By BRITTANY CHAIN, US SENIOR REPORTER and RACHEL BOWMAN, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER and KATELYN CARALLE, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER and WILL POTTER, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER and NICK ALLEN, US NEWS EDITOR (POLITICS)

Updated: 22:55 EST, 19 December 2025

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Friday released more than 300,000 pages of photos and evidence connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The vast trove includes images showing the disgraced financier and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell socializing with high-profile figures, including former president Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson.

One photograph appears to show Clinton in a swimming pool alongside Maxwell and several unidentified, partially clothed women.

Clinton broke his silence on Friday to turn the tables on Trump, releasing a statement that declared: ‘The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever.’ 

Britain’s disgraced former royal, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, also appears in the material, along with his former wife, Sarah Ferguson. References to Trump are limited in the documents, and he has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the case.

The Department of Justice acknowledged that not all of the documents have yet been released, and said additional material is expected to be unsealed before the end of the year.

The DOJ did not provide any context for the images of people included in the files. Being named or pictured in the files is not necessarily an indication of wrongdoing with Epstein. 

The Daily Mail is continuing to review the extensive cache. Follow below as we examine the files and highlight key findings.

Key Epstein updates which emerged in the files today include: 

Bill Clinton’s extraordinary statement over his prominence in Epstein files as he hints he has been made a scapegoat

A spokesperson for former president Bill Clinton has addressed his name and pictures emerging in the Epstein files on Friday afternoon.

‘The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,’ the spokesperson said.

‘This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever.

‘So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.

‘Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,’ the spokesperson added, referencing Wiles’ recent interview with Vanity Fair in which she admitted ‘Trump was wrong’ about there being incriminating evidence against the former Democratic president in the files

‘There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first,’ Clinton’s spokesperson said.

‘No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.’

Breaking:Justice Department releases Epstein files

A trove of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files has been released by the Department of Justice.

The Daily Mail is currently reviewing them and providing updates.

More than 200 DOJ lawyers worked on Epstein file release

The team that reviewed and prepared the documents for public release included more than 200 Justice Department lawyers, according to a DOJ letter sent to Congress.

In that letter, obtained by the Associated Press, Deputy AG Todd Blanche said 187 lawyers from DOJ’s national security division reviewed all the files to determine what should be released.

Then, 25 attorneys, deemed a ‘quality control team,’ worked to ensure that information that personally identified victims was redacted.

Those lawyers came from the DOJ’s Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties and the Office of Information Policy.

Lawyers from the Southern District of New York also reviewed the material to confirm that personal information was appropriately redacted.

Epstein accuser calls for files to be fully released

Marina Lacerda, one of the women who says she survived sexual assault by Epstein, beginning when she was 14 years old, said Friday she wanted to see greater transparency from the Justice Department and expressed frustration that all the files aren’t out yet.

‘Just put out the files,’ she said.

‘And stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted.’

She said she was skeptical of the administration saying it’s aiming to be transparent.

‘In the beginning, they were calling us a hoax, right?’ she said. ‘Now they’re like, ‘‘We believe you, we’re gonna release the files,’’ but yet you still haven’t released the files and it’s not even fully transparent.’

Epstein files contains receipt for purchase of books about erotic slavery

Epstein purchased two books about erotic slavery in an Amazon receipt released on Friday.

One of the books was titled ‘Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude’, while he second was titled ‘Training with Miss Abernathy: A Workbook for Erotic Slaves and Their Owners’.

The blurb for the first book reads: ‘The author of Ties That Bind joins forces with a grateful slave to produce this gripping and personal account on the subject of consensual slavery.

‘Philosophical and intense, SlaveCraft dares to delve beneath the surface of D/s relationships and give us an intimate and revealing view from a rare perspective–that of a slave.’

Costumes and sex toys among items found in Epstein lair

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reacts to Bill Clinton photo

By katrina schollenberger

Reposting a photo released from the Epstein document trove of former president Bill Clinton in a hot tub, Karoline Leavitt took to X to react: ‘Oh my!’

Extraordinary letter to Epstein paints ‘all rich people’ as targets

The letter reads, in part: ‘I hate that you got into these mess with these girls over the years.

‘You didn’t put a gun to their heads. But you have to watch it… all rich people are targets in this world.

‘People are going to come at you to get a dollar.’

Pictures emerge of legendary journalist Walter Cronkite speaking with Epstein

Late CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite was featured in a series of pictures alongside Epstein released on Friday.

