Great Orion Nebula

Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion molecular cloud complex, some 1,500 light-years away. This detailed view spans about 12 degrees across the center of the well-known constellation, with the Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star-forming region, visible toward the lower right. The deep mosaic also includes, near the top center, the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula. Image data acquired with a hydrogen-alpha filter adds other remarkable features to this wide-angle cosmic vista: pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and portions of the surrounding Barnard's Loop. While the Orion Nebula and many stars in Orion are easy to see with the unaided eye, emission from the extensive interstellar gas is faint and much harder to record, even in telescopic views of the nebula-rich complex.

Could be the big winner........

Why California could be the big winner as EPA abandons climate policy

The federal government is walking away from its tailpipe emissions rules, sparking a legal debate over whether states can now write their own standards.

By Alex Nieves

The Trump administration just tore apart decades of U.S. climate policy, but it may have also handed California its golden ticket.

EPA’s decision last week to nix the so-called endangerment finding — the Obama-era ruling that underpinned the federal government’s authority to develop climate policy — gives car and truck makers free rein to build models without consideration of greenhouse gases.

That’s a major blow for California Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’ve hitched their climate ambitions to manufacturers offering more electric vehicles and to drivers adopting the still-maturing technology en masse. (The transportation sector accounts for roughly half of California’s carbon emissions, state officials estimate.)

The move tees up a conservative Supreme Court to overturn its 2007 decision affirming EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. While unwinding Massachusetts v. EPA would represent a monumental reversal of U.S. policy, some legal experts argue it could hand state regulators newfound power to fill the void.

That’s because states are preempted from setting their own tailpipe standards — a restriction that becomes hard to defend if the federal government bows out of the emissions game.

“If that happens, then EPA lacks any authority to issue standards, including under a new administration,” said Ann Carlson, who led the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under former President Joe Biden. “That would leave states as the natural locus for regulatory power.”

That would be paradigm shifting for California air regulators, who in June watched congressional Republicans revoke the EPA waiver that gave the state power to set stricter-than-federal tailpipe rules. A world without the endangerment finding could make the politically fraught task of seeking federal approval a hurdle of the past.

Trump’s EPA is trying to head off that legal reasoning. The agency’s official repeal argues that states are still preempted from developing laws or regulations that “adopt or attempt to enforce any standard relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles or engines.”

“These ‘legal experts’ should read the Clean Air Act before engaging in scare tactics designed to perpetuate unlawful regulations,” EPA spokespeople said in a statement Tuesday.

The question is whether that language would hold up to judicial scrutiny. Carlson said nothing is certain given the makeup of the Supreme Court, but California has a fighting chance.

“The federal government is trying to argue that states are preempted, but they’re also arguing that the Clean Air Act doesn’t give them the power to regulate greenhouse gases from cars and trucks,” Carlson said. “That seems like an argument that is inconsistent on its face.”

The question now is whether California and the blue states that have historically followed its lead on auto policy will put the legal theory to the test.

Newsom and state air regulators aren’t talking about the go-it-alone tactic as an option yet. Spokespeople for Newsom’s office declined to answer whether his administration is exploring the idea, instead pointing to the governor’s statement last week that California will sue to stop the endangerment finding rollback.

But prominent state lawmakers say the strategy is already being discussed inside the Capitol.

“Absolutely, this has been the topic of conversation,” Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, chair of the Utilities and Energy Committee, said during a press briefing last week. “There is, I think, a certain irony that in the revocation of the endangerment finding, it actually could provide California with more latitude and more direct responsibility.”

“Yes, this is definitely a conversation, so stay tuned,” she added.

That’s a debate the auto industry wants to avoid. While major car companies lobbied Congress to revoke California’s EV sales mandate last year, they stopped short of advocating against the endangerment finding and didn’t explicitly praise the repeal last week.

“The auto industry in America remains focused on preserving vehicle choice for consumers, keeping the industry competitive, and staying on a long-term path of emissions reductions and cleaner vehicles,” said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents most major automakers.

The auto industry — which has long advocated for unified regulations across the United States — now could face a scenario where it’s not only easier for California to issue tailpipe rules, but states like New York or Illinois could also create their own patchwork of standards.

