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  • New cache of Epstein documents yields details on his ties to the rich and powerful

    New cache of Epstein documents yields details on his ties to the rich and powerful

    NEW YORK — Newly disclosed government files on Jeffrey Epstein are offering more details about his interactions with the rich and famous after he served time for sex crimes in Florida, and on how much investigators knew about his abuse of underage girls when they decided not to indict him on federal charges nearly two decades ago.

    The documents released Friday include Epstein’s communications with former White House advisers, an NFL team co-owner, and billionaires including Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

    President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice said it would be releasing more than 3 million pages of documents along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under a law intended to reveal most of the material it collected during two decades of investigations involving the wealthy financier.

    The files, posted to the department’s website, included documents involving Epstein’s friendship with Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, and Epstein’s email correspondence with onetime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, and other prominent contacts with people in political, business, and philanthropic circles.

    Other documents offered a window into various investigations, including ones that led to sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019 and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021, and an earlier inquiry that found evidence of Epstein abusing underage girls but never led to federal charges.

    Draft indictment detailed Epstein’s abuse

    The FBI started investigating Epstein in July 2006 and agents expected him to be indicted in May 2007, according to the newly released records. A prosecutor wrote up a proposed indictment after multiple underage girls told police and the FBI that they had been paid to give Epstein sexualized massages.

    The draft indicated prosecutors were preparing to charge not just Epstein but also three people who worked for him as personal assistants.

    According to interview notes released Friday, an employee at Epstein’s Florida estate told the FBI in 2007 that Epstein once had him buy flowers and deliver them to a student at Royal Palm Beach High School to commemorate her performance in a school play.

    The employee, whose name was blacked out, said some of his duties were fanning $100 bills on a table near Epstein’s bed, placing a gun between the mattresses in his bedroom, and cleaning up after Epstein’s frequent massages with young girls, including disposing of used condoms.

    Ultimately, the U.S. attorney in Miami at the time, Alexander Acosta, signed off on a deal that let Epstein avoid federal prosecution. Epstein pleaded guilty instead to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from someone under age 18 and got an 18-month jail sentence. Acosta was Trump’s first labor secretary in his earlier term.

    Epstein offers to set Andrew up on a date

    The records have thousands of references to Trump, including emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about him, commented on his policies or politics, or gossiped about him and his family.

    Mountbatten-Windsor’s name appears at least several hundred times, including in Epstein’s private emails. In a 2010 exchange, Epstein appeared to try and set him up for a date.

    “I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with,” Epstein wrote.

    Mountbatten-Windsor replied that he “would be delighted to see her.” The email was signed “A.”

    Epstein, whose emails often contain typographical errors, wrote later in the exchange: “She 26, russian, clevere beautiful, trustworthy and yes she has your email.”

    Concerns over how DOJ handled records

    The Justice Department is facing criticism over how it handled the latest disclosure.

    One group of Epstein accusers said in a statement that the new documents made it too easy to identify those he abused but not those who might have been involved in Epstein’s criminal activity.

    “As survivors, we should never be the ones named, scrutinized, and retraumatized while Epstein’s enablers continue to benefit from secrecy,” it said.

    Meanwhile, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, pressed the department to let lawmakers review unredacted versions of the files as soon as Sunday. He said in a statement that Congress must assess whether the redactions were lawful or improperly shielded people from scrutiny.

    Epstein’s ties to powerful on display

    The released records reinforced that Epstein was, at least before he ran into legal trouble, friendly with Trump and former President Bill Clinton. None of Epstein’s victims who have gone public has accused Trump, a Republican, or Clinton, a Democrat, of wrongdoing. Both men said they had no knowledge Epstein was abusing underage girls.

    Epstein killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after being indicted.

    In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

    U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse. One victim, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, sued Mountbatten-Windsor, saying she had sexual encounters with him starting at age 17. The now-former prince denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

    Giuffre died by suicide last year at age 41.

  • Senate passes Trump-backed government funding deal, sending it to House

    Senate passes Trump-backed government funding deal, sending it to House

    WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Friday to fund most of the government through the end of September while carving out a temporary extension for Homeland Security funding, giving Congress two weeks to debate new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country.

    With a weekend shutdown looming, President Donald Trump struck the spending deal with Senate Democrats on Thursday in the wake of the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Democrats said they would not vote for the larger spending bill unless Congress considers legislation to unmask agents, require more warrants and allow local authorities to help investigate any incidents.