Cronkite’s name was also included in flight logs to Epstein’s private island released earlier this year.

How many Epstein files have been released so far?

By katrina schollenberger

Eerie handwritten notes found in Epstein’s property contained list of billionaires and business magnates

The FBI discovered handwritten notes at one of Epstein’s properties listing the names of several billionaires and business magnates, the newly released DOJ files reveal.

Two pages of notes with ‘Jeffrey E. Epstein’ footers, photographed by FBI agents documenting the inside of his residences, list names including ‘Zuck’, ‘Thiel’, ‘Elon’, ‘Geffen’, ‘Rupert Murdoch’, ‘Slim’ and ‘Pritzker’.

It is unclear why their names appeared on the undated notes.

They appear to refer to billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch, Mexican oil baron Carlos Slim, and media mogul David Geffen.

They are among a batch of files in a briefcase, with a post-it note affixed saying ‘Important papers you asked me to hold on to when you were away’.

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Bill Clinton breaks silence on damning Epstein file photos with blistering accusation about Trump: Live updates

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The NHS has issued a warning for patients prescribed digoxin, urging them to speak to a doctor if they experience more than two common side effects

Digoxin can help treat a number of heart conditions(Image: Getty Images)

Patients taking digoxin are being advised by the NHS to consult their GP if they develop two frequent adverse reactions. Digoxin is a cardiac glycoside medication commonly prescribed for various heart conditions, including erratic heartbeats.

The drug functions by reducing a patient’s heart rate whilst enabling the heart to contract more strongly, consequently making it simpler for the heart to circulate blood throughout the body. When prescribed digoxin for a cardiac condition, you’ll typically receive it as a tablet, liquid, or injection, with the latter usually administered in hospital settings.

Whilst digoxin proves beneficial in managing symptoms of irregular heartbeats, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure, it carries several frequent adverse effects. Although many of these reactions may be relatively minor, the NHS has cautioned that experiencing multiple symptoms simultaneously could indicate a more severe condition requiring medical intervention.

Digoxin is generally used to help irregular heartbeats(Image: Getty Images)

The NHS guidance states: “Tell your doctor if you have more than 2 of the common side effects – it means you could have too much digoxin in your blood.”

Side effects of digoxin and when to call a doctor

According to the NHS, common side effects of taking digoxin can include:

• Changes in vision
• Diarrhoea
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Skin rashes

Digoxin may cause a number of side effects(Image: Getty Images)

These side effects typically affect more than one in 100 patients. Whilst you may need to consult a physician regarding these symptoms, they’re generally not severe or life-threatening.

However, the NHS does stress: “It happens rarely, but some people have serious side effects after taking digoxin.” Severe reactions can include heart palpitations, feeling dizzy, and struggling to breathe.

In such cases, the NHS recommends dialling 999 or heading straight to A&E. Complete information about digoxin and its potential adverse effects can be found on the NHS website here.

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Who: Villareal vs Barcelona
What: Spain’s La Liga
Where: Estadio de la Ceramica in Villareal, Spain
When: Sunday, December 21, at 4:15pm (15:15 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 1215 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream. Click here to follow our live coverage.

Villarreal has quietly mounted a potential dark horse title campaign through most of the first half of La Liga.

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Now it has a chance to make it official when the “Yellow Submarine” host Barcelona on Sunday.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at a game that could blow the Spanish top flight wide open.

How have Villareal fared in La Liga this season?

The team coached by Marcelino Garcia Toral is in third place, eight points behind leader Barcelona and four behind second-placed Real Madrid. But it has played two fewer games than the powerhouses, so it could easily be in an even stronger position.

Villarreal has disappointed in the Champions League and was eliminated from the Copa del Rey by a lower-division side this week. But La Liga is a different story. Villarreal is on a six-game winning run, and its only two losses have come at Madrid and Atletico Madrid.

Marcelino’s men have also turned their La Ceramica stadium into a fortress, conceding a miserly four goals in eight home matches while remaining unbeaten and winning all but one of those league encounters.

How have Barcelona fared in La Liga this season?

The game will pit the league’s top defence in Villarreal, with 13 goals allowed in 17 games, against the league’s top attack. Barcelona has poured in 49 goals in that time – 15 more than closest challengers Real – and more than made up for a sometimes shaky defence by outscoring its opponents.

Barcelona will look to both quash thoughts of a challenge by Villarreal and close 2025 on a high note this weekend.