“They got more than what they asked for,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights for Cox Automotive.

Acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders

DOJ acknowledges violating dozens of recent court orders in New Jersey

The self-assessment came amid rising concern among judges managing a flood of immigration cases.

By Kyle Cheney

The Trump administration acknowledged violating court orders issued by New Jersey’s federal judges more than 50 times over the past 10 weeks in cases stemming from the Trump administration’s mass deportation push.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Jordan Fox, who was tapped in December to help lead the Justice Department’s New Jersey office after temporary pick Alina Habba was forced out, said those violations were spread across more than 547 immigration cases that have flooded the courts since early December, straining both prosecutors and judges.

The violations include a deportation to Peru that occurred in violation of a judge’s injunction, as well as three missed deadlines to release ICE detainees.

There were also six missed deadlines to respond to court orders, 12 missed deadlines to provide bond hearings to ICE detainees, 17 out-of-state transfers after judges had issued no-transfer orders, three instances of imposing release conditions in violation of court prohibitions and 10 instances of failing to produce evidence demanded by courts.

“We regret deeply all violations for which our Office is responsible. Those violations were unintentional and immediately rectified once we learned of them,” Fox wrote in a letter accompanying the report. “We believe that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] violations were also unintentional.”

Fox’s conciliatory approach stood in stark contrast with previous statements from the Justice Department and ICE that have blamed “rogue judges” for the administration’s noncompliance.

DOJ produced the catalog of violations in response to an order by U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz.

Farbiarz’s concerns mirror similar alarms raised by judges across the country who have described increasingly frequent violations of their edicts by administration officials carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation surge.

Judges in Minnesota recently assessed that the administration violated 94 court orders in January. And judges across the country have described “rampant” and “purposeful” violations of their orders.

Farbiarz praised the thoroughness of Fox’s report but said its conclusions were alarming, especially upon a closer inspection of the math.

“The sworn materials show that this case is not fully an outlier,” he wrote. “Judicial orders should never be violated.”

Farbiarz ordered the administration to follow up by Feb. 25 with a detailed plan for how it intends to fix its recent burst of violations, particularly given Fox’s assertion that the errors were a result of by sky-high caseloads caused by the mass deportation push.

“If this is an accurate diagnosis of the issue,” the judge said, “it will be important for the Court to understand the across-the-board administrative steps the Respondents are taking to ensure 100% compliance with judicial orders.

NATO Black Sea mission

Romania calls for NATO Black Sea mission

The plea comes as Romania faces mounting aerial and maritime security threats from Russia, Defense Minister Radu Miruță says.

By Victor Jack

NATO should shift counter-drone equipment, radars and air defense missiles to the Black Sea as part of a new allied mission to deter Russia, Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruță told POLITICO.

“The Black Sea is … where the Russians are having a huge interest,” he said in an interview at the margins of the Munich Security Conference. “It’s a sea that should be protected, and it's a sea where Romania is very interested [for NATO] to offer protection.”

Last year, NATO launched two missions aimed at tackling growing subsea cable-cutting incidents and bolstering the alliance’s vulnerable air defenses, dubbed Baltic Sentry and Eastern Sentry. Last week, it also launched Arctic Sentry — largely to placate Donald Trump after he threatened to annex Greenland, in part citing security threats to the island.

The alliance should now launch a similar Black Sea Sentry scheme, Miruță said, as Bucharest struggles to respond to Russia’s drone warfare in neighboring Ukraine. 

In response to the call, a NATO official told POLITICO that the alliance would “continue to adapt” its Eastern Sentry mission in response to “reckless violations of ... airspace including in Romania.” NATO is “working with Romania to strengthen this line of effort even further,” they added.

The country, which shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine, has seen over a dozen drone incursions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In response, Bucharest last year changed its laws on downing drones, shifted troops to the border and bought a new American Merops anti-drone system — but the violations are continuing.

“We are seeing drones coming over the Black Sea to Ukraine,” Miruță said, and “activity … is increasing ... It’s difficult to scan 24 hours per day this entire land. We are scanning everything, but we are focusing our resources especially in the areas where the population is living.”