    “The nation is reaching a breaking point,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. ”The American people are demanding that Congress step up and force change.”

    As lawmakers in both parties called for investigations into the fatal shootings, Trump said he didn’t want a shutdown and negotiated the rare deal with Schumer, his frequent adversary. Trump then encouraged members of both parties to cast a “much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ vote.”

    The bill passed 71-29 and will now head to the House, which is not due back until Monday. That means the government could be in a partial shutdown temporarily over the weekend until they pass it.

    Speaker Mike Johnson, who held a conference call Friday with GOP lawmakers, said he expects the House to vote Monday evening. But what is uncertain is how much support there will be for the package.

    Johnson’s right flank has signaled opposition to limits on Homeland Security funds, leaving him reliant on Democrats who have their own objections to funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without immediate restraints.

    Two-week debate over ICE

    It was unclear how involved Trump will be in the negotiations over new restrictions on immigration arrests — or if Republicans and Democrats could find any points of compromise.

    Senate Democrats will not support an extension of Homeland Security funding in two weeks “unless it reins in ICE and ends violence,” Schumer said. “If our colleagues are not willing to enact real change, they should not expect Democratic votes.”

    Similarly, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that any change in the homeland bill needs to be “meaningful and it needs to be transformative.”

    Absent “dramatic change,” Jeffries said, “Republicans will get another shutdown.”

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the two sides will “sit down in good faith,” but it will be “really, really hard to get anything done,” especially in such a short amount of time.

    “We’ll stay hopeful, but there are some pretty significant differences of opinion,” Thune said.

    Democrats demand change

    Irate Democrats have asked the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

    They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

    Alex Pretti, a 37 year-old ICU nurse, was killed by a border patrol agent on Jan. 24, two weeks after protester Renee Good was killed by an ICE officer. Administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, originally said Pretti had aggressively approached officers, but multiple videos contradicted that claim.

    Republican pushback

    The president’s concessions to Democrats prompted pushback from some Senate Republicans, delaying the final votes and providing a preview of the coming debate over the next two weeks. In a fiery floor speech, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned that Republicans should not give away too much.

    “To the Republican party, where have you been?” Graham said, adding that ICE agents and Border Patrol agents have been “slandered and smeared.”

    Several Republicans have said that if Democrats are going to push for restrictions on ICE, they will push for restrictions on so-called “sanctuary cities” that they say do not do enough to enforce illegal immigration.

    “There no way in hell we’re going to let Democrats knee cap law enforcement and stop deportations in exchange for funding DHS,” said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., ahead of the vote.

    Still, some Republicans said they believe that changes to ICE’s operations were necessary, even as they were unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats’ requests.

    “I think the last couple of days have been an improvement,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “I think the rhetoric has been dialed down a little bit, in Minnesota.”

    Last-minute promises

    After Trump announced the deal with Democrats, Graham held the spending bills up for almost a day until Thune agreed to give him a vote on his sanctuary cities bill at a later date.

    Separately, Graham was also protesting a repeal of a new law giving senators the ability to sue the government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data is accessed without their knowledge — as happened to him and other senators as part of the so-called Arctic Frost investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters at the Capitol.

    The spending bill, which was passed by the House last week, would repeal that law. But Graham said Thune had agreed to consider a separate bill that would allow “groups and private citizens” who were caught up in Jack Smith’s probe to sue.

  • Trump administration approves new arms sales to Israel worth $6.67 billion

    Trump administration approves new arms sales to Israel worth $6.67 billion

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has approved a massive new arms sales package to Israel totaling $6.67 billion, including 30 Apache attack helicopters and related equipment and weapons, as well as 3,250 light tactical vehicles.

    The State Department announced the four separate sales to Israel late Friday amid rising tensions in the Middle East over the possibility of U.S. military strikes in Iran.

    The sales also were announced as President Donald Trump pushes ahead with his ceasefire plan for Gaza that is intended to end the Israel-Hamas conflict and reconstruct and redevelop the Palestinian territory after two years of war left it devastated, with tens of thousands dead.

    The Apache helicopters, which will be equipped with rocket launchers and advanced targeting gear, are the biggest part of the total package, coming to $3.8 billion, according to the State Department, which notified Congress of its approval of the sales on Friday.

    The next largest portion is the light tactical vehicles, which will be used to move personnel and logistics “to extend lines of communication” for the Israel Defense Forces and will cost $1.98 billion, it said.

