ARIES (March 21-April 19). Today, you’ll gravitate toward people who nudge you forward, inspire you to work harder and catalyze your becoming. They might not be the nicest or easiest to be around, but that’s not what matters now because you’re in a phase of growth, not comfort.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20). It’s simple emotional math today: Positive emotions give you energy, and negative emotions drain energy. You can’t choose your feelings, but you can put yourself in the mindset and environment most conducive to feeling good.
GEMINI (May 21-June 21). You’re thinking a lot about how to make your daily life work better, and one solution keeps coming to mind. In theory, it could work. The only way to tell is to apply it. Test your idea in tiny, low-risk ways first.
CANCER (June 22-July 22). Some challenges unravel slowly if you tease them apart, strand by strand. Today’s are better approached as the landscaper does, snipping, cutting and mowing right through. Keep moving until it’s beautiful.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). There are seasons when it’s best to say yes to every invite, opportunity and offer, and there are times like now when more discretion is called for. You’ve paid your dues and can hold out for your specific preferences and vision.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Countless similar moments blur together, but when something brings up a feeling in you, a memory is born, too. Someone who is emotionally available can turn ordinary moments into a vivid experience. Their access to feeling invites your own.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Your social intuition will serve you well. You’ll sense when someone is telling the truth and when they aren’t. You can build on what’s real. It’s safe to leave the rest alone. Falsehoods tend to collapse under their own weight.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). It’s a strong balance: feeling liberated from the need to own more, yet still committed to tending what’s already yours. The care you put into your things today saves you time and money later. Bonus: Someone is watching with respect.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Someone has you guarding your heart. But how do you protect something as invisible and volatile as a feeling? Today, it may be impossible to stay ahead of it. But if you agree to feel whatever comes up, it’s you who will be ahead.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Everyone knows you’re responsible, but it would actually be irresponsible to carry everything at once. Know your limits. A pause strengthens the foundation you’ve built. Even small rests renew your energy and focus.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). People get in sync with your ideas, feelings and rhythms. It’s as though there’s a drum line following you around, adding power, excitement and a steady beat that you and everyone around you can move to.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). People don’t have to be “on” to be accepted by you. They sense it, and this unspoken permission to relax and be themselves somehow still inspires people to impress you. It’s funny how comfort rouses vitality and excitement.
TODAY’SBIRTHDAY (Feb. 9). The theme of your year: love shows up. Consistently, yet sometimes surprisingly, in forms you recognize and new ones you learn, even some you invent in a beautiful co-creation. Whether familiar or friendly, passionate or sweet, giving yourself over to relationships will be a pleasure. More highlights: the freedom to plan further ahead than before and opportunities to teach, guide or profit from what comes easily to you. Cancer and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 3, 14, 26, 35 and 41.
DEAR ABBY: My husband developed an addiction to slot machines, but I didn’t realize it. He would leave the house in the early morning before I woke up. Abby, he gambled away every single asset we had accumulated during our 58 years of marriage — somewhere around $600,000! I found out after he asked his grown children for “grocery money.”
We are now bankrupt and must rely on our son, who offered to bail us out if he could be the trustee of our land, home, everything. He takes our monthly pensions and gives us a tiny allowance when we beg for something, but we are so poor we can’t see a movie, eat out or go anywhere, including to visit our other kids.
I’m extremely depressed that nothing can solve this problem for the rest of my life. I’d find another job teaching, but I’m in my 80s and have limited mobility. At least I’m still in my home. I realize this is a dead-end street, but it helps to vent. Can you comment?
— LOST IT ALL IN TEXAS
DEAR LOST IT: Is your son giving you such a tiny allowance because that is what your finances dictate, or is he trying to punish his father for getting into the predicament in which you find yourselves? Talk to your son and explain that the little money he doles out does not allow you to go anywhere, eat out or even see a movie, and see if you, his mother, can convince him to relent so you are not being punished for something you had no part in.
** ** **
DEAR ABBY: I disagree with your response to “Dutiful Daughter in Alabama” (Nov. 10), who put a camera in her 80-year-old mom’s den in case of a fall and overheard Mom make negative comments about her. Installing a camera in someone’s home without their consent is disgusting and wrong, legally and morally. The elderly, in addition to the rest of the population, have a right to privacy in their own homes.