Given that Ukraine lies on the other bank of the Danube River from Romania, that makes it “difficult for the Romanian army to decide if a drone that is coming ... will stop there or not.”

There are also broader merits to a Black Sea mission.

While NATO’s Eastern Sentry already ostensibly covers Romania’s airspace, the Russian threat extends beyond aerial incursions to the sea as well, according to Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the Bucharest-based GlobalFocus Center security think tank.

Moscow’s presence in the Black Sea is exposing a “huge deficit” in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, she said. Meanwhile, Romania’s Neptun Deep gas project, which is set to come online next year, raises the “increasing prospect of hybrid activity” by Russia, she said.

As a result, “we … need to be prepared for any sort of acts of sabotage,” Popescu-Zamfir said, as well as GPS jamming and suspicious behavior from Russian vessels. In response, NATO could deploy underwater drones, enhance satellite detection and centralize its monitoring of the region.

That's a call Miruță is backing. “I'm asking with my entire voice to have a fair distribution over the entire eastern flank from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea,” he said, arguing a Black Sea Sentry program could involve shifting more “counter drones, radars, air missiles” and other allied equipment to the area.

However, some NATO allies are skeptical, worrying that the idea may stretch resources. “Due to the overstretched force model I do not see a strong appetite for it,” said one NATO diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive matter.

But for Miruță, it's a question of burden sharing. “There are some resources concentrated in the Baltic Sea … but it's also needed in the Black Sea,” he said, “so let's distribute in a fair way the resources in between these two points.”

Anti-Trump trade club

Carney offers to ‘broker a bridge’ to build giant anti-Trump trade club

The Canadian PM responded to questions about POLITICO’s reporting that Ottawa is spearheading conversations between the EU and an Indo-Pacific trade bloc.

By Graham Lanktree

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has offered to “broker a bridge” between the European Union and a fast-growing Indo-Pacific trade bloc this year to form a new anti-Trump trade pact.

Carney was responding to questions on Tuesday about POLITICO’s reporting that Ottawa is spearheading conversations between the EU and nations in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

“We can help broker a bridge between the two,” Carney said during a press conference as he unveiled Canada’s defense industrial strategy in Montreal.

“It's the opportunity to have a rules-based trading bloc of one and a half billion people with complementary economies, and also provides a basis potentially for further expansion out of that,” the prime minister said.

The CPTPP trade bloc includes Canada, the U.K., Japan, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and other Pacific nations.

The plans would bring nearly 40 nations on opposite sides of the globe closer together to reach a deal on so-called rules of origin. These rules determine the economic nationality of a product.

A deal would allow manufacturers throughout the two blocs to trade goods and their parts more seamlessly in a low-tariff process known as cumulation.

Carney said Canada is “in a unique position” to push talks forward with the 27 nations of the EU as it’s both a member of CPTPP and has the CETA trade deal with Brussels.

“We're not alone in this idea. It's one of the first conversations I had with the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand — like-minded countries who see the merits in developing this,” Carney said, citing a “series of conversations” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa and several CPTPP leaders about it.

Carney spoke with Keir Starmer about the talks on Monday, according to a read-out of their call.

“Stronger ties between the EU and CPTPP members will strengthen supply chains, unlock new opportunities for Canadian businesses, and reinforce a rules-based trading system,” wrote Canada's International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu on Monday. “Canada is proud to be at the centre of this momentum.”

Nice when the pope says fuck you...

Pope snubs Trump’s Gaza peace board 

The pontiff, who has criticized the U.S. president, believes the United Nations should manage international crises, his top diplomat says.

By Tom Foley

Pope Leo will not participate in U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza due to concerns it seeks to undermine the United Nations. 

The Holy See received an invitation to join the board in late January but declined “because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” said Vatican top diplomat Pietro Parolin, outside a meeting with the Italian government Tuesday, according to the Vatican News site.  

The Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is designed to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization and reconstruction under a U.N.-endorsed ceasefire framework.

“One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations,” Parolin said. “This is one of the points on which we have insisted.” 

Pope Leo has been a critic of the U.S. president on immigration policy, foreign affairs and climate change, since taking up the helm of the Catholic Church last May.  