    Israel will spend an additional $740 million on power packs for armored personnel carriers it has had in service since 2008, the department said. The remaining $150 million will be spent on a small but unreported number of light utility helicopters to complement similar equipment it already has, it said.

    In separate but nearly identical statements, the department said none of the new sales would affect the military balance in the region and that all of them would “enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders, vital infrastructure, and population centers.”

    “The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” the statements said.

  • Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

    Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

    LOS ANGELES — Journalist Don Lemon was released from custody Friday after he was arrested and hit with federal civil rights charges over his coverage of an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.

    Lemon was arrested Thursday while across the country in Los Angeles, while another independent journalist and two protest participants were arrested in Minnesota. He struck a confident, defiant tone while speaking to reporters after a court appearance in California.

    “I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon said. “In fact there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”

    3 people involved in a Minnesota church protest are arrested

    The arrests brought sharp criticism from news media advocates and civil rights activists including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who said the Trump administration is taking a “sledgehammer” to “the knees of the First Amendment.”

    The four were charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor.

    In federal court in Los Angeles, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Robbins argued for a $100,000 bond, telling a judge that Lemon “knowingly joined a mob that stormed into a church.” He was released, however, without having to post money and was granted permission to travel to France in June while the case is pending.

    Defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski said Lemon plans to plead not guilty and fight the charges.

    Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023 following a bumpy run as a morning host, has said he has no affiliation to the organization that went into the church and he was there as a solo journalist chronicling protesters.

    “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”

    Attorney General Pam Bondi promoted the arrests on social media.

    “Make no mistake. Under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said in a video posted online. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

    ‘Keep trying’

    Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for President Donald Trump. Yet during his online show from the church, he said repeatedly: “I’m not here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene before him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.

    A magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the veteran journalist. Shortly after, he predicted on his show that the administration would try again.

    “And guess what,” he said. “Here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Just do it. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

    Georgia Fort livestreamed the moments before her arrest, telling viewers that agents were at her door and her First Amendment right as a journalist was being diminished.

    A judge released Fort, Trahern Crews, and Jamael Lundy on bond, rejecting the Justice Department’s attempt to keep them in custody. Not guilty pleas were entered. Fort’s supporters in the courtroom clapped and whooped.

    “It’s a sinister turn of events in this country,” Fort’s attorney, Kevin Riach, said in court.

    Discouraging scrutiny

    Jane Kirtley, a media law and ethics expert at the University of Minnesota, said the federal laws cited by the government were not intended to apply to reporters gathering news.

    The charges against Lemon and Fort, she said, are “pure intimidation and government overreach.”

    Some experts and activists said the charges were not only an attack on press freedoms but also a strike against Black Americans who count on Black journalists to bear witness to injustice and oppression.

    The National Association of Black Journalists said it was “outraged and deeply alarmed” by Lemon’s arrest. The group called it an effort to “criminalize and threaten press freedom under the guise of law enforcement.”

    Crews is a leader of Black Lives Matter Minnesota who has led many protests and actions for racial justice, particularly following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in 2020.

    After Trump administration officials said earlier this month that arrests would be coming in the church protest, Crews told the Associated Press there’s a “tradition” of Black activists and leaders being targeted or subjected to violence.

    “Just as being a Black person, you always have to have that in mind,” Crews said.

    Protesters charged previously

    A prominent civil rights attorney and two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting the Cities Church service.

    The Justice Department launched an investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

    Lundy, a candidate for state Senate, works for the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and is married to a St. Paul City Council member. Lemon briefly interviewed him as they gathered with protesters preparing to drive to the church on Jan. 18.

    “I feel like it’s important that if you’re going to be representing people in office that you are out here with the people,” Lundy told Lemon, adding he believed in “direct action, certainly within the lines of the law.”

    Church leaders praise arrests in protest

    Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads ICE’s St. Paul field office.

    “We are grateful that the Department of Justice acted swiftly to protect Cities Church so that we can continue to faithfully live out the church’s mission to worship Jesus and make him known,” lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said.

  • Tens of thousands face another arctic blast without power as East Coast preps for a new storm

    Tens of thousands face another arctic blast without power as East Coast preps for a new storm

    BELZONI, Miss. — As tens of thousands of people endured nearly a week with no electricity, another storm loomed on the East Coast where residents braced for near-hurricane force winds, heavy snow, and potential flooding.

    More than 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Friday, with the vast majority of those outages in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us.

    In Mississippi’s Lafayette County, where about 12,000 people were still without electricity midday Friday, emergency management agency spokesperson Beau Moore said he knows not everyone will get power back before the cold hits.

