A federal judge in the United States has denied a request by the Department of Justice to release grand jury testimony from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case, citing Epstein’s government’s extensive source material.
A judge overseeing the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the deceased sex offender’s former girlfriend, and a key player in his web of abuse, issued a similar decision on Wednesday.
In his opinion, Berman argued that the grand jury transcripts “pales in comparison to the Department of Justice’s Epstein investigative information and materials.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has remained subject to intense scrutiny for its handling of child sex abuser and disgraced financier, with whom Trump had a long and close relationship.
The Epstein grand jury was called by a federal law enforcement agent without “direct knowledge of the facts of the case,” according to the New York judge on Wednesday. A phone log and a PowerPoint presentation were included in the case, according to Berman, which would both remain secret.
While several members of the Trump administration have long been involved in Epstein-related conspiracies and have pledged to release all available information before entering the White House, Trump has publicly reacted to questions about the government’s unwillingness to do so.
After the Justice Department announced last month that it would not release more information about an alleged “Epstein file” involving the sex offender’s clients and associates, it grew even more critical. Several US media outlets reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi informed him that his name was on the list.
To celebrate the start of the group’s new year, participants in the Bulgarian spiritual movement Universal White Brotherhood sang and performed a meditative dance called “paneurhythmy” to welcome the group’s new year.
A brutal civil war is raging in its third year, and the United States-led mediators have urged the parties involved to take immediate action to protect civilians. They have expressed their “appalled” by the continuously deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan.
The United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, among others, are among the mediators referred to as the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group.
The ALPS group repeatedly demands that international humanitarian law be upheld in full. The ALPS Group said in a statement on Wednesday that this includes the obligations to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, their properties and assets, as well as to facilitate quick and unhinged humanitarian access to all those in need.
The group expressed shock at “the wide range of access impediments that are delaying or blocking the response in key areas, as well as the growing number of people in situations of severe malnutrition and famine.”
The North Darfur and Kordofan regions, respectively, were given particular urgency in the statement.
The statement read, “Civilians continue to pay the highest price for this war.”
Since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) started fighting in April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by conflict and hunger.
The army is in effect divided into two parts, with the RSF occupying almost all of Darfur and some of the south, while the army is in charge of Sudan’s north, east, and center.
According to the United Nations, nearly 25 million people in Sudan are in dire need of lifesaving aid.
The UAE has been accused of supporting the RSF, including by sending weapons, a practice it defame vehemently.
Washington, DC – A new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests that most Americans support the state of Palestine despite the decline in public support for Israel in the wake of the atrocities in Gaza.
The majority of respondents also claimed that Israel’s military response to Gaza was excessive.
4 446 US adults were quizzed during the survey’s release on Wednesday.
The statement that “Palestine should be recognized as a country by all UN members should be accepted by fifty-eight percent of respondents agrees with it.” Democrats now account for 78 percent of the vote, up from Republicans who make up 41%.
Surprisingly, 77 percent of Democratic respondents concurred that “Israel should be recognized as a country by all UN members.”
Leading rights organizations have referred to Israel’s campaign of destruction, starvation, and displacement in Gaza as a genocide as the world grows in fury.
At the UN General Assembly in the coming months, several US allies have stated that they will recognize Palestine as a state.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has rejected international pressures to recognize a Palestinian state and criticized the actions as pointless.
The majority of nations have recognized Palestine already. How the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, the two territories that would make up a Palestinian state, would be impacted by further recognition by Western nations.
Sanctions and an arms embargo have been a constant request from human rights advocates for the international community to impose serious sanctions on Israel for its abuses of Palestinians.
Israel is continuing its push to seize Gaza City despite protests from European nations, an assault that could result in the displacement of tens of thousands of people and the destruction of what was once Palestine’s largest city.
In violation of international law, Israel is still increasing military and settler attacks in the West Bank while constructing more settlements.
In an effort to oust the possibility of a Palestinian state, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich celebrated the recently announced plan for 3,400 illegal Israeli housing units between Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
According to the Times of Israel, “the Palestinian state is being removed from the table not by slogans but by deeds,” according to Smotrich. Every settlement, every neighborhood, and every housing unit are just another example of how dangerous this idea is.