The details of the peace board’s operations and potential to become an alternative U.N. have caused European nations to decline participation. EU member countries Hungary and Bulgaria did signal that they would join the board during a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last month.

While the EU will not join Trump’s organization, it is sending Dubravka Šuica, the European commissioner for the Mediterranean, to Washington for the board’s first formal meeting this Thursday.

Surprise, surprise

Surprise, surprise: Russia-Ukraine talks yield no peace breakthrough

The negotiations have largely become political theater for an audience comprising Donald Trump.

By Veronika Melkozerova

Despite the efforts of American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Moscow, Kyiv and Washington concluded another round of talks in Geneva with scant progress toward ending the Russian war in Ukraine.

After two days of negotiations, which were described as intense and messy, both Russia and Ukraine reported that constructive dialogue continues, though the sides remain far apart on key territorial and political issues.

The talks failed to yield any broader breakthrough on halting hostilities, on prisoner of war exchanges or on a truce regarding strikes on energy infrastructure.

The negotiations have largely become political theater, with each side trying to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that the other is to blame for the conflict dragging on.

Ukraine has repeatedly called for stronger U.S. pressure on Russia and concrete security guarantees to end the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told POLITICO earlier this month that he believes Trump can force Russian leader Vladimir Putin to make meaningful concessions.

“From what I heard from our group, the talks were constructive. The military negotiations group has a common understanding on how to monitor the ceasefire and the end of the war if there’s a political will to end it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Wednesday, after the talks finished.

According to Zelenskyy, the U.S. will definitely take part in the monitoring if Russia’s war ends, and that’s already a “constructive signal.”

However, when it comes to sensitive political issues, like the territories in Ukraine’s east and ownership of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the sides still have different positions.

“Talks were tough in the political aspect. While I see progress in the military aspect, here there is no such progress. Sides agreed to continue dialogue. But I still will find out more details after Ukrainian negotiators come back,” Zelenskyy added.

Russia also reported that talks were tough, after Wednesday’s meeting lasted for only two hours — following a marathon six-hour session on Tuesday.

“Negotiations were difficult, but businesslike. A new meeting with Ukraine will be held in the near future,” said Putin’s negotiator Vladimir Medinsky after the meeting.

Witkoff said the dialogue alone should be celebrated as a success belonging to U.S. President Donald Trump, but admitted the sides are still just talking rather than agreeing.

This round of talks was not actually “that good,” a person familiar with the atmosphere in the room told POLITICO. The sides came to the table expecting different things and talks were “confusing” in many ways, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private talks.

Indeed, before the negotiations started, Russia’s delegation announced that the meetings would be focused on territorial issues, while the Ukrainian delegation said it was planning to discuss humanitarian and security issues.

“We are focused on working through the key provisions necessary to finalize the process. This is complex work that requires agreement by all parties and time. There is progress, but no details at this stage,” Ukrainian Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov said in a statement Wednesday.

“The next step is to reach the necessary level of alignment to submit the developed decisions for consideration by the presidents. Our task is to prepare a real, not a formal, foundation for this. The ultimate goal remains unchanged — a just and sustainable peace,” he added.

Destruction....

3 big changes are proposed for FEMA. This is what experts really think of them

By Lauren Sommer, Rebecca Hersher

The Trump administration is undertaking the biggest overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in a generation. President Trump has been a vocal critic of the disaster response agency and, shortly after taking office, he appointed a 12-person review council to propose sweeping changes to FEMA.

Preliminary recommendations by that council would "eliminate FEMA as we know it today," according to a draft of its report obtained by NPR. The 89-page draft dates from December, when the FEMA Review Council was scheduled to adopt final recommendations, but the council's final meeting was abruptly canceled.

The final report is now expected in late March and could differ substantively from the December draft, although there have been no further public meetings of the council in the intervening months.

In the draft report, responsibility for disasters would largely shift to states, which have long relied on the federal government to help survivors when a flood, hurricane or wildfire hits. FEMA's workforce, already hit hard by staff reductions since President Trump took office, would be cut in half, compared to its size at the end of the Biden administration.

Still, some of the suggested reforms have been discussed by emergency managers and disaster policy experts for a decade or more, including ideas that are included in a bipartisan reform bill currently being considered by Congress. Some of the changes proposed by the review council would require congressional action.