An eighth consecutive league victory for Lamine Yamal and company would also keep the pressure on a Madrid side which is struggling.

Madrid hosts Sevilla on Saturday, with coach Xabi Alonso in need of a convincing victory before they have the two-week winter break to ponder the team’s future.

What happened in Villareal’s last match?

Adding insult to the injury of Villareal’s difficulties outside of La Liga this season, they suffered a shock 2-1 Copa del Rey defeat to second-tier Racing de Santander on Wednesday.

Their last La Liga match was on December 6, and was a 2-0 home win against Girona. In between those two matches, Villareal also suffered a 3-2 home defeat at the hands of Copenhagen in the Champions League.

What happened in Barcelona’s last match?

Andreas Christensen and Marcus Rashford struck late in the game to hand Barcelona a hard-fought 2-0 victory against third-tier side Guadalajara in the Copa del Rey on Tuesday.

Their last La Liga match also saw the Catalans pushed to the limit by Osasuna with Raphinha netting twice late in the game to secure a 2-0 win.

What is the secret of Villareal’s La Liga form?

Villarreal has based its success on a team effort with several goal-scorers and playmakers. But left winger Alberto Moleiro stands out. He is having a breakout first season with the team and leads Villarreal with six league goals. Tajon Buchanan has added five goals, and midfielder Santi Comesana helps a solid midfield.

What are Barcelona’s challenges in their La Liga defence?

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick has so far succeeded in making a left-side centre-back of Gerard Martin, who struggled to fill in at left back when Alejandro Balde was injured late last season.

Martin has five consecutive starts in the centre of the defensive line as Flick tries to find a replacement for Inigo Martínez, who left earlier in the year for Saudi Arabia. Martin may be tested by Villarreal’s attack.

What happened to La Liga’s plan to play Villareal-Barcelona in Miami?

The Sunday showdown was originally earmarked for Miami until La Liga’s international expansion plans collapsed under heavy criticism, forcing the cancellation of what would have been the first European league match played abroad.

What happened the last time Villareal played Barcelona?

Villareal were 3-2 winners in the La Liga clash in May at Barcelona in the side’s last encounter, although the home side had already secured the league title five days previous to the match.

The away side took the lead through Ayoze Perez after only four minutes, but Yamal and Fermin Lopez turned the game in Barca’s favour before the break. Villareal were not done, however, with Santi Comesana levelling in the 50th minute before Tajon Buchanan scored the winner 10 minutes from time.

What happened in the corresponding fixture between Villareal and Barcelona last season?

The first meeting between the sides last season resulted in a 5-1 drubbing as Barcelona ran amok at in Villareal.

Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha both netted braces either side of Pedro Torre’s strike. Perez was also on the scoresheet in this match for the home side, but it proved only to be a consolation.

Head-to-head

This is the 55th meeting between the sides, with Barcelona winning 33 of the matches and Villarreal emerging victorious on 11 occasions.

Villareal have won their last two trips to Barcelona, but the Catalan club have the same record from their last two games at La Ceramica.

Villareal team news

Villarreal received a timely boost as veterans Gerard Moreno and Dani Parejo returned to training on Tuesday and should be available to face Barcelona.

Pape Gueye and Ilias Akhomach, however, are away with Senegal at the Africa Cup of Nations.

Pau Cabanes is a definite injury absentee, while Thomas Partey, Gerard Moreno, Willy Kambwala and Santiago Mourino must prove their fitness before the match.

Barcelona team news

Dani Olmo and Gavi are both absent due to injuries, while Ronald Araujo is set to miss the game due to personal reasons.

Pedri missed training on Friday due to a calf strain, making him a major doubt for the match.

Predicted Villareal lineup

Luiz Junior; Navarro, Foyth, Veiga, Cardona; Buchanan, Comesana, Parejo, Moleiro; Perez, Mikautadze

Predicted Barcelona lineup

Joan Garcia; Kounde, Cubarsi, Eric Garcia, Balde; De Jong, Pedri; Yamal, Raphinha, Rashford; Torres

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Now-Again Records

WITCH was one of Zamrock’s most popular acts in the 1970s

Artists and music fans from around the world have been rediscovering the 1970s sound of Zambia known as Zamrock in recent years, and now one of the country’s biggest stars is embracing it, hoping to give it a fresh twist.

When devising her third studio album, Sampa the Great looked to the niche, brief musical movement that ignited her birth country more than 50 years ago.

