Epstein sought to restore his reputation after guilty plea, documents reveal

Documents include emails depicting coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists

Jeffrey Epstein and his associates worked to suppress negative press and rebuild his image in the years after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, newly released documents reveal.

The documents, among 20,000 pages released on Wednesday by Republican members of the House oversight committee, include emails and memos that depict a coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists, and restore Epstein’s reputation.

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National parks facing ‘nightmare’ under Trump, warns ex-director of service

Jonathan Jarvis, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017, laid out the dire consequences of not closing parks in shutdown

Americans should “raise hell” to protect US national parks through the “nightmare” of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown.

Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency is now in the hands of a “bunch of ideologues” who would have no issue watching it “go down in flames” – and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential “cash cows”, ripe for privatization.

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Venezuela’s Maduro urges Trump to avoid Afghanistan-style ‘forever war’

Authoritarian leader calls for US to make peace amid military buildup and strikes against alleged drug smugglers

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”.

Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region.

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The great escape: seal flees killer whales by jumping on to photographer’s boat

Charvet Drucker captures dramatic video and photos of seal being hunted by orcas in Salish Sea, north-west of Seattle

A wildlife photographer on a whale-watching trip in waters off Seattle captured dramatic video and photos of a pod of killer whales hunting a seal that survived only by clambering on to the stern of her boat.

Charvet Drucker was on a rented 20ft (6 metre) boat near her home on an island in the Salish Sea about 40 miles north-west of Seattle when she spotted a pod of at least eight killer whales, also known as orcas.

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Florida kills man on death row in state’s 16th execution this year

Bryan Frederick Jennings, convicted over rape and murder of young girl in 1979, given three-drug lethal injection

A man found guilty in the 1979 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl was executed in Florida on Thursday.

Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6.20pm local time after being administered a three-drug lethal injection. Jennings was sentenced to death for the killing of Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in a canal, according to reports.

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Donald Trump pardons UK billionaire and former Tottenham owner Joe Lewis

Lewis was fined $5m and given three years probation by New York judge over ‘brazen’ insider trading scheme

Joe Lewis, the British billionaire and former owner of Tottenham Hotspur FC, has been pardoned by Donald Trump over a 2024 conviction for his part in a “brazen” insider trading scheme.

Lewis, 88, was fined $5m (£3.8m) and given three years probation by a New York judge last year but was spared jail time after pleading guilty to involvement in a plan that prosecutors said was designed to enrich his friends, lovers and employees.

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Democrat Eric Swalwell faces federal criminal inquiry for alleged mortgage fraud

Latest target of Trump’s retribution campaign says ‘only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long’

The Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell is the latest target of Trump’s retribution campaign against his critics, the congressman confirmed on Thursday.

NBC News reports that Swalwell is facing a federal criminal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud, just as three other Democratic officials have faced in recent months. The outlet says the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the attorney general claiming Swalwell may have committed mortgage and tax fraud.

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Serbia secretly agreed deal with Jared Kushner firm to develop protected Belgrade site

Government established joint venture with Trump’s son-in-law in February 2024 to build hotel, apartments and museum complex

The Serbian government has established a joint venture with a property development company owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to develop a hotel complex in Belgrade, giving Serbia until next May to demolish the existing buildings, according to leaked documents.

An independent Serbian news magazine, Radar, published what appears to be a 2024 investment agreement giving Kushner’s firm Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC a 77.5% stake in the joint venture, and the Serbian government a 22.5% stake.

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Tenured professor sues University of Kentucky for banning him from law school over comments on Israel

Exclusive: Ramsi Woodcock, who calls for an ‘end’ to Israel and military intervention against it, says the university violated his first amendment rights

A tenured law professor sued the University of Kentucky on Thursday after he was banned from teaching and from the law school for comments he made about Israel, including characterizations of the state as a “colonization project” and calls for the world to wage war against it.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, Ramsi Woodcock, an antitrust law scholar, argued that the public university violated his first amendment and due process rights when it abruptly placed him under investigation in July, just days after he was promoted to full professor, over allegations that he violated university policy – including anti-discrimination rules that incorporate a widely disputed definition of antisemitism.

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US government reopens after shutdown with House to vote on Epstein files next week – politics live

Even if bill passes the House, it will still need to get through the Senate before files can be released

After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and the minority party won no concessions from the party in power, writes Guardian US’ senior politics reporter Chris Stein in this analysis piece:

The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. You can see how lawmakers voted via this interactive:

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Latest Epstein emails cast further doubt on Andrew’s claim of cutting ties

Messages sent months after former prince said he ended relations and also appear to confirm Virginia Giuffre photo

Newly released Jeffrey Epstein emails have cast further doubt on Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s account of when he cut ties with the child sex offender and his denials about meeting his accuser Virginia Giuffre.