If “Dutiful Daughter” was really concerned about her mother falling, she should have considered a medical alert device, which would have notified family and summoned medical help the moment she fell. This is the safer, legal and common-sense solution.
It sounds like “Dutiful” had other undisclosed reasons for installing a camera. Why did she listen to a conversation that was clearly private? How would she know if her mother fell in another room of the house? If her mother was talking on the phone or visiting with her son, it should have been clear that she was OK and no additional spying was required.
After reading this letter, if children think it is OK to invade their parents’ privacy without their consent, I’m happier than ever to be child-free.
— ANNE P. IN MINNESOTA
DEAR ANNE: To put it mildly, you are not the only reader who disagreed with my answer to that letter. I confess, I didn’t consider the privacy issues that were ignored. Mea culpa.
The first half of the final game of the NFL season was a low-scoring, nearly lifeless affair, but once Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio appeared for his much ballyhooed and endlessly analyzed halftime show, Levi’s Stadium came brilliantly to life.
The Latin trap rapper and charismatic entertainer promised that the Benito Bowl would be a proud celebration of his native Puerto Rico, and boy was it ever!
Dressed in white with a football tucked under his arm, Bad Bunny — who became the first-ever Spanish-language Grammy album of the year winner last Sunday — kept up his February winning streak.
His dazzlingly choreographed performance transformed the field into sugarcane fields (actual people dressed as sugarcane plants) with a casita at the center that Bad Bunny danced on top of, before dramatically falling through the roof. An allegedly real wedding was officiated, and Bad Bunny crowd-surfed, carried the Puerto Rican flag, stopped at coco frio and taco stands, said hello to a pair of sparring boxers, paid tribute to reggaeton stars Daddy Yankee and Don Omar, and packed in portions of 12 songs in just under 13 minutes.
Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
The big-name guest performers — the source of much speculation and wagering beforehand — turned out to be Lady Gaga, who sang her hit “Die With a Smile” wearing a traditional Puerto Rican dress complete with a brooch that looked like the national flower, the flor de maga. Then followed a salsa version of “Monaco” and a surprise appearance by Ricky Martin, the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” Puerto Rican crossover star whose success preceded Bad Bunny’s by a generation.
With Bad Bunny, Martin sang “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” a powerful protest anthem warning people of Puerto Rico so they don’t suffer the same fate as Hawaii.
Fleeting cameo appearances were made by many others — Cardi B., Karol G., Pedro Pascal, Jessica Alba, Alix Earle, and Young Miko among them. Not to mention a cast of what seemed like hundreds of dancers and bit players.
But the focus was on the artist and global cultural powerhouse who brought together the community in Levi’s Stadium, and the ones watching on TV and phone screens around the world.
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
The NFL — and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, which booked the show — was savvy to bring in the most widely streamed musician in the world to attract a youthful, international audience. That, while resisting pressure from the Trump administration and conservative critics who argued that Bad Bunny — an American citizen — was somehow an “un-American choice” to headline the most red, white, and blue sporting event of the year.
As promised, Bad Bunny rapped only in Spanish, so viewers like me who don’t speak the language, were somewhat clueless. But it wasn’t so hard to get the gist of communal solidarity, though. To make it plain for the gringos, a giant video screen spelled out in English the words Bad Bunny used in his Grammy acceptance speech last week: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” underscoring the common humanity of immigrants fighting for freedom and respect.
Bad Bunny, left, performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
While remaining in constant motion, Bad Bunny addressed the crowd in words that translate as: “You’re listening to music from Puerto Rico, from the neighborhoods, from the slums.”
“The reason I’m here,” the former grocery store bagger said, “is because I never stopped believing in myself.”
To the bomba beat of “El Apagon,” Bad Bunny stood atop a utility pole that rose above the faux sugarcane and palm trees. He rapped about the power failures that have plagued the island and which he has insistently called attention to since Hurricane Maria in 2017.
And in that same song — in Spanish — he put into words an ecstatic celebration of his people and Spanish-language culture that joyfully countered the criticism that his being named Super Bowl halftime headliner initiated.