“We were looking for a sound and a voice that was so post-colonial. And Zamrock was that sound – that sound of new freedom, that sound of boldness,” the Zambian-born, Botswanan-raised rapper – who has performed at the likes of Glastonbury, Coachella and the Sydney Opera House – told the BBC.

Zamrock – with its heady blend of psychedelic rock and traditional Zambian sounds – rears its head on Can’t Hold Us, the first single to be released from Sampa’s upcoming album.

Fuzz guitars thrust the song forwards, as 32-year-old Sampa, full name Sampa Tembo, defiantly raps: “They don’t have the guts to match my prowess.”

And she’s not the only contemporary artist who has been digging through Zamrock’s dusty crates. In the past few years US hitmakers Travis Scott, Yves Tumour and Tyler, the Creator have sampled tracks from Ngozi Family, Amanaz and WITCH – all popular bands in Zamrock’s 1970s heyday.

Zamrock can also be heard on our screens – HBO superhero series Watchmen and Emmy-winner Ted Lasso have incorporated songs from the genre in their soundtracks.

It is an unexpected resurgence, especially given that in its heyday, Zamrock never really left the African continent.

Sampa the Great thinks Zamrock’s resurgence will be “huge”

The movement emerged in the 1970s, in a Zambia recently broken free from its British colonisers. The nation was basking in an economic boom and President Kenneth Kaunda had enforced a “Zambia first” policy which, among many other things, meant 95% of the music played by radio stations had to be of Zambian origin.

The groundwork was laid for young creatives to forge a bold, distinctly Zambian musical identity.

“We were influenced by rock bands like Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown,” says WITCH frontman Emmanuel Chanda, better known as Jagari, after Mick Jagger.

“But we were Africans. We wanted to play like those rock bands but then the African aspect was also calling: ‘You can’t leave me behind’.”

In the 1970s, Zambia’s recording studios were rudimentary and there was no established recording industry. Regardless, Zamrock thrived.

Musicians illuminated stages with bell-bottom jeans, platform shoes and colourful headbands. WITCH, an acronym for We Intend To Cause Havoc, lived up to their name, with fans clamouring outside sold-out venues, hoping to watch marathon shows that sometimes lasted from 19:00 to 02:00.

“The fact that they mixed traditional music with psychedelic rock in a conservative country… and to be able to do that and be loud about it – it was something very bold to do in the 70s, let alone now,” says Sampa – who was pleased to recently discover that her uncle, “Groovy” George Kunda, was a founding member of WITCH.

But for all of its impact, Zamrock could not last. The genre crumbled after roughly a decade, when Zambia was hit with a series of crises. The price of copper, Zambia’s main export, plummeted, leading to an economic decline that diminished the ability to tour, record and buy music.

Musical piracy also hit Zamrockers, as bootleggers made money by copying and selling their music.

And from the 1980s, the country was badly hit by the HIV/Aids crisis, which led to the deaths of many musicians. Five of WITCH’s founding members died from Aids.

Zamrock lay dormant for decades. Its surviving founders returned to civilian life – Jagari went to work in the mines to support his family.

WireImage via Getty Images

Tyler, the Creator had high praise for Zamrock’s Ngozi Family, who he sampled in his 2024 single Noid

But in the early 2010s, seemingly out of nowhere, record collectors in the West caught on to the genre.

US-based label Now-Again Records played a significant part in Zamrock’s revival, sourcing and reissuing albums from some of the genre’s biggest names.

“I wasn’t sure if it had a market. I was just sure that it was very cool,” Now-Again label boss Eothen “Egon” Alapatt tells the BBC.

“I figured: ‘If I’m curious about this, there’s probably other people who are curious about this’.”

Vinyl enthusiasts rushed to buy original Zamrock records, which only exist in small numbers, and their value naturally spiked.

“I started getting a lot of requests for original Zamrock records, and I didn’t understand why people were so interested,” says Duncan Sodala, a Zamrock fan and the owner of Time Machine, a record store in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.

Mr Sodala went online and was “shocked” to find that records pressed in the 1970s were selling for between $100 (£74) and $1,000 (£740).

In 2011, Now-Again Records released a compilation of WITCH’s music. The ensuing buzz led to a reincarnation of the band, featuring Jageri and Patrick Mwondela from WITCH’s old days, and a number of younger European musicians.

WITCH have since released two albums, starred in a documentary, played at the iconic Glastonbury Festival and toured outside Africa – something the original band never managed to achieve.