In March 2011, four months after he later claimed to have ended his relationship with Epstein, the former prince told him and the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “I can’t take any more of this” in response to allegations put forward by the Mail on Sunday.

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Democrats sift through shutdown’s ashes after resistance finally breached

After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and minority party won no concessions from party in power

More than 42 days ago, beleaguered congressional Democrats employed a tactic they were not known for using – refusing to fund the government unless their demands, in this case, an extension of tax credits that lowered costs for Affordable Care Act health plans, were met.

Fast forward to Wednesday evening, and the federal government is back open, the Democrats’ resistance breached by the combined forces of Congress’s Republican majorities and a splinter group of Democratic senators who provided just enough votes to get a funding bill past the chamber’s filibuster.

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House passes funding bill to end US shutdown – see how lawmakers voted

Bill passes House with with 222 in favor and 209 against. Here’s how Republicans and Democrats voted

The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night.

The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted toforego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse. The bill extends government funding at current levels through January. Three year-long provisions, which fund programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the USDA and FDA, and legislative branch operations, are also included.

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Stakes rise as Trump deploys world’s largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean

Expert says military action may be ‘imminent’ in Venezuela, while others suspect deployment is a negotiating tactic

When Donald Trump started sending warships, marines and reaper drones to the Caribbean in August to torment Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, the US’s former ambassador in Caracas, James Story, suspected the deployment was largely for show: a spectacular flexing of military muscle supposed to force the authoritarian leader from power.

But in recent days, as the world’s largest aircraft carrier and its strike group powered towards the region and the US president continued to order deadly airstrikes on alleged narco-boats, the diplomat’s thinking has shifted.

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Republican disquiet over hemp ban threatens passage of bill to end shutdown

Kentucky trio oppose provision restricting hemp-derived products, with House to vote on Wednesday on funding bill

A last-minute provision in the federal spending bill heavily restricting hemp-derived products such as CBD and THC drinks could lead some Republicans to vote against the spending bill which, if passed, could end the government shutdown as early as Wednesday.

Kentucky is one of the largest producers of hemp in the country, and Republicans in the state have shown strong support for the hemp industry. Jonathan Miller, an advocate for the hemp industry and former Kentucky state treasurer, said that “Kentucky is really ground zero for the rebirth of hemp” – a niche industry until the 2018 farm bill allowed a much wider variety of legal products.

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Actor Allison Mack reveals role in Nxivm sex cult in new podcast: ‘I was abusive’

Smallville actor, released from prison two years ago, tells how she helped coerce women for cult leader Keith Raniere

The Smallville actor Allison Mack says she was once riveted by the influence she wielded through her role in the Nxivm sex cult – though it eventually sent her to federal prison, and she now realizes it was “abusive”.

“I was excited by the power that I felt having these young, beautiful women look to me and listen to me,” Mack, 43, maintains in a new podcast series titled Allison After Nxivm, which contains her first public remarks since her release from prison about two years ago. “And – yes – the sexuality of it was exciting.”

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Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds

Human rights groups accuse Trump officials of complicity and draw comparison with scandal at Abu Ghraib prison

More than 252 Venezuelans expelled to El Salvador under Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy suffered systematic and prolonged torture and abuse, including sexual assault, during their detention, according to a report published on Wednesday.

The report, compiled jointly by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Cristosal – a group investigating violations in Central America – says conditions at El Salvador’s sprawling “terrorist continent center” (Cecot) breached the UN’s standard minimal rules for the treatment of prisoners. It cites “inhumane prison conditions, including prolonged incommunicado detention, inadequate food” and other shortcomings.

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US House to vote on bill that could end longest-ever government shutdown

Democrats have vowed to vote against the proposal after a faction of Senators broke with party to pass a compromise

The House on Wednesday was poised to vote on legislation that would end the longest government shutdown in US history, as Democrats voice fury that the Senate-brokered compromise fails to extend expiring healthcare subsidies.

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has instructed lawmakers to return to Washington after keeping the chamber out of session for more than 50 days.

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John F Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg announces run for US House seat

Schlossberg has drummed up a large following on social media with frequent posts weighing in on national issues

John F Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg has said he will run for the US House next year, announcing Tuesday that he was seeking a key New York seat set to be vacated by longtime Democrat Jerry Nadler.

“This district should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington,” Schlossberg said in a campaign video posted on social media late Tuesday.

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Supply boom in cheaper renewables will seal end of fossil fuel era, says IEA

Watchdog’s flagship report says rise in low-carbon electricity will make transition ‘inevitable’, despite Trump’s calls to carry on drilling

Renewables will grow faster than any major energy source in the next decade, according to the world’s energy watchdog, making the transition away from fossil fuels “inevitable”, despite a green backlash in the US and parts of Europe.

The world is expected to build more renewable energy projects in the next five years than has been rolled out over the last 40, according to the flagship annual report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

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