    “It’s a race against time to get it on for those we can get it on for,” Moore said.

    Workers are attacking the project by ground and air. A video on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Facebook page shows a worker sitting on the skids of a hovering helicopter so they can repair a giant power structure.

    Arctic air moving into the Southeast was expected to cause already frigid temperatures to plummet into the teens on Friday night in cities like Nashville, where many still lacked power nearly a week after a massive storm dumped snow and ice across the eastern U.S., the National Weather Service said.

    Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February and there’s high chance of heavy snow in the Carolinas, Virginia, and northeast Georgia this weekend, possibly up to a foot in parts of North Carolina. Snow is also possible along the East Coast from Maryland to Maine.

    On Saturday night and early Sunday, forecasters expect wind and snow that could lead to blizzard conditions before the storm starts to move to sea.

    Snow should pile up in the Carolinas

    Several inches of snow, possibly 1 foot in some locations, were forecast statewide, particularly in eastern counties.

    Hundreds of state National Guard soldiers were ready to help. State workers have also been preparing roads.

    In Myrtle Beach, S.C., a town more accustomed to hurricanes, traffic jams and tourists, the National Weather Service predicted 6 inches of snow.

    The city has no snow removal equipment. Mayor Mark Kruea said they will “use what we can find” — maybe a motor grader or bulldozer to scrape streets.

    “With a hurricane you can storm proof many things,” Kruea said Friday. “But at a place like this, there is only a few things you can do to get ready for snow.”

    In North Carolina, several inches of snow, possibly 1 foot in some locations, were forecast statewide, particularly in eastern counties.

    In Wake Forest, N.C., people filled propane tanks Friday at Holding Oil and Gas, where employee Stanley Harris disconnected one tank, set it aside with a clank and then hooked up another.

    In Dare County to the east, home to much of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, longtime resident Bob Woodard said he’s worried about that more unoccupied houses in communities like Rodanthe and Buxton could collapse into the Atlantic Ocean.

    Hypothermia risks grow

    With the wave of dangerous cold heading for the South, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures.

    “The body can handle cold temperatures briefly very well, but the prolonged exposure is a problem,” said Hans House, University of Iowa professor of emergency medicine.

    People who are more vulnerable — the elderly, infants and those with underlying health conditions — may have started experiencing hypothermia symptoms within hours of exposure to the frigid temperatures, explained Zheng Ben Ma, medical director of the University of Washington Medical Center’s northwest emergency department. That can include exhaustion, slurred speech, and memory loss.

    “Once you get into days six, seven, upward of 10, then even a healthy, resilient person will be more predisposed to experiencing some of those deleterious effects of the cold temperature,” he said.

    Frostbite is also a concern in southern states, where people might not own clothes for northern winters, said David Nestler, an emergency medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

    Mississippi and Tennessee still seeking full power

    Mississippi officials say it’s the state’s worst winter storm since 1994. About 80 warming centers were opened in one of the nation’s poorest states. National Guard troops were delivering supplies by truck and helicopter.

    Yazoo Valley Electric Power Association workers, some of whom don’t have power at their own homes, are working 16-hour days to restore electricity in Mississippi. Workers cut their way through downed trees to reach some areas for repairs, said Michael Neely, CEO and general manager.

    Worker Ethan Green, 21, said he feels pressure to get the job done quickly. “We can only go so quick,” he said. “In order to do it safely, we have to take our time.”

    In Tennessee, crews were also distributing supplies, said Gov. Bill Lee.

    The governor on Friday also said he has shared “strong concerns” with Nashville Electric Service leadership, saying communication with customers and power restoration efforts must improve.

    Tennesseans “need a clear timeline for power restoration, transparency on the number of linemen deployed, and a better understanding of when work will be completed in their neighborhood,” Lee said.

    Nashville residents’ criticisms have grown louder over their utility’s storm preparations and recovery, as more than 60,000 homes and businesses it serves remained powerless with frigid temperatures expected. Nashville Electric Service has defended its approach, saying it was an unprecedented storm. At the peak, about half of its customers in and near the capital city lost power.

    Nearly 90 people have died in bitter cold from Texas to New Jersey. Roughly half the deaths were reported in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. While some deaths have been attributed to hypothermia, others are suspected to be related to carbon monoxide exposure. Officials have not released specific details about how some of the people died.

    The arctic cold was expected to plunge as far south as Florida.