“It’s like a new lease on life I never expected at my advanced age,” 74-year-old Jagari says on a call from New Zealand, the final stop on WITCH’s 2025 world tour.

“In Munich, there was crowd surfing, which I had never done before.”

Though Jagari is thrilled by a second chance to play Zamrock, new opportunities are a reminder of his sorely missed bandmates.

“There are times that I wish the whole band, the original line-up, was there to showcase what it was like in the beginning,” he says.

The crowds at WITCH’s shows, comprising fans young and old, are proof of Zamrock’s fresh appeal.

Redferns/Getty Images

Jagari and the new version of WITCH played Glastonbury earlier this year

Other Zamrockers are also being rediscovered – Tyler, the Creator, who sampled the Ngozi Family song 45,000 Volts on his 2024 track Noid, called the band “incredible”.

“The whole country was just doing some, really, really good stuff,” he told popular interviewer Nardwuar.

Go-to hip-hop producer Madlib and Mike D of the Beastie Boys have also voiced admiration for the genre, while Third Man Records, the label co-owned by blues-rocker Jack White, has released a recording of live WITCH music.

Egon believes Zamrock’s surprise popularity is down to its exuberance. He also suggests that the genre was initially boosted by record collectors, as a lot of its songs are in English.

“There was a tremendous bias amongst collectors of rock and roll music from around the world against music in the native language of the country that it was created,” he says.

Sodala, on the other hand, thinks Zamrock’s newer fans are drawn to the music’s “innocence”.

“I think people listen to it and feel how genuine it is,” he says.

Although the record-store owner welcomes Western artists sampling Zamrock, he feels the genre risks being reduced to curated snippets.

“I think this is the reason why an artist like Sampa is very important – because she doesn’t want [Zamrock] to be known just for the samples,” he says.

“I think there is a fear that if we are not loud about Zamrock’s origins, we may be taken out of the equation. The more we think about that, the more we want to be loud about where it comes from.”

Although the likes of hip-hop and R&B enjoy great popularity in Zambia, numerous young artists from the country – like Stasis Prey, Vivo and Sampa the Great collaborator Mag 44 – have also been experimenting with the genre.

Lusaka restaurant Bo’jangles set up an annual Zamrock Festival three years ago and the city’s Modzi Arts institution has established a small museum dedicated to the genre.

Sampa says her upcoming album, which does not yet have a release date, falls into a genre she calls “nu Zamrock”.

Although she has experimented with Zamrock before, this time its rhythms will run through her entire album, mixed with other influences like hip-hop.

“I think Zamrock’s resurgence will be something that is really huge,” she says.

In New Zealand, Jagari is elated that Sampa and her counterparts are running with the genre he helped birth.

“The fire has been lit,” he says. “It’s up to the younger generation to put more firewood to it and let the flames burn.”

More BBC stories on African music:

Getty Images/BBC



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NEED TO KNOW

• Rosie O’Donnell offered a glimpse into her friendship with Tom Cruise
• The Hollywood actor has gifted the former talk show host every holiday and birthday for 30 years
• “He is the only person who never misses my birthday,” she previously said of the star

Rosie O’Donnell can always count on Tom Cruise during the holidays.

On Friday, Dec. 19, the former talk show host, 63, showed off a Christmas card sent to her by the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning star, also 63, while noting that the thoughtful gesture is something that happens annually. 

“never misses a christmas or my birthday- thank u tom ❤️ – merry christmas to u,” O’Donnell captioned an Instagram post with a photo of the card. 

She added the hashtag, “#30yearsstrong,” along with a red heart emoji.

“Dear Rosie, Warmest wishes to you this holiday season,” read the card, which was signed “Tom Cruise.”

“That’s awesome! I’ll never forget the final scene of your show….Tom mowing your lawn….lol,” one person wrote in the comment section, a nod to a bit he participated in on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, which ended in 2002.

Loni Love also chimed in, adding, “One day I’m gonna get a cake from him!!!!!”

On Dec. 2, 2022, O’Donnell shared another gift from the Top Gun movie star to social media.

“my tommy sent me a coconut cake !! i love that guy,” she captioned a single photo Instagram post of the sweet treat packaged in a box. Attached was a note card with the same message as Friday’s, except this one had her name handwritten beside the “To” in gold ink.

The Flintstones actress has spoken about their unconventional friendship in the past, admitting that despite the annual tradition, the two aren’t very close. 

