An additional batch of classified documents have been discovered by aides to President Joe Biden.
The papers were found in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, NBC News reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Special counsel to the president, Richard Sauber, said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered as Mr Biden’spersonal lawyers were clearing out the offices of the Penn Biden Center.
Mr Biden had kept an office there after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign in 2019.
The president’s aides have since been searching for any additional classified materials that may be in other locations he used, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.
The White House did not return a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.
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The classification level, number and precise location of the additional documents was not immediately clear, NBC News reported.
It also was not immediately clear when the additional documents were discovered and if the search for any other classified materials Mr Biden may have from the Obama administration is complete.
The source said that Mr Biden’s aides have been sifting through documents stored at locations beyond his former Washington office to determine if there are any other classified documents that need to be turned over to the National Archives and reviewed by the Justice Department.
The search was described as exhaustive, with the goal of getting a full accounting of all classified documents that may have inadvertently been packed in boxes when Biden cleared out of the vice president’s office space in January 2017.
The initial documents were found on 2 November last year in a “locked closet” in the office, Mr Sauber said.
He added that the lawyers immediately alerted the White House Counsel’s Office, which notified the National Archives and Records Administration and subsequently took custody of the documents the next day.
“Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” Mr Sauber said.
On Tuesday, Mr Biden told reporters that he was “surprised” by the discovery, and that he didn’t know what was in the documents.
For months, the Justice Department has been investigating the retention of roughly 300 classified documents that were recovered from the Florida estate of Donald Trump.
Prosecutors have interviewed an array of Mr Trump’s associates and have been using a grand jury to hear evidence.
It remains unclear when a decision will be made on whether Mr Trump, or anyone else, should be charged over the papers.
Driving south from Los Angeles along the coast, you can’t miss the San Pedro port complex. Dozens of red cranes pop up from behind the freeway.
The sound of industry whirs as containers are unloaded from hulking ocean liners on to waiting lorries and freight trains that seem to never end.
The port of Long Beach combines with the port of Los Angeles to make the busiest port in the western hemisphere.
Image: The San Pedro port complex
The colourful metal containers contain anything and everything, from clothes and car parts to fridges and furniture. Around $300bn of cargo passes through here every year and 60% of it is from China.
But at the moment, it’s far less busy than usual. Traffic is down by a third, compared with this time last year.
In the closest part of the mainland United States to China, this is Donald Trump‘s new tariffs policy in action, the direct result of frozen trade between the two countries.
“For the month of May, we expect that we’ll be down about 30% from where we were in May of 2024,” Noel Hacegaba, the port of Long Beach chief operating officer, tells Sky News.
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“What that translates into is fewer ships and fewer containers. It means fewer trucks will be needed to transport those containers from the port terminal to the warehouses. It means fewer jobs.”
Image: Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer of the port of Long Beach
‘We’re barely surviving’
Helen Andrade knows all about that. She and her husband, Javier, are both lorry drivers. Helen only got her license in the last few years, so when work dries up, she is likely to be impacted first.
“I’m lying awake at night worrying about this,” she says.
“We’re barely surviving and we’re already seeing work slowing down. In my case, there are two incomes that are not going to come in. How are we going to survive?”
Helen adds: “I’m scared for the next two weeks, because over the next two weeks, I’m going to see where this is going, whether I have saved up enough money, which I know that I have not.”
Image: Lorry driver Helen Andrade
In Long Beach, one in five jobs is connected to the port. But what happens in the port doesn’t stay here.
The shipments reach every part of the country and already, a shortage of certain items imported from China and price hikes are taking hold.
A short drive away is downtown LA’s toy district, a multicultural area consisting of a dozen streets of pastel-coloured buildings, home to importers and wholesalers of toys, much of which is imported from China.
Image: Colourful balloons line windows in LA’s toy district
He was the boy from the small town with big dreams of becoming pope.
Robert Prevost, or “Bob” as they knew him in Dolton, south Chicago, was the youngest son of Louis, a teacher, and Mildred, a librarian.
Devoted in their faith, they were prominent figures in St Mary’s Church.
Scott Kuzminski remembers “Millie”, the chorister, with the “voice of an angel”, and her son with a calling on his life.
“Some children dream to be the top soccer player, or rich or something, and he dreamed he was going to be the Pope,” he said.
The railroad runs through this sleepy suburb, now destined to become a place of pilgrimage.
That’s an answer to prayer for Kathleen Steenson, who believed from childhood that her church would give the world a pope.
She said: “Our faith in this little parish is so strong… and in my little mind, I thought, the next pope has got to come from here because we’re such a great little community.”
Image: ‘The next pope has got to come from here,’ Kathleen Steenson said
St Mary’s Church, where the Pope served as an altar boy before entering the priesthood, is derelict now, symbolic of the challenges.
But to many, this is holy ground, illuminated by the colours cast by the sun shining through the stained glass.
And at the Cathedral of the High Name in the heart of Chicago, there’s a renewed sense of optimism.
“It’s a miracle and a great blessing,” a man leaving a celebratory mass for the new pontiff told me.
A woman, who had also been in the congregation, added: “I hope that he can help people to see beyond the divisions of the country and remember the poor.”
“It’s not just the virtues that he extols,” said another man, “I’m hoping he’ll bring inspiration to all of us to preach love and that the people in Washington will listen.”
Earlier this year, Cardinal Prevost, as he was then, questioned President Trump’s stance on immigration and vice president JD Vance’s interpretation of Christianity.
Leo XIV is the first Pope from North America, but spent years as a missionary in Peru, South America.
And it’s his pastoral heart that’s giving cause for hope in a deeply divided America.
A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.
Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.
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Why is Sean Combs on trial?
Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.
The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.
He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”
Image: A court sketch showing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (right) as he listens to his lawyer Marc Agnifilo addressing the court. Pic: Reuters
Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.
Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.
He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.
Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.
Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.