Ian Martinez

Possibly like almost a foot of snow or more maybe.

Ice, hopefully not.

I guess.

I don't know.

I'm here buying a snow shovel, so I guess that's as prepared as I'm going to get.

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Somali-American daycare centers in Minnesota say they're being threatened.

Federal officials have not answered questions about what comes next.

I'm Ian Martinez, that is Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.

The Justice Department missed its deadline to release the Epstein files.

The documents that are already out are heavily redacted, disorganized, and sometimes misleading.

So is this transparency or a mess that's fueling even more conspiracy theories?

Yeah, this follows a posting of a video last week by a right-wing YouTube influencer who claims to have found evidence of fraud at Somali American-run child care centers.

The Trump administration responded to that video by cutting federal funding for child care centers, not just in Minnesota, but also around the U.S.

It's been two weeks since the Justice Department was supposed to release all of the Epstein files in its possession.

We're joined now by NPR's Stephen Fowler.

December 19th, Stephen, that was the day that hundreds of thousands of Epstein files were supposed to be released.