The International Court of Justice ruled last year that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including Gaza and the West Bank, needs to end “as soon as possible” due to its unlawful presence there.
Israel is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the occupying country from allowing “parts of its own civilian population” to enter the territory it occupies.
As Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories gets further entangled, successive US administrations have verbally supported the two-state solution.
Trump, a steadfast supporter of Israel, has gone against conventional wisdom and has criticized the expansion of settlements.
The US public has remained hostile toward Israel, though.
As Hamed Abu Zerka stands next to his six-month-old daughter’s hospital bed, the fluorescent lights of Adana City Training and Research Hospital cast a harsh shadow over his gaunt face.
As he adjusts Habiba’s blanket, the 34-year-old’s weathered hands tremble.
As Israel laid siege on Gaza, Abdullah, his four-and-a-half-year-old son, passed away on Tuesday morning in this same room, his small, unweight body finally succumbing to malnutrition.
When a video of Abdullah, the clearly malnourished child screaming in hunger and begging for food as his mother wept helplessly, went viral, the family became symbols of the Israel-imposed famine that impacted Gaza’s 2.1 million people.
Their story attracted the attention of the world, which led to the medical evacuation that appeared to be a miracle but arrived too late for Abdullah.
Basma Abu Zerka, 30, is seated in a corner and carries a small amount of her son’s clothing. She silently sobs and speaks little.
“We lost the child,” he said. Hamed speaks in a raw voice, “living through tremendous pain.”
Hamed blatantly describes the agony of watching his children go unnoticed.
His voice screams as he recalls how impossible it was to find a single tomato in Gaza’s final weeks.
“There isn’t even clean drinking water there,” the statement read. There are falling bombs, hunger, and death all over.
Hamed keeps his eyes on his daughter, “Abdullah and Habiba needed urgent treatment.”
They “weren’t getting any smaller or weaker every day.”
Turkish officials worked diplomatically to evict the family from Turkiye as part of a humanitarian initiative funded by the Foreign Ministry.
However, Abdullah’s failing body couldn’t afford the lengthy process.
Turkish authorities contacted us and stayed with us until we arrived, Hamed claims.
“We thank everyone who helped us,” we say. However, we arrived with infants who already possessed ghosts of their own.
Both children had previously left Gaza on a flight to Adana. Abdullah likely had no idea of the journey because she was only just getting started. Habiba, who is younger and more resilient, wept lukewarm during takeoff.
Medical conflict with time
Medical staff at Adana Hospital recognized the severity of the children’s conditions.
Abdullah arrived with serious complications brought on by prolonged malnourishment, including organ dysfunction, immune system collapse, and developmental delays that spanned months of inadequate nutrition.
Bekir mer Fansa/Anadolu Agency with Basma Abu Zerka and Habiba in a hospital bed.
Although the Abu Zerka siblings’ conditions shocked even the most experienced medical staff, the hospital’s chief of paediatric intensive care treated numerous children who had been evacuated from conflict-stricken areas.
He explains that “these kids frequently arrive with damage that has been growing for months.”
Medical teams monitored Abdullah’s vital organs while working around the clock to save him, putting together specialized nutrition therapy, treating severe dehydration, and keeping an eye on their vital organs.
The boy’s body, which had been suffering for months, was unable to eat.
Nurse Ayse Demir, who had a final relationship with Abdullah, recalls that he was “so small.” We couldn’t undo what months of starvation had done to his tiny body, according to the statement from the manufacturer.
According to the UN, over 90% of Gaza’s population is severely undernourished, with children particularly vulnerable to malnutrition-related complications.
Defending Habiba
Habiba, age six, battles her brother’s battle and loses.
Her small frame, which is visible under translucent skin, arms like twigs, and eyes that seem too large for her face, alludes to the story of persistent hunger.
Her recovery prospects are cautiously optimistic, with doctors noting that her younger age may have protected her from some of the more serious complications.
Her parents keep a vigil that combines mourning and hope, with her parents sleuthing as she sleeps in chairs next to her bed and consuming hospital meals while reliving her Gaza-bound family meals.
The couple is unsure of what will follow. Their ability to return to Gaza depends on Habiba’s recovery and the state of their respective countries. They must process their loss while being far removed from extended families, cultural customs, and the familiarity that typically brings them comfort during a time of mourning.