The White House referred questions from NPR about the council's proposed reforms to FEMA. FEMA did not respond to questions. An emailed statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, says that the FEMA Review Council is still working on its final report, and that it is "an iterative process."

NPR asked half a dozen disaster experts, including former FEMA staff, about the proposed reforms and what they believe could help protect communities from disasters that are getting more extreme in a hotter climate.

Proposal 1: Cut FEMA's staff by half

FEMA's staff would significantly shrink under the council's recommendations, halving the agency's numbers by losing more than 12,000 positions. "The majority of this reduction is expected to come from its disaster workforce, which includes temporary, on-call, and permanent personnel deployed to disaster areas," the draft report reads.

FEMA has already lost about 2,000 employees since Trump took office due to layoffs and other departures, including many senior staff. The administration is moving to cut thousands more FEMA workers this year by declining to renew multiyear contracts.

Even before those departures, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that FEMA was already understaffed.

Emergency management experts say losing half the agency could dramatically slow disaster response. FEMA deploys hundreds of employees in the aftermath of a major disaster, processing thousands of aid applications from disaster survivors. FEMA staff process those claims both in-person and through call centers, with the goal of providing immediate assistance with food, clothing and shelter. During Hurricane Helene in 2024, the agency got more than half a million calls in just a week.

"A 50% reduction in staff is going to dramatically cut into the people who take those applications and process that relief," says Tim Manning, a former deputy administrator at FEMA during the Obama administration and current research professor at Georgetown University. "That will do nothing but slow down help to the people."

Having fewer personnel to deploy means FEMA may need to call in employees from other federal agencies, as it's done during other major disasters. It could also put pressure on states to build up their own disaster response staffing, something some experts say would add significant costs to state budgets and wouldn't be as efficient, given that some states don't experience disasters every year.

"It's a lot more cost-effective to do that at the federal level," says Josh Morton, emergency management director for Saluda County, S.C., and president of the International Association of Emergency Managers. "If every state has to have their own individual assistance program and their own public assistance program on the scale that it takes to actually manage the funding post-disaster, you're talking about multiplying the cost by 50 because now every state is going to need just as robust of a team."

Michael Méndez, a former member of FEMA's National Advisory Council and professor at University of California, Irvine, says FEMA employees play a particularly crucial role in immigrant communities and with other hard-to-reach populations, because they build trusting relationships. "If that's not there, then many of these communities are not going to recover in an equitable manner or get the aid that they need because they're afraid."

Proposal 2: Raise the bar for getting federal disaster aid

When a severe disaster hits, billions of dollars can flow to states. Under the proposed changes, states would have a harder time qualifying for federal funds and would receive less when they do.

In order to receive funding under the current system, state governors must ask for a federal disaster declaration, the key first step in the process. Those declarations are made by the president, after getting advice from FEMA. FEMA determines whether the disaster is more than a state government can handle on its own. The agency uses a formula based on the estimated damage and the overall population of the state. Even if a disaster doesn't pass this threshold, the president can still choose to declare one.

The FEMA Review Council is recommending changing that disaster threshold formula, which means states would only qualify for federal help with higher levels of damage. The formula has not kept up with inflation, the council argues. Under the proposed change, the federal government would be responsible for fewer disasters. If it had already been in place, "29% of disasters declared between 2012 and 2025 would not have met the indicator, representing $1.5 billion," the report states.

Many disaster experts agree that the threshold for federal disaster aid should be raised, although there isn't consensus about how much to raise it.

Dominik Lett, a budget analyst at the free-market think tank the Cato Institute, calls the new proposed formula a "promising idea."

"We should be charting a path that shifts financial responsibility back to the states, for disasters," Lett says.

Some state and local emergency managers say they've been expecting an adjustment to the disaster threshold to account for inflation. During Trump's first term, his administration made a similar proposal in 2020 just before leaving office.

Still, those changes would mean the cost of more disasters would fall to state and local governments, potentially adding up to millions of dollars. Morton says while his state is now responsible for disasters with damage under around $10 million, they estimate that would increase to $40 million under the proposed changes. He and other state emergency managers say that takes advanced planning in already tight budgets.