“Now,” he exulted, with scores of dancers aligned behind him, “everybody wants to be Latino.”
Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
He did, however, say three words in English: “God bless America” before listing the nations that make up the continent, starting with Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, and ending, of course, with Puerto Rico.
The stadium-sized pop-punk band Green Day, led by Billie Joe Armstrong who hails from Berkeley, Calif., qualifies as a local band for the Super Bowl being played in Santa Clara, Calif. The band played a fast-paced four-song medley before the game.
Green Day has a long history of speaking out against President Donald Trump. Trump, in return, said he is “anti-them” when asked about the Super Bowl entertainment by the New York Post in January.
At the Super Bowl, however, Armstrong did not sing out in protest. With drummer Tre Cool and bassist Mike Dint, Armstrong banged out condensed versions of hits “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” “Holiday,” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” before getting to the finale of “American Idiot,” the title song to their 2004 album.
Usually when the band gets to the song’s lyric “I’m not part of a redneck agenda,” Armstrong sings “I’m not part of a MAGA agenda,” and at times, he has tweaked it to target Elon Musk.
On Sunday, however, that verse was left out of the song. Instead of a protest, it became a celebration of the big game, with several former Super Bowl MVP players, including Tom Brady, San Francisco 49er local heroes Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Steve Young, and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, joining the band at the front of the stage.
Following Green Day — and after actor Chris Pratt introduced the Seahawks and Jon Bon Jovi did the same for the Patriots — Brandi Carlile sang “America the Beautiful.”
The Washington state native accompanied herself on acoustic guitar and was joined by Sista Strings, the sibling duo of Chauntee (violin) and Monique Ross (cello). It was an understated and effective version by the country and rock singer, who opens her “Human” tour in Philadelphia at the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Tuesday.
Brandi Carlile arrives at the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Earlier in the week at Super Bowl press event, Carlile spoke about being chosen to sing the song. “This is a song about a country, a beautiful country, that ebbs and flows in terms of hope,” she said. “And it’s a work in progress. And the song believes we can get there, and I believe we can get there.”
Central Jersey songwriter and pop star Charlie Puth followed Carlile with a blue-eyed soul version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” joined by a choir for vocal support. Puth’s approach was low-key and perfectly respectable, and not likely to be the subject of much Monday morning water cooler conversation on a night when Bad Bunny took center stage.
Singer-songwriter Coco Jones got the pregame music started with a version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the song that’s come to be known as the “Black national anthem.” Written first as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900, it was then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson. Jones delivered a powerful, emotionally direct version, joined by a string octet.
American ski champ Lindsey Vonn was airlifted off Olympia delle Tofane and was in stable condition following surgery on a broken leg Sunday after crashing during the women’s Alpine skiing event at the Winter Olympics.
Vonn, skiing with a torn ACL she ruptured last month, lost control near the start of the race and crashed after clipping a flag on the course. She was heard screaming after the crash as she was surrounded by medical personnel before she was strapped to a gurney and flown away by helicopter, possibly ending the skier’s storied career.
The race was paused for nearly half an hour, with a stunned crowd watching.
“Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians,” the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team said in a statement Sunday afternoon.
“That definitely was the last thing we wanted to see,” Vonn’s sister, Karin Kildow, said during NBC’s broadcast. “It happened quick. When that happens, you’re just immediately hoping she’s OK. It was scary, because when you start seeing the stretchers being put out, it’s not a good sign.”
“She does have all of her surgeons and her [physical therapy] staff here and her doctors,” Kildow added.
All downhill skiers were required to have smart safety air bags in their racing suits, triggered by motion sensors and GPS data in the event of a crash. Vonn’s air bag inflated during her crash, which may have softened her fall, supplier Dainese told the Associated Press.
Lindsey Vonn the moment she crashed into a gate during an Alpine skiing downhill race at the Olympics.
The 41-year-old underwent a partial knee replacement in April 2024, which rekindled hope of an Olympic return after retiring in 2019. She suffered another setback last month when she ruptured her ACL skiing at the Alpine Ski World Cup in Switzerland.