Rosie O’Donnell; gift from Tom Cruise.
Bruce Glikas/WireImage; Rosie O’Donnell/Instagram

“He is the only person who never misses my birthday. In knowing him for 25 years now, he has never missed my birthday or an event in my life,” O’Donnell said on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show in June 2021. “Now, I don’t know him enough to go, ‘Hey, Tommy, it’s Ro, the Scientology thing — can we chat?’ Like, that’s not my relationship with Tom Cruise. I don’t have his home phone number.”

“I know people think in Hollywood and celebrity [that] everybody knows each other, but I know him in the way that I did in that time 25 years ago,” she added. “But every year, I think what a classy guy he is that he never has forgotten my birthday.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

O’Donnell continued, “A lot of people say to me it’s just his secretary, but I don’t believe that. I think he knows in early March, ‘Oh, it’s Rosie’s birthday coming up,’ and he sends me something. Every single year for 25 years.”

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A top Putin general linked to the Salisbury poisonings has been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker in the Mediterranean, according to reports.

General Andrey Averyanov, head of the Covert Operations Unit that orchestrated the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, is believed to have been on board the Russian tanker that was blown up by Ukrainian drones on Friday.

Averyanov is linked to some of Russia’s most notorious covert operations abroad, including the assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023 and a deadly explosion in the Czech Republic in 2014. 

A report on a pro-Ukraine platform said: ‘According to preliminary (unconfirmed) data, General of the GRU Andrey Averyanov, along with several of his deputies, was already eliminated with the ship.’

Ukrainian reports also stated that Averyanov frequently travelled across Europe on Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers for his covert operations, the Sun reported. 

He is believed to have been among other senior Moscow officials on board the tanker.  

On Friday, Ukraine struck a Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker with drones in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. 

The cargo ship was sailing in an undisclosed location around 1,243 miles from Ukraine’s borders when it was hit in a ‘new, unprecedented special operation’, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said.

Andrey Averyanov (pictured) was a top Putin general linked to various covert operations overseas, including the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 and the assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin

The attack on the Russian tanker, called Qendil, was the first of its kind by Ukraine in the Mediterranean  

The source claimed that the tanker, called the Qendil, had ‘sustained critical damage and cannot be used for its intended purpose’. 

The explosive attack on the empty vessel was the first of its kind in the Mediterranean and a dramatic development in the near four-year war between Russia and Ukraine. 

Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine published black and white footage, purportedly showing the tanker being struck with explosives. 

The attack was announced by Kyiv while Vladimir Putin was taking part in his marathon end-of-year news conference and will be interpreted as a major embarrassment for the Russian President. 

Estimated to include up to 1,000 ships, which frequently change their flags and whose ownership is unclear, Russia’s shadow fleet enabled Moscow to keep exporting its crude oil for much-needed revenue despite curbs on exports.

Experts and several European leaders also believe some vessels have been used by Russia to conduct hybrid warfare across the continent. 

Averyanov was head of Russia’s GRU Unit 29155, which carries out foreign operations ordered by Putin and has been linked to many assassinations, including the Salisbury poisonings in March 2018.

Wiltshire was rocked when Kremlin spies allegedly attempted to murder former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, 68, in Salisbury. 

Military personnel wearing protective suits during investigations into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on March 11, 2018 in Salisbury

44-year-old Dawn Sturgess (left) was killed after being poisoned by Novichok, which was on  perfume bottled gifted to her by her partner Charlie Rowley, 45 (right)

Both he and his then 33-year-old daughter Yulia were rushed to hospital in critical condition after coming into contact with Novichok – a deadly nerve agent concocted by Soviet scientists during the Cold War. 

While they both survived the suspected attempted murder, four months later British national Dawn Sturgess, 44, was killed after coming into contact with the perfume bottle containing a deadly nerve agent. 

It is also alleged that General Averyanov’s unit was also ordered by Putin in 2015 to stage a coup in Montenegro, which failed, according to intelligence sources who also blame the unit for a campaign to destabilise Moldova and the poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in 2015.  

In response to the Ukrainian drone attack, Russia launched missiles on a port near Odessa in Ukraine on Friday evening, killing seven and injuring 15.

Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram: ‘In the late evening, Russia ‍attacked ‍port infrastructure in Odesa region with ballistic missiles.

‘According to preliminary ⁠information, seven people were killed. About 15 were injured ‍and are ⁠receiving help.’  

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There were nearly 1,500 photos from the FBI’s searches of Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse with some images showing massage rooms, erotic paintings of women on his walls and hidden cameras