"Local jurisdictions in general don't have a lot of money sitting in a pot ready for emergencies," says Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. "I think it's going to take us some time to get to where we can be more independent. Let's have a timeline for where things change, not just tomorrow."

If states take over more disaster response, they'd be responsible for repairing public infrastructure, like roads, hospitals and water systems, something FEMA typically covers 75% of. They'd also be faced with supporting disaster survivors with needs for food and shelter, which otherwise would have come from FEMA.

"While many states could plan for the need to spend additional resources on infrastructure repair, most states don't have any programs that provide direct disaster assistance to individuals," Manning says. "So a lot of individuals and families will be kind of left in the lurch."

Proposal 3: Stop using damage costs to determine federal assistance

Since FEMA was created by Congress nearly 50 years ago, the agency has operated under a simple principle: The more expensive the damage, the more federal money you get.

For example, if a hurricane destroys a school, a courthouse and 50 miles of roads in a city, FEMA will give the local government more money than if that same hurricane damages one building.

But that would no longer be the model under a major recommendation proposed by the FEMA Review Council in a December draft of its report to the president.

The council recommends that federal disaster assistance to local and state governments be determined by the conditions of the disaster itself. For example, whether the hurricane was a Category 1 storm versus a Category 4 storm, what magnitude the earthquake was, or how much rain fell to cause a subsequent flood.

Using such information to automatically trigger assistance is called a "parametric" trigger, because it's based on the objective parameters, such as wind speed or temperature, rather than an estimate of the cost of the damage.

Some insurance policies successfully use such triggers, Méndez explains.

The FEMA report draft suggests that using parametric triggers would be more efficient because it would get money into the hands of local officials more quickly and reduce administrative costs at FEMA.

"The main benefit of a parametric model is the speed and certainty of payouts," the report draft states.

But emergency experts say it's unclear how FEMA could set triggers that would be fair and would cover every type of disaster and every part of the country. "I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done," says Jim Redick, who has worked in emergency management for 20 years and is currently the emergency manager for Austin, Texas.

"Every community is different. One may be more [acclimated] to a heat wave with 105 degree temperatures," Redick explains, using a hypothetical example. Residents of a place where air conditioning is rare could be in profound danger from such temperatures, he points out.

Those differences could lead to unfair situations in which some communities get just a fraction of the money they need to recover after disasters, or could receive no assistance at all, despite large amounts of damage. Poor and rural areas that have historically seen less infrastructure investment could suffer, Méndez points out.

The bipartisan FEMA reform bill introduced in the House takes the opposite approach — it would require FEMA to give extra consideration to poor and rural communities after disasters. The bill seeks to speed up federal assistance by reducing redundant paperwork and creating a faster payment system for small disasters.

The bill has been introduced in the House, and earlier this month a group of 50 lawmakers urged Speaker Mike Johnson to advance the bill by bringing it to the House floor.

 

They think they are immune...

The Epstein files are rocking Britain from the palace to Parliament

By Christian Edwards

The US government’s release of more than 3 million documents related to Jeffrey Epstein has raised further questions about the ties of three prominent figures in British public life to the disgraced financier, who appears to have been granted access to the heart of Britain’s government and royal family.

The former Prince Andrew, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States, are all listed multiple times in the latest trove of Epstein files, ramping up pressure on the trio to explain their ties to the late sex offender and further distance themselves from British institutions.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged the former prince, now Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to testify before the US Congress, while Mandelson, who resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday, is set to quit the House of Lords on Wednesday.

Here’s how the US Justice Department’s latest drop of files is scandalizing Britain.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

The former Prince Andrew has for years attempted to bat away questions about his links to Epstein. In a now-infamous interview with the BBC in 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor claimed that he had severed all ties with Epstein in 2010, following the financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

Emails uncovered last year called Mountbatten-Windsor’s claim into question. The British media reported that Mountbatten-Windsor appeared to contact Epstein again in 2011, telling him to “keep in close touch” and that they were “in this together.” Soon after, King Charles III stripped Mountbatten-Windsor, his brother, of his royal titles in October and began the process to evict him from the royal estate at Windsor.