Fellow Team USA skier Breezy Johnson won gold in the event, her first Olympic medal. But speaking after the national anthem, Johnson’s thoughts were on her teammate.
“It’s devastating,” Johnson said. “It’s not the physical pain — we can deal with physical pain — but the emotional pain is something else. I wish her the best and I hope that this isn’t the end.”
She has some experience in what happened to Vonn. Johnson crashed at Cortina d’Ampezzo and injured her knee, which forced her to miss the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Andorra’s Cande Moreno and Austria’s Nina Ortlieb both also crashed during their runs Sunday. Ortlieb was able to stand up and walk off the course, while Moreno needed to be airlifted.
Tyrese Maxey will compete in the three-point contest on Saturday at All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles, the NBA announced Sunday afternoon.
Maxey, the 76ers’ standout point guard, is one of the NBA’s most dangerous three-point shooters, connecting on 38.2% of his 8.8 attempts per game. That effectiveness from deep has contributed to Maxey entering Sunday ranked sixth in the NBA in scoring at 28.8 points per game.
The three-point contest is part of the All-Star Saturday festivities. The other three-point contest participants are the Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker, the Charlotte Hornets’ Kon Kneuppel, the Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Donovan Mitchell, the Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray, the Milwaukee Bucks’ Bobby Portis, and the Miami Heat’s Norman Powell.
Maxey is also an Eastern Conference starter for the All-Star Game next Sunday. Sixers rookie VJ Edgecombe will play in the Rising Stars competition on Friday.
Noam Chomsky, the Philadelphia-born and educated intellectual, told Jeffrey Epstein to “ignore” negative media attention as the disgraced financier was being accused of abusing women and girls, emails recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice show.
“Noam. I d love your advice on how I handle my putrid press. its is spiraling out of control,” Epstein wrote in an email dated Feb. 23, 2019. Epstein then asked Chomsky if he should “defend myself” or “try to ignore.”
In a response purportedly from Chomsky, the famed linguistics professor advised Epstein “the best way to proceed is to ignore it” and “not to react unless directly questioned.” Chomsky drew parallels to his own experience with “hysterical accusations of all sorts,” writing, “I pay no attention, unless I’m approached for a comment on a specific matter.”
“What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts,” the email said. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”
Chomsky’s wife and spokesperson, Valeria Chomsky, did not immediately respond to an email from The Inquirer seeking comment.
In a statement posted on social media, Valeria Chomsky said the couple was “careless in not thoroughly researching [Epstein’s] background,” calling it a “grave mistake.” She apologized for the couple’s “lapse in judgement.” Noam Chomsky, who is 97, suffered a massive stroke in 2023 and is unable to speak, according to the statement.
On behalf of Valeria & Noam Chomsky I am sharing this letter of Valéria Chomsky.
She writes with total transparency about Noam's stroke, the specific context of their interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, and the deep regret they both carry regarding that “lapse in judgment.”… pic.twitter.com/qdg22p0Y0M
The statement said the couple did not know the extent of the allegations against Epstein until his 2019 arrest, and cautioned that the men’s emails should be “read in context.”
“Epstein created a manipulative narrative about his case, which Noam, in good faith, believed in,” the statement read. “It is now clear that it was all orchestrated, having as, at least, one of Epstein’s intentions to try to have someone like Noam help repair Epstein’s reputation by association.”
Noam Chomsky has appeared in other batches of the Epstein files. In her statement, Valeria Chomsky — whose name and emails were also among the more than three million documents released — said her husband and Epstein were introduced in 2015. When asked in 2023 about his relationship with Epstein by the Wall Street Journal, Noam Chomsky replied, “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.”
Noam Chomsky was born in Philadelphia’s East Oak Lane neighborhood, attended Central High School, and earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Considered the founder of modern linguistics and one of the most cited scholars, he is celebrated for his research and influential political activism.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman said Sunday that he expects the Department of Homeland Security to shut down Friday as negotiations over immigration enforcement have stalled, an outcome that could impact air travel and emergency response across the nation.
“I absolutely would expect that it’s going to shut down,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said during an interview on Fox News’Sunday Morning Futureswith Maria Bartiromo.