Locals who had never met the child but who understood the language of parental loss attended the quiet ceremony where Abdullah was laid in the Gulbahcesi neighborhood cemetery in Adana.
Turkish neighbors respectfully sat next to the grieving family as Imam Mehmet Tasci led the prayers in Arabic.
Hamed says, “We buried our son in a foreign land,” completely deafening. He “should have spent his entire life playing with neighborhood kids, learning from his grandmother’s prayers, and running through Gaza’s streets.” His grave is located thousands of kilometers away from everyone who ought to have watched him grow.
The Palestinian family receives meals and emotional support from neighborhood mosque leaders and Turkish families, both of whom have established ongoing relationships with them.
Survival costs are high.
People ask when we’ll return home, Hamed says. “But how do you go back to a place where you watched your kids gobble up?” How do you return to the rooms where your son cried for food that was unavailable?
Since the start of the conflict, Turkiye has been one of the most active nations for facilitating medical evacuations for Gaza patients. Since then, hundreds of Palestinians have been treated in Turkish hospitals.
However, according to the World Health Organization, only a small percentage of Gaza residents who needed medical evacuation have been allowed to leave.
Abdullah Abu Zerka spent four and a half years living, the majority of it during World War II. His parents are grieving his loss today while attempting to save the child who is still alive.
Strong winds have hampered efforts to contain unremitting wildfires that continue to spread in Spain despite lower temperatures, as the death toll in Portugal has climbed to three people after a man was killed while helping fight fires there along the Iberian Peninsula.
Firefighters, backed by troops and water-dropping aircraft, were battling 21 blazes in western Spain classified as “operational level two”, meaning they pose a direct threat to nearby communities, said Virginia Barcones, director general of emergency services on Wednesday.
“Temperatures have dropped, but strong gusts of wind continue to hinder firefighting efforts, and the lack of rain is not helping, though we hope that changes in the coming days,” she told a news conference.
Forecasters said winds were expected to ease later in the day, with higher humidity levels likely to help efforts. Rain was forecast in some fire-hit regions on Thursday.
Spain endured a 16-day heatwave that ended Monday, with temperatures having soared above 40 degrees Celsius (104F) in many regions. The heat-fuelled wildfires have killed four people.
Train service between Madrid and the northwestern region of Galicia – suspended on August 14 – would resume because “tracks are now safe”, railway operator Adif said.
The wildfires “are being gradually brought under control,” said Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from the Galicia region at the site of “a controlled fire that was deliberately set alight by firefighters here,” which is done “to try to get the fire to change direction, to avoid it causing even more damage.”
Earlier in the day, firefighters “set the fire and then used the wind, which was blowing in the opposite direction to where the crops were and the wood, in order to direct those blazes and for it to extinguish itself naturally,” said Gallego.
“Because one of the reasons these wildfires have been extremely serious this year is there have been very strong winds coupled with record-breaking heatwaves.”
Officials said many of the fires were sparked by lightning during dry storms, though arson is suspected in some cases.
Aircraft from Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have joined the firefighting effort.
Germany sent 60 firefighters and 24 vehicles, France deployed 66 firefighters and 23 vehicles, while Finland sent 26 firefighters.
Nearly 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) have burned in Spain this year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), surpassing the previous record of 306,000 hectares (756,000 acres) in 2022, the worst season since records began in 2006.
In Portugal, a man died in an accident involving construction equipment being used to contain the flames. He had worked for a company hired to help the northern municipality of Mirandela fight the fires, commander Paulo Santos of the National Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) told the AFP news agency.
Approximately 15 people were also injured in Portugal – one critically – while fighting fires Tuesday near the central city of Sabugal, where two water-bombing aeroplanes sent by Sweden through the European Union’s civil protection agency were deployed.
Crews were still battling four large fires on Wednesday morning, the most complex of which were raging in the north and centre of the country.
More than 2,600 firefighters have been deployed, supported by about 20 aircraft.
Since the start of the year, more than 261,000 hectares (645,000 acres) in Portugal have been destroyed by fires, according to the EFFIS, compared with 143,000 hectares (353,000 acres) in 2024.