But the latest trove of Epstein files has heaped further scrutiny on the disgraced royal. Three undated photos appear to show the former prince kneeling over what appears to be a woman or girl who is lying fully clothed and supine on the floor. Her face has been redacted. In two photos, Mountbatten-Windsor touches her stomach and waist; in a third, he looks at the camera while on all fours, leaning over her body.

It is unclear when or where the images were taken; no captions or context for the photographs were provided with the document release. Neither the photographs nor the email messages suggest any wrongdoing.

Mountbatten-Windsor previously faced pressure to explain a 2001 photograph that showed him standing with Ghislaine Maxwell, then Epstein’s girlfriend and now a convicted child sex trafficker, and Virginia Giuffre, a prominent accuser of Epstein who died by suicide in April.

In her posthumous memoir, Giuffre once again accused Mountbatten-Windsor of sexually abusing her when she was 17. She wrote that Mountbatten-Windsor “believed that having sex with me was his birthright.” Despite claiming never to have met her, Mountbatten-Windsor reportedly paid millions of dollars to Giuffre in 2022 to settle a civil case she brought against him. He has repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing and said he never witnessed or suspected any of the behavior that Epstein was accused of.

The latest Epstein documents also contain an email exchange between Epstein and Mountbatten-Windsor in August 2010, in which the financier invites the royal to meet a “friend” — whose name was redacted — for dinner in London. Mountbatten-Windsor replied that he would be “delighted to see her” and told Epstein to pass on his contact details. Epstein then describes the woman as a 26-year-old Russian who is “clevere (sic) beautiful, trustworthy,” and confirms that she has Mountbatten-Windsor’s email.

Thames Valley Police said Tuesday that they are aware of “reports about a woman said to have been taken to an address in Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes,” and that they are assessing the information. It is unclear if police are referring to the same woman referenced in the email exchange.

“We take any reports of sexual crimes extremely seriously and encourage anyone with information to come forward,” police said. “At this time, these allegations have not been reported to Thames Valley Police by either the lawyer or their client.”

In November, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee requested that Mountbatten-Windsor come to Washington to give evidence as part of the panel’s investigation into Epstein. Although Mountbatten-Windsor did not respond to the request at the time, Starmer on Saturday urged the former prince to submit himself to questioning.

“Anybody who has got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they are asked to do that,” Starmer said. “You can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that.”

The royal family has not issued a statement on the latest revelations. At a summit in Dubai on Tuesday, Prince Edward, the brother of Charles and Mountbatten-Windsor, told CNN, “It’s all really important always to remember the victims.” He did not comment further.

Sarah Ferguson

Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, known as “Fergie,” is also mentioned several times in the latest tranche of files, although this does not indicate any wrongdoing. Ferguson was dropped last year as the patron or ambassador to several British charities after earlier documents showed she had called Epstein her “supreme friend.” At the time, a spokesperson for Ferguson said she regretted her association with Epstein.

But the latest documents are further evidence of the depth of their relationship. In August 2009, Ferguson, then the Duchess of York, sent an email thanking Epstein, touting fashion and media outlets that she said now wanted to work with her.

“In just one week, after your lunch, it seems the energy has lifted. I have never been more touched by a friends (sic) kindness,” she wrote. “Thank you Jeffrey for being the brother I have always wished for.”

In January 2010, she wrote: “You are a legend. I really don’t have the words to describe, my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness. Xx I am at your service. Just marry me.”

The emails also appear to suggest that Epstein wanted to use Ferguson to help clear his name. In one undated email, Epstein wrote to Mike Sitrick, chair of the crisis management firm Sitrick and Company, which was retained by Epstein’s law firm. “I would like you to draft a statement that in an ideal world fergie would put out,” he wrote. Sitrick told CNN that he had never contacted Ferguson or her representatives directly.

In a March 2011 email to Sitrick and two others, Epstein wrote: “I think Fergie can now say, I am not a pedo.” In reply, Sitrick said there is a “strategy” to “get newspapers to stop calling you a pedophile and get the truth out,” and that one tactic was to “get Fergie to retract.”

The next month, Ferguson wrote in an email to Epstein and James Henderson, her spokesperson at the time, saying she “did not” and “would not” call him a “P.”