Funding for DHS is scheduled to lapse Friday, a deadline that lawmakers set after separating the agency’s funding from other parts of the federal budget and approving a two-week extension to continue talks.
At the center of the impasse is Democrats’ insistence on overhauling federal immigration enforcement. The party’s leaders drafted a list of 10 policies they want Republicans to agree to in exchange for their support in funding DHS, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Among Democrats’ demands are banning immigration enforcement agents from wearing masks and requiring DHS officers to obtain a warrant signed by a judge before entering a home.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) said Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union that “at this point” he was not willing to accept a deal that didn’t include President Donald Trump’s administration implementing Democrats’ full list of ICE changes.
“We know that ICE is completely and totally out of control,” Jeffries said. “They’ve gone way too far, and the American people want them reined in.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) speaks to reporters about Venezuela, the ICE shooting in Minneapolis, and affordability ahead of a vote in the House to extend the Obamacare subsidies for three years at the Capitol on Jan. 8. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“We, the Democrats, we provided 10 kinds of basic things, and then the Republicans pushed back quickly saying, ‘That’s a Christmas wish list,’ and that they’re nonstarters,” Fetterman, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said. “I truly don’t know what specifically are the Democrats’ red lines that it has to be — certainly not going to get all 10.”
Fetterman generally opposes any measure that would shut down the government and has been the only Senate Democrat to vote for some Republican budget proposals. He added that he is concerned about federal workers, including TSA agents, not being paid amid a funding lapse.
“Every American deserves to be paid for the work that they’ve done,” he said. “That’s real lives, and they’re not wealthy if they’re TSA folks. They’re allowing us to fly safe here in America, and that’s part of that conversation now, too.”
Stagecraft and technology being what they are these days, one can imagine any number of ways Peter and the Wolf could be souped up. If the key to audience-building is children, Prokofiev’s children’s classic would seem to be the perfect chance to engage them with eye-popping visuals.
But the Philadelphia Orchestra is smart enough to let the piece speak for itself.
It also knows you don’t mess with success. Saturday morning in Marian Anderson Hall marked the 10th time the orchestra has presented the piece with actor-narrator Michael Boudewyns over nearly two decades, and no one should ever touch a hair on this modest production’s furry little head. In its simplicity and humor, here is one of those rare, perfect things in this world.
The audience applauds for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance of “Peter and the Wolf” Saturday in Marian Anderson Hall.
Saturday’s concert was also, judging from an audience whose ages looked to span from 2 years old to 80, a powerful generational bridge. Surely there were a few grandparents in the hall who remember going to these Philadelphia Orchestra family concerts with Leopold Stokowski on the podium.
The series continues in March with another on-ramp to classical music: Britten’s dazzling The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
Michael Boudewyns narrating “Peter and the Wolf” with conductor Naomi Woo leading the Philadelphia Orchestra, Feb. 7, 2026, in Marian Anderson Hall.
Prokofiev’s piece — which is about to turn 90 years old — can be frightening in some productions: The French horns are as menacing as the fang-bearing wolf they depict. But Boudewyns has a grab bag of tricks so disarming that the scare factor practically disappears.
His props are drawn from household items: The duck is a feather duster, the bird a diaphanous, darting, bright yellow swatch of fabric. Who can’t help but laugh at a gun represented by a toilet plunger? Boudewyns narrates while choreographing the action in response to the changing character of the music and arc of the story. For an audience growing up in the digital thicket, here was a bright clearing. Nothing beats a good story, enticingly told and heightened by a great score.
With a suitcase as the wolf, Michael Boudewyns narrating “Peter and the Wolf” with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Feb. 7, 2026, in Marian Anderson Hall. It was his 10th time performing with work with the orchestra since his first appearance in 2007.
Naomi Woo, the orchestra’s assistant conductor, was visually engaging, leading the work and three others, including a truncated version of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. These concerts are another reminder of the deep bench of talent within the orchestra beyond the principal chairs. In the Prokofiev, that meant Patrick Williams’ glossy flute sound as the bird, clarinetist Samuel Caviezel as the bouncy cat, oboist Peter Smith’s poignant duck, and the appropriately lumbering (but polished) grandfather emanating from the bassoon of Mark Gigliotti.
