, with a requirement that someone intended to break the law as opposed to being merely careless or negligent in doing so.

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Trump and Putin’s first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

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Trump and Putin's first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

It could be diplomatic dynamite.

The first meeting between a sitting US and Russian president in more than four years, following one of the bleakest periods in the history of their countries’ bilateral relations.

But a PutinTrump summit does not necessarily mean there will be a ceasefire.

Ukraine war latest: Kremlin aide’s full statement on Trump-Putin talks

On the one hand, it could signal that a point of agreement has been reached and a face-to-face meeting is needed to seal the deal.

That has always been Russia’s stance. It’s consistently said it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.

On the other hand, there might not be anything substantive. It might just be for show.

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‘Good chance’ Trump will meet Putin soon

It might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Donald Trump’s anger and dodge his deadline to end the war by Friday or face sanctions.

It would give Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but.

After all, there has certainly not been any sign that Moscow is willing to soften its negotiating position or step back from its goals on the battlefield.

Tellingly, perhaps, it’s this latter view which has been taken by some of the Russian press on Thursday.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have not met face to face since the US president returned to the White House. File pic: Reuters

“Putin won” is the headline in Moskovsky Komsomolets regarding the Kremlin leader’s meeting with Witkoff.

The state-run tabloid quotes a political scientist, Marat Bashirov, who claims Putin “bought time” ahead of Friday’s deadline.

“It is noteworthy that in his rhetoric [on sanctions] Trump did not mention Russia at all,” the paper notes.

Komsomolskaya Pravda is similarly dismissive.

“Donald Trump has two simple interests in connection with Ukraine: to earn money for America, and political whistles and the Nobel Peace Prize for himself,” it says.

“Russia has its own interests,” it adds, “securing them is what Vladimir Putin will seek at a meeting with Trump.”

At this stage, the most likely location is the United Arab Emirates. Putin met the country’s president in the Kremlin today, and afterwards said it would be a “suitable location”. It felt like a strong hint.

And the UAE certainly makes sense.

It’s played mediator for a number of the prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine; it has good relations with the US (and was one of Trump’s stops on his recent Middle East tour); and most importantly for Moscow, it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court. So Putin doesn’t have to worry about being arrested.

But if NBC’s reports are correct, that a Putin-Trump summit is conditional on the Russian president meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then the summit may not happen at all.

Read more on Russia and Ukraine:
Trump went from frustration to a possible Putin meeting in hours
What could a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine involve?
India hints it will keep buying Russian oil – despite Trump threats

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Until now, Putin has refused to meet Zelenskyy, despite numerous demands from Kyiv, because he views him as illegitimate.

The Kremlin said the prospect of a trilateral meeting between the leaders was mentioned by Witkoff on Wednesday, but the proposal was left “completely without comment” by Russia.

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OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

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OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has been released by its maker OpenAI.

It has been one of the most highly anticipated launches in Silicon Valley after OpenAI’s first offering ChatGPT – powered by its GPT-3 model – kick-started the current AI boom in late 2022.

“GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

“GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.”

At the launch event, OpenAI claimed the new chatbot, which will be released to all ChatGPT users on Thursday, was more than a simple upgrade to its previous offerings.

According to OpenAI, the new model exceeds the chatbot competition from the likes of Google, X and Antropic on “benchmarks” – standardised tests used to rank models.

More on Chatgpt

OpenAI claims it has been designed to be easier and more natural to communicate with, better at writing prose and advanced computer code, solving academic questions from mathematics to law, assisting with healthcare-related questions, as well as being safer than its predecessors.

“It’s an incredible superpower on demand,” claimed Mr Altman.

GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
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GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI

The model is also more intelligent in how it uses its own brain power – and therefore an expensive computing resource – according to OpenAI.

It is a hybrid of previous chatbots and slower, more computing-intensive “reasoning” models like OpenAI’s Deep Research.

Based on a user’s request, the model will decide how much “thinking” is required before answering, rather than requiring the user to switch between different models.

GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI
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GPT-5. Pic: OpenAI

Although AI enthusiasts who had been expecting GPT-5 to represent “artificial general intelligence [AGI]” will be disappointed.

Despite this being OpenAI’s stated goal, Mr Altman billed GPT-5 as a “major upgrade” to GPT-4 and a “significant step along the path to AGI”.

But they’re clearly not there yet.

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July: ‘ChatGPT is the partner I always wanted’

A real test of GPT-5 will be whether it sells.

OpenAI is projected to spend $8bn (£6bn) this year, on top of $5bn (£3.7bn) last year, and while it is expected to make a profit this year, the business case for increasingly powerful AI models is still not clear to many investors.

Given a single training run for GPT-5 is rumoured to have cost $500m (£373m), there will be an expectation the new model is significantly more useful to business users.

Despite a very slick demonstration of its coding skills at the launch presentation, where it built an online language learning game in seconds, GPT-5 will have to prove its worth for professional coding.

Many in the tech industry prefer Anthropic AI’s Claude model to write code. OpenAI and its investors will be hoping GPT-5 changes that.

AI experts will also be testing GPT-5’s tendency to “hallucinate”, an issue OpenAI claims to have improved with GPT-5.

But erroneous or bizarre answers are a problem that dogs all large generative AI models.

“Shiny things are always fun to play with, and I fully expect GPT-5 to be the shiniest so far,” said Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University and AI commentator.

“But that doesn’t mean that it is a critical step on the optimal path to AI that we can trust,” Mr Marcus added in a post.

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Ex-Superman Dean Cain to join ICE ‘ASAP’ to ‘save America’

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Ex-Superman Dean Cain to join ICE 'ASAP' to 'save America'

Dean Cain has been branded the “worst superman ever” as he announced he will join the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “ASAP”.

The 59-year-old, who was cast as Superman in the TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, announced he had joined the team amid the federal agency’s unprecedented immigration raids.

He told Fox News on Wednesday his recruitment video on Instagram had gone viral and since then, “I have spoken with some of the officials over at ICE and I will be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP”.

“You can defend your homeland and get great benefits,” he said in the Instagram post where he appealed for his followers to join ICE.

Speaking with the Superman theme song in the background, he said “hundreds of thousands of criminals” had been arrested since US President Donald Trump took office.

He then told his followers they would get a series of benefits if they joined ICE, including a $50,000 (£37,407) signing bonus and student loan repayment.

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Who is being targeted in Trump’s immigration raids?

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“If you want to help save America ICE is arresting the worst of the worst and removing them from America’s streets,” he said, before adding: “I voted for that.”

ICE agents are under pressure from the White House to boost their deportation numbers in line with Mr Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

Cain’s post on Instagram received some backlash, with one user commenting: “Worst superman ever”.

Another said: “Shame on you Dean – that’s the most un-Superman thing you could possibly advocate.”

One fan turned against him and said: “Until I saw this I was such a fan. What a sad human being you must be.”

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