  • The Justice Department released 3 million pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files

    The Justice Department released 3 million pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files

    NEW YORK — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with rich and powerful people such as Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

    Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would be releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release in December.

    Included in the batch were records concerning some of Epstein’s famous associates, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, as well as email correspondence between Epstein and Elon Musk and other prominent contacts from across the political spectrum.

    The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Lawmakers complained when the Justice Department made only a limited release last month, but officials said more time was needed to review an additional trove of documents that was discovered and to scour the records to ensure no sensitive information about victims was inadvertently released.

    “Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.

    Friday’s disclosure represents the largest document dump to date about a saga the Trump administration has struggled for months to shake because of the president’s previous association with Epstein. State and federal investigations into the financier have long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who have suspected government cover-ups and clamored for a full accounting, demands that even Blanche acknowledged might not be satisfied by the latest release.

    “There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by the review of these documents,” he said.

    After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needed to be redacted, or blacked out. But it denied any effort to shield Trump, who says he cut ties with Epstein years ago despite an earlier friendship, from potential embarrassment.

    “We did not protect President Trump. We didn’t protect — or not protect — anybody,” Blanche said.

    Among the materials withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of potential victims of sex abuse. Women other than Maxwell were redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.

    The number of documents subject to review ballooned to roughly 6 million, including duplicates.

    Epstein’s famous friends

    The latest batch of documents include correspondence either with or about some of Epstein’s friends.

    Mountbatten-Windsor’s name appears at least several hundred times in the documents, sometimes in news clippings, sometimes in Epstein’s private email correspondence and in guest lists for dinners organized by Epstein. Some of the records also document an attempt by prosecutors in New York to get the former prince to agree to be interviewed as part of their Epstein sex trafficking probe.

    The records also show that Musk, the billionaire Tesla founder, reached out to Epstein on at least two separate occasions to plan visits to the Caribbean island where many of the allegations of sexual abuse purportedly occurred.

    In a 2012 exchange, Epstein inquired how many people Musk would like flown by helicopter to the island he owned — Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    “Probably just Talulah and me,” Musk responded, referencing his partner at the time, actress Talulah Riley. “What day/night will be the wildest party on our island?”

    Musk messaged Epstein again ahead of a planned trip to the Caribbean in December 2013. “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays,” he wrote. “Is there a good time to visit?” Epstein responded by extending an invite for sometime after the New Year holiday.

    It’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

    Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures.

    “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025 when House Democrats released an Epstein calendar with an entry mentioning a potential Musk visit to the island.

    The documents also contain hundreds of friendly text messages between Epstein and Steve Bannon during Trump’s first term.

    Bannon, a conservative activist who served as Trump’s White House strategist earlier in the president’s first term, bantered over politics with the financier, discussed get-togethers with him over breakfast, lunch or dinner and, on March 29, 2019, asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome: “Is it possible to get your plane here to collect me?”

    Epstein told him his pilot and crew “are doing their best” to arrange that flight but if Bannon could find a charter flight instead, “I’m happy to pay.” Apparently in France at the time, Epstein followed up with a text saying: “My guys can pick you up. Come for dinner.” The exchange did not show how that played out.

    On one occasion in December 2012, Epstein invited Howard Lutnick — now Trump’s commerce secretary — to his private island in the Caribbean for lunch, documents released Friday show. Lutnick’s wife, Allison Lutnick, enthusiastically accepted the invitation and said they would arrive on a yacht with their children. On another occasion in 2011, the two men had drinks, according to a schedule shared with Epstein.

    Lutnick has tried to distance himself from Epstein, saying in a 2025 interview that he cut ties decades ago and calling him “gross.” He didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

    During Trump’s first term, Epstein emailed Kathy Ruemmler, a lawyer and former Obama White House official, to warn that Democrats should stop demonizing Trump as a Mafia-type figure even as he derided the president as a “maniac.”

    A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler serves as general counsel and chief legal officer, said in a statement that Ruemmler “had a professional association with Jeffrey Epstein when she was a lawyer in private practice” and “regrets ever knowing him.”

    Building on the earlier release

    The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many were either already public or heavily blacked out.

    They included previously released flight logs showing Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling-out, and several photographs of Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. Both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

    Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

    In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his Palm Beach home. The U.S. attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

    In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

    U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics, and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

    Among those she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his royal titles amid the scandal. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

    Giuffre died by suicide last year at age 41.

  • Israel reopening Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt on Sunday after long closure

    Israel reopening Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt on Sunday after long closure

    JERUSALEM — Israel said Friday that it will reopen the pedestrian border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt over the weekend, marking an important step forward for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan.

    COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement that starting on Sunday a “limited movement of people only” would be allowed through the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world.

    The announcement followed statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ali Shaath, newly appointed to head the Palestinian administrative committee governing Gaza’s daily affairs, that it would likely open soon.

    While COGAT said the passage will open in both directions on Sunday, Shaath said the first day will be a trial for operations and that travel both ways will start Monday.

    Israel as of Friday agreed to allow up to 150 people to leave each day — 50 medical patients with two family members, an official familiar with the situation told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing diplomatic talks. Up to 50 people who fled during the war can return daily, the source said.

    Roughly 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians need treatment outside Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. Gaza’s health system was decimated in the war, rendering advanced surgical procedures out of reach.

    COGAT said both Israel and Egypt will vet individuals for exit and entry through the crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents. In addition to screenings at the crossing, Palestinians leaving and returning will be screened by Israel in the adjacent corridor, which remains under Israeli military control.

    The crossing has been under a near complete closure since Israel seized it in May 2024, saying the step was part of a strategy to halt cross-border arms smuggling by Hamas. It was briefly opened for the evacuation of medical patients during a short-lived ceasefire in early 2025.

    Israel had resisted reopening the crossing, but the recovery of the remains of the last hostage in Gaza on Monday cleared the way to move forward. A day later, Netanyahu said the crossing would soon open in a limited and controlled fashion.

    Thousands of Palestinians inside Gaza are trying to leave the war-battered territory, while tens of thousands who fled the territory during the heaviest fighting say they want to return home.

    The reopening is one of the first steps in the second phase of last year’s U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement, which includes challenging issues ranging from demilitarizing Gaza to putting in place an alternative government to oversee rebuilding the mostly destroyed enclave.

    Netanyahu said this week that Israel’s focus is on disarming Hamas and destroying its remaining tunnels. Without these steps, he said that there would be no reconstruction in Gaza, a stance that could make Israel’s control over Rafah a key point of leverage.

    More deadly strikes in Gaza

    Palestinians in Gaza on Friday mourned friends and relatives who died earlier this week in Israeli strikes, which have slowed but not stopped since the return of the remains of the final hostage held in the territory.

    Three Palestinians were laid to rest in traditional Islamic funeral rites. Men gathered to pay their final respects, carrying the shrouded bodies through the streets before praying over them.

    Israel’s military said four people were killed in airstrikes Friday in central Gaza, saying they were armed and approaching troops near the ceasefire line dividing Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

    The most recent deaths Friday are on top of the 492 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began in October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. It maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

  • Catherine O’Hara, Emmy-winning comedian of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘SCTV’ fame, has died at 71

    Catherine O’Hara, Emmy-winning comedian of ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘SCTV’ fame, has died at 71

    LOS ANGELES — Catherine O’Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actor and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin’s harried mother in two Home Alone movies and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditzy wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek, died Friday. She was 71.

    Ms. O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness,” according to a statement from her representatives at Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available.

    Ms. O’Hara’s career was launched with the Second City comedy group in Toronto in the 1970s. It was there that she first worked with Eugene Levy, who would become a lifelong collaborator — and her Schitt’s Creek costar. The two would be among the original cast of the sketch show SCTV, short for “Second City Television.” The series, which began on Canadian TV in the 1970s and aired on NBC in the U.S., spawned a legendary group of esoteric comedians that Ms. O’Hara would work with often, including Martin Short, John Candy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, and Joe Flaherty.

    Ms. O’Hara would win her first Emmy for her writing on the show.

    Eugene Levy (from left), Annie Murphy, Daniel Levy, and Catherine O’Hara, cast members in the series “Schitt’s Creek,” pose for a 2018 portrait.

    Her second, for best actress in a comedy series, came four decades later, for Schitt’s Creek, a career-capping triumph and the perfect personification of her comic talents. The small CBC series created by Levy and his son, Dan, about a wealthy family forced to live in a tiny town would dominate the Emmys in its sixth and final season. It brought Ms. O’Hara, always a beloved figure, a new generation of fans and put her at the center of cultural attention.

    She told the Associated Press that she pictured Moira, a former soap opera star, as someone who had married rich and wanted to “remind everyone that (she was) special, too.” With an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent and obscure vocabulary, Moira spoke unlike anyone else, using words like “frippet,” “pettifogging” and “unasinous,” to show her desire to be different, Ms. O’Hara said. To perfect Moira’s voice, Ms. O’Hara would pore through old vocabulary books, “Moira-izing” the dialogue even further than what was already written.