All deserved special recognition, and Woo gave the players bows, but no orchestra roster was published in the concert’s Playbill (even though the usual lists of board, staff, and oodles of donors were included).
Narrator and actor Michael Boudewyns and conductor Naomi Woo embrace after their performance of “Peter and the Wolf” in Marian Anderson Hall on Saturday.
One of the unspoken truths of all art is that its effect on people is ultimately unknowable. The two children in front of me — one looked to be 3, the other even younger — were ostensibly too small to be there, and yet there’s no way of knowing what they were absorbing. The power of these concerts is in being in the presence of this orchestra, with that incredible sound. No other kind of ensemble has the same impact. And despite all the squirming and low chattering coming from the next row, there was really only one thought to which I kept returning: what lucky children.
The Philadelphia Orchestra, conductor Naomi Woo, and actor Michael Boudewyns perform Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” March 14, 11:30 a.m., Marian Anderson Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets $29-$66. ensembleartsphilly.org, 215-893-1999.
The slow drip of the U.S. government’s still grossly incomplete release of its files on late financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has nonetheless become a who’s who of Planet Earth’s rich and famous — from billionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk to cultural icons like filmmaker Woody Allen and, of course, two presidents.
The average American paying any attention to this global bonfire of the vanities probably barely noticed this name: longtime British politico Peter Mandelson, who most recently served as the U.K.’s ambassador to the United States.
Across the pond, it was another story. The Fleet Street tabloid press went wild over revelations that Mandelson — a key insider in the ruling Labour Party, long known to have been one of Epstein’s globe-trotting pals — maintained his close ties even after the American’s 2008 child prostitution conviction, writing Epstein in 2009 to hail his release from jail as “liberation day.”
But unlike the fallout in the United States, Mandelson’s Epstein problem didn’t end with some embarrassing headlines. Back in September, when an initial batch of Epstein’s emails went public, Prime Minister Keir Starmer — Mandelson’s longtime ally — immediately fired his friend from his ambassador’s post in Washington, D.C., and the scandal has only intensified.
Last week, Scotland Yard investigators raided Mandelson’s two U.K. homes in a reported criminal investigation into whether the government official leaked secret and sensitive financial information to Epstein around the time of the Great Recession in2008. (Headline in the tabloid Sun: “Police rummage through Mandy’s drawers.”)
Meanwhile, Americans watching Britain’s rush to hold a powerful man to account for his unconscionable relationship with modern history’s most notorious sex creep are probably all asking the same thing.
Wait, you can do that?
Paris prosecutors raid the French offices of Elon Musk’s X as part of an investigation into spreading child pornography and deepfakes. https://t.co/YdCYxI8FLA
Here in the land where Epstein sex trafficked scores of underage girls — including the U.S. Virgin Islands hideaway now known as “Rape Island” — the sound of any type of justice or accountability for the financier’s powerful confederates has been an ear-splitting silence.
Since Epstein’s mysterious August 2019 death in a Manhattan federal jail cell, only his longtime companion and procurer of young women, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been criminally charged and convicted, and she has been moved by her longtime friend Donald Trump’s Justice Department to a low-security prison where she reportedly gets special perks.
Most of the corporate CEOs, company or university board members, NFL team owners, scientists, etc., etc., etc., who maintained close Epstein ties even after his 2008 state conviction on lurid crimes with minors have faced no sanctions, or just minor ones. Last week’s news that Brad Karp — chair of the powerful law firm Paul Weiss, already under fire for a controversial deal with Trump to head off a lawsuit with pro bono legal aid — is stepping down over revelations of his Epstein contacts stood out because it was such a rare nod toward accountability among U.S. elites.
This is why the reaction in Europe to Epstein’s close ties with some of its top leaders ought to be a wake-up call for the United States and our own rotten system of justice.
The Epstein accountability party isn’t just breaking out in Great Britain, although our cross-Atlantic ally has led the way ever since the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew was booted from the royal family as allegations mounted that he took part in some of the illegal sexual activities on Epstein’s island.
Images from an undated and redacted document released by the U.S. Department of Justice, show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, leaning over an unidentified person.