In October 2009, she wrote to Epstein saying that she “urgently” needed £20,000 for rent, and that her landlord had “threatened to go to the newspapers if I don’t pay.”

It was not clear if Epstein sent that money. However, in 2001, years before Ferguson’s request, newly released documents appeared to show that Epstein wired the former duchess $150,000 after helping her to cash in the share options she earned from her work for Weight Watchers. CNN has asked a spokesperson for Ferguson for comment.

On Monday evening, Ferguson’s charitable foundation “Sarah’s Trust” announced it would close “for the foreseeable future” after “some months” of discussion, according to the United Kingdom’s PA Media news agency.

Peter Mandelson

Mandelson, widely known in political circles as the “Prince of Darkness” for his Machiavellian approach to power, was fired as the UK’s ambassador to Washington in September over the deepening scandal surrounding his ties to Epstein. That month, US lawmakers had released a “birthday book,” compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, in which Mandelson penned a handwritten note describing the financier as “my best pal.”

The latest tranche of documents has revealed that Mandelson appeared to leak sensitive UK government tax plans to Epstein. They also show that his partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, regularly received undisclosed payments from him.

In September 2009, da Silva — who married Mandelson in 2023 after three decades together — emailed Epstein to ask for £10,000 to help fund his osteopathy course. Epstein replied: “I will wire your loan amount immediated’y (sic).”

In April 2010, da Silva emailed Epstein again, sharing his bank details. Epstein forwarded the message to his accountant, Rich Kahn, adding: “send 13k dollars.”

That same month, Epstein told Kahn to “send 2k per month to reinaldo.” When Kahn asked if this was in addition to the original $13,000, Epstein replied: “no after rethinkoing (sic) send 4000 dollars only.”

In October that year, Mandelson asked Epstein, jokingly: “Have you permanently stopped the reinaldo sub?! I may have to put him out to work on the streets.”

Financial records newly released by the DOJ also appear to show that Mandelson himself may have received payments totaling $75,000 from Epstein between 2003 and 2004. A spokesperson for Mandelson told British media that neither the former ambassador nor da Silva “has any record or recollection of receiving payments in 2003 and 2004 or know whether the documentation is authentic.”

The latest files also revealed that Mandelson appeared to leak a sensitive UK government document to the financier while he was business secretary in 2009. The memo, written for then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, advocated £20 billion of asset sales to help relieve Britain’s debt burden following the 2008 financial crisis, and revealed Labour’s tax policy plans.

In December 2009, Mandelson and Epstein also exchanged emails about Britain’s plans to impose an additional tax on bankers’ bonuses — a punitive one-off measure following the crash. An email from Epstein asked if “jamie” — possibly referring to Jamie Dimon, who was then and still is CEO of JP MorganChase — should call “darling,” likely Alistair Darling, then Britain’s finance minister, “one more time.” In reply, Mandelson appears to suggest that Epstein should call Darling again and “mildly threaten” him. The BBC reported that Darling later had a “painful and angry” phone call with Dimon.

In another exchange, in May 2010, Mandelson appeared to tip off Epstein that the European Union was planning a €500 billion bailout to save the euro. Epstein wrote: “sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost compelte (sic).” Soon after, Mandelson replied: “Sd be announced tonight.” Mandelson had previously served as European commissioner for trade between 2004 and 2008.

On Sunday, Mandelson, who also sits in the House of Lords, announced his resignation from Labour, saying he did not want to cause the party “further embarrassment.” He also apologized “to the women and girls whose voices should have been heard long before now.” CNN was unable to contact Mandelson for further comment.

London’s Metropolitan Police said Monday it had received a number of reports relating to alleged misconduct in a public office following the latest release. Mandelson will face a criminal investigation into allegations that he leaked market sensitive information from Downing Street to Epstein, PA Media reported Tuesday.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, whose government Mandelson had served in as business secretary, wrote to London’s Metropolitan Police to provide information relating to the alleged disclosure of sensitive information, according to PA.

“The reports will all be reviewed to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation,” police commander Ella Marriott said.

Mandelson will also resign from the House of Lords on Wednesday, the speaker of the British Parliament’s upper chamber said Tuesday.