    Ms. O’Hara also won a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for the role.

    At first, Hollywood didn’t entirely know what to do with Ms. O’Hara and her scattershot style. She played oddball supporting characters in Martin Scorsese’s 1985 After Hours and Tim Burton’s 1988 Beetlejuice — a role she would reprise in the 2024 sequel.

    She played it mostly straight as a horrified mother who accidentally abandoned her child in the two Home Alone movies. The films were among the biggest box office earners of the early 1990s and their Christmas setting made them TV perennials. They allowed her moments of unironic warmth that she didn’t get often.

    Her co-star Culkin was among those paying her tribute Friday.

    “Mama, I thought we had time,” Culkin said on Instagram alongside an image from Home Alone and a recent recreation of the same pose. “I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you.”

    Meryl Streep, who worked with O’Hara in Heartburn, said in a statement that she “brought love and light to our world, through whipsmart compassion for the collection of eccentrics she portrayed.”

    Roles in big Hollywood films didn’t follow Home Alone, but Ms. O’Hara would find her groove with the crew of improv pros brought together by Christopher Guest for a series of mockumentaries that began with 1996’s Waiting for Guffman and continued with 2000’s Best in Show, 2003’s A Mighty Wind, and 2006’s For Your Consideration.

    Best in Show was the biggest hit and best-remembered film of the series. She and Levy play married couple Gerry and Cookie Fleck, who take their Norwich terrier to a dog show and constantly run into Cookie’s former lovers along the way.

    “I am devastated,” Guest said in a statement to the AP. “We have lost one of the comic giants of our age.”

    Born and raised in Toronto, Ms. O’Hara was the sixth of seven children in a Catholic family of Irish descent. She graduated from Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, an alternative high school. She joined Second City in her early 20s, as an understudy to Gilda Radner before Radner left for Saturday Night Live. (Ms. O’Hara would briefly be hired for “SNL” but quit before appearing on air.)

    Nearly 50 years later, her final roles would be as Seth Rogen’s reluctant executive mentor and freelance fixer on The Studio and a dramatic turn as therapist to Pedro Pascal and other dystopia survivors on HBO’s The Last of Us. Both earned her Emmy nominations. She would get 10 in her career.

    “Oh, genius to be near you,” Pascal said on Instagram. “Eternally grateful. There is less light in my world.”

    Earlier this month, Rogen shared a photo on Instagram of him and Ms. O’Hara shooting the second season of “The Studio.”

    She is survived by her husband, Bo Welch, a production designer and director who was born in Yardley; sons Matthew and Luke; and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O‘Hara, Tom O’Hara, and Patricia Wallice.

  • Cubans scramble to survive as U.S. vise on island tightens in push to oust government

    Cubans scramble to survive as U.S. vise on island tightens in push to oust government

    HAVANA — Cubans are hustling to become more self-sufficient as the U.S. government tightens its economic noose over the communist-run island in a move experts say is meant to force a popular uprising and usher in a new government.

    A sharp increase in U.S. sanctions was already suffocating Cubans when critical oil shipments from Venezuela were disrupted after the U.S. attacked the South American country and arrested its leader.

    The long-term repercussions of those halted shipments have yet to hit Cuba, but its people are not waiting.

    Some are installing solar panels while others are growing their own crops or returning to a simpler way of life, one that doesn’t rely on technology or petroleum.

    “It’s how you survive,” said Jose Ángel Méndez Faviel. “It’s best to depend on yourself.”

    Méndez recently moved from the center of Havana to a farm in the rural community of Bacuranao because of Cuba’s severe blackouts. At the farm, he can cook with firewood and charcoal, something unthinkable in a darkened city apartment.

    Méndez said he doesn’t know what to make of President Donald Trump’s threats against Cuba, but he’s not taking any chances. He’s stocking up on gasoline, charcoal, and produce, which he began planting three months ago at his farm.

    Méndez also is thinking of buying back his old horse that he sold in favor of motorized equipment to transport vegetables he sells at local markets.

    “You don’t need fuel for a horse,” he said. “We need to go back in time.”

    ‘Very close to failing’

    Before the U.S. attacked Venezuela and disrupted oil shipments to Cuba, the island already was struggling with chronic blackouts, soaring prices, and a lack of basic goods.