Despite the aggressive moves against Mandelson and the ex-royal now called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, some observers think Starmer’s already tottering Labour government could collapse amid questions over what it did know about Mandelson’s Epstein connection, and when it did know it. A pointed headline in the Guardian newspaper bluntly summed up an increasingly prevalent U.K. viewpoint: “Deceit, betrayal and a scandal that demands historic change.”
But the fallout has spread well beyond the British Isles. When it came out that Joanna Rubinstein, a Swedish U.N. official, visited Epstein’s island in 2012, and that Miroslav Lajčák, national security adviser to Slovakia’s prime minister, discussed “gorgeous” girls in emails with the financier, both of them quit their jobs.
Imagine that.
Norway, much like the U.K., has been rocked to its core by revelations that so many of the nation’s elite leaders had Epstein ties. That even includes the nation’s crown princess, Mette-Marit, who had a running, jovial email conversation with Epstein that included such mundane matters as teeth whitening. More seriously, Norway’s economic crimes unit — yes, some countries actually have such a thing — has opened a corruption investigation into former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland’s relationship with the disgraced U.S. moneyman.
There’s more. Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have also announced their own investigations. In particular, Poland is digging into mounting evidence over associations between Epstein and Russian intelligence — an existential matter for a nation that’s been overrun and dominated by its eastern neighbor in the past.
In the United States, officials seem more likely to investigate chemtrails or what happened to Amelia Earhart than conduct a serious probe of whether Trump’s former friend was with the Russians, too.
Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit applaud during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in December.
Rob Ford, a professor at the U.K.’s University of Manchester, told the Associated Press that Europe has “a more functional media, we have a more functional accountability structure, that there is still a degree of shame in politics, in terms of people will say: ‘This is just not acceptable, this is just not done.’”
And that goes beyond Epstein. Also last week, French authorities raided the Paris office of U.S. citizen and world’s richest person Elon Musk’s social media giant X (formerly Twitter) as part of a sweeping probe into the site’s allegedly unlawful data extraction, as well as the recent scandal involving its artificial intelligence platform Grok spreading child sexual abuse material. The U.K. is also investigating Grok.
Musk’s X is, of course, headquartered in San Francisco, but no one expects the FBI to burst into his office — not after the electric vehicle magnate donated a staggering $288 million in 2024 to push Trump back into the White House. (Although California’s Democratic attorney general has begun an investigation.)
The time-lapsed release of the Epstein files hasn’t yet produced a smoking gun concerning his close friendship with Trump, but the fact that lurid tips to federal authorities about the two-time president don’t seem to have been really investigated speaks volumes about the utter lack of elite accountability on this side of the Atlantic.
The true meaning of the Epstein files may be less what it says about any specific sex crime — horrific as those may be — and more what they show about how the most powerful men in this country understood that they can get away with anything.
Indeed, it now feels like the 1970s Watergate scandal that looked at the time like the height of accountability — Richard Nixon was forced to resign the presidency, while 48 of his allies were convicted of crimes — was actually the end. Nixon’s subsequent pardon by Gerald Ford — which emboldened the disgraced ex-POTUS to declare that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal” — was like a bat signal for elites that their brief moment of responsibility for their actions was over.
There were virtually no criminal charges for the economic crime of the 21st century: the Wall Street-driven collapse of the global economic system in 2008. And the lack of justice is bipartisan. Prosecution of white-collar criminals in the United States hit an all-time low under Joe Biden, even before Trump began his obscene spree of pardoning the wealthiest crooks.
Gary Rush, of College Park, Md., holds a sign before a news conference on the Epstein files in front of the Capitol in November.
It was grotesque when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that presidents can’t be prosecuted for crimes that are “official acts,” yet that seemed pretty obvious after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney got away with their illegal torture regime. Who do you think we are, Europe?
If the Epstein scandal “demands historic change,” as the Brits put it, then that change has to be a newfound drive to somehow renew the spirit of ‘74 — as in 1974. The assault on the foundation of American democracy that is the Trump regime — with its billion-dollar White House corruption, brutal and murderous immigration raids, perversions of criminal justice, and much more — won’t be cured just by Republicans losing a couple of elections, assuming free and fair balloting can even take place.