    With experts warning of a potentially catastrophic economic crisis, some wonder if Cuba is reaching its breaking point. For Trump, who signed an executive order Thursday that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, it’s all but guaranteed.

    “Cuba is really a nation that is very close to failing,” he recently said.

    But Cubans scoff at that assertion, especially those who remember the so-called “Special Period,” when cuts in Soviet aid sparked the 1990s deprivation that eased when Venezuela became an ally under former President Hugo Chávez.

    Yadián Silva, a nurse and driver of a classic car who has seen tourism plummet, said Cubans aren’t dumb.

    “We have problems, and we know we have a lot of problems,” he said. “But when things happen in Cuba, it’s because people truly feel they should happen. Not because someone from the outside says, ‘do this.’”

    On a recent weeknight, tens of thousands of Cubans clutched flaming torches and joined an annual march to remember national hero José Martí. Many of them were university students.

    “We are a dignified people, a people eager to move forward, eager to prosper, who do not believe in threats and are not intimidated by any reprisals from the enemy,” said Sheyla Ibatao Ruíz, a 21-year-old law student. “If we have to take up arms, we will be the first to do so.”

    Before the march began, a presenter addressed the massive audience that included Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

    “This is not an act of nostalgia, it is a call to action,” said Litza Elena González Desdín, president of the Federation of University Students in a speech that included references to Trump.

    A day later, Christopher Landau, U.S. deputy secretary of state, noted that the U.S. embraces Martí “because he shared that passion that we have for freedom.”

    “We hope that by 2026, Cubans will finally be able to exercise their fundamental freedoms,” Landau said Wednesday in a recording played at a small gathering at the U.S. embassy in Havana. “The communist Castro regime is tottering; it won’t last much longer. After 67 years of a failed revolution that has betrayed the Cuban people, it’s time for the change that the people on the island are yearning for.”

    ‘We’ll ride bicycles’

    Last September, Ángel Eduardo launched a small business to install solar panels. He called it “Con Voltage,” a word with double meaning in Cuba that can refer to doing something well.

    He said he was fed up with studying in the dark and being forced to write in a notebook instead of a computer to obtain his degree as an automation control engineer.

    Eduardo started rigging pieces to light a single bulb for his home and ended up learning how to install solar systems thanks to a combination of a friend, Chat GPT and social media.

    He now has installed dozens of systems across Cuba, averaging one to two installations a day since November on an island where daily demand for electricity on average surpasses 3,000 megawatts when only about half that is available during peak hours.

    Eduardo said he saw a surge in calls from people in Havana seeking solar systems ever since the disruption in oil shipments from Venezuela.

    Growing a business is something that 62-year-old Niuvis Bueno Zavala has been pondering. A retired Russian interpreter for the Cuban government, she now runs a small wooden shack near the sea that sells drinks but not food.

    “I’ve never had it this hard,” she said, adding that she might start selling homemade food. “There’s always a helping hand to assist us. But now those helping hands can’t reach us. We’re blocked from all sides.”

    Many Cubans decry the embargo, including retired pilot Pedro Carbonell.

    The 73-year-old recently waited more than two hours to buy gasoline. He said Cubans have to keep fighting.

    “If we don’t have fuel, then we’ll ride bicycles,” he said, recalling how Cubans walked a lot during the Special Period. “Our wine is bitter. But it’s our wine. Do you understand? And we don’t want anyone from somewhere else coming here and telling us how to drink our wine.”

  • DOJ has opened a federal civil rights probe into the death of Alex Pretti, deputy AG says

    DOJ has opened a federal civil rights probe into the death of Alex Pretti, deputy AG says

    WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday.

    “We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said during a news conference.

    Blanche did not explain why DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but has said a similar probe is not warranted in the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. He said only on Friday that the Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.”

    “President Trump has said repeatedly, ‘Of course, this is something we’re going to investigate,’” Blanche said of the Pretti shooting.

    Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Friday that “the family’s focus is on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.”

    FBI to take over federal investigation

    The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the FBI will lead the federal probe into Pretti’s death.

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the investigation during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department previously said Homeland Security Investigations, a departmental unit, would head the investigation.

    “We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

    Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Homeland Security Investigations will support the FBI in the investigation. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

    DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    It was not immediately clear whether the FBI would share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal investigation.

    In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

    Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

    Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

    Videos emerge of previous altercation

    The change in agency comes after two other videos emerged of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

    The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

    When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

    Schleicher, the Pretti family attorney, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified the shooting more than a week later.

    In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Donald Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

    “Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”