The small-d democratic government that finally ends this nightmare must do the hard work Biden and his miserably failed attorney general, Merrick Garland, did not do the last time. Immigration agents who maim and kill, government officials enriching themselves, and all other crooks — especially those now being exposed in the Epstein files — must be prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison.
Maybe that’s not the American way. But there’s a whole wide world out there that is doing things a lot better.
Born in a puppy mill in Peach Bottom, Lancaster County, Oscar suffered from “failure to thrive,” his breeder said.
By the time the breeder turned the 6-week-old toy poodle over to Phoenix Animal Rescue in Chester County, Oscar weighed just 7 ounces, according to Marta Gambone, a coordinator at the all-volunteer organization.
“But one of our volunteers was able to turn him around, from this scraggly little hamster to this wonderful Puppy Bowl player,” Gambone said.
When Oscar, a toy poodle, was rescued from a puppy mill in Lancaster County, he weighed just 7 ounces. After being nursed back to health, he’s playing in the 2026 Puppy Bowl.
After being nursed back to health, Oscar traveled to Glens Falls, N.Y., to participate in the October 2025 taping of the 22nd annual Puppy Bowl, which airs today before the Super Bowl.
Gambone said the annual event has become a wonderful way to raise awareness for animal rescues across the United States. Every one of the 150 dogs in the competition — between Team Ruff and Team Fluff — comes from a rescue.
Oscar, a toy poodle nursed back to health in Chester County, is one of this year’s Puppy Bowl stars.
Oscar, now 8 months old, has developed into a playful, social, and upbeat young dog who has found a loving home, Gambone said.
Oscar is one of six puppies from Phoenix Animal Rescue in the annual TV special this year, Gambone said. Jill, an 8-month-old Cavalier, was suffering from a hernia when she was turned over by a breeder in New Holland, Lancaster County.
The rescue also has four dogs participating in this year’s first-ever “Oldies vs. Goldies” senior dogs’ competition: Tiki, a Shiba Inu; Starlight, a Jack Russell terrier; Daisy, a Pomeranian; and Emmie, a Maltese mix.
Tiki, a Shiba Inu, is in this year’s “Oldies vs. Goldies” senior dog competition.
They all came from breeders in Lancaster County and were in need of care, Gambone said, “and now they’re all playing on a national stage, and getting lots of attention, and finding their forever homes.”
Though all of this year’s stars have since been adopted, Gambone noted that the rescue gets about a dozen dogs per week, across a wide variety of breeds and mixes.
“Anybody looking can find what they’re looking for if they have a little patience,” she said.
Carrie Pawshaw sits for a portrait. Pawshaw, a rescue dog from the Pittsburgh region, competed in the 2026 Puppy Bowl.
Across the state in Springdale, Allegheny County, Jacqueline Armour said it’s the third year that some of her rescue dogs are playing in the Puppy Bowl.
She founded Paws Across Pittsburgh, a rescue that places dogs with foster parents until they find permanent homes. The dogs come from owners and shelters from as far away as West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
This year, a playful Jack Russell mix named Meeko is their star, along with a Norwegian elkhound and American Eskimo dog mix named for Sarah Jessica Parker’s character in the TV show Sex and the City.
“They pick some of them and rename them,” Armour explained, “so initially I thought they were going to call her Sarah Jessica Barker. And then they said Carrie Pawshaw.”
Armour noted that, because her organization uses foster homes, their puppies are already learning how to live in a home — getting house-trained and crate-trained, and learning how to get along with children and other pets. This also gives volunteers a chance to see the dogs’ personalities, which can be helpful in matching a dog with an owner.
Both Armour and Gambone emphasized that rescue operations offer a variety of ways for volunteers to help out.
For those who’ve never owned a dog, Armour said the experience can be profound. The medical community consensus is that having a dog can help people get more exercise, improve mental health, and lower blood pressure, and can help children learn how to properly treat an animal.
In Chester County, Gambone said she’s seen firsthand how dogs can add vitality to someone’s life.
“They help with loneliness, and on the physical side, they help people stay more active,” she said. “We have so many senior citizens coming to us saying, ‘I just need something — something to love.’ And it changes their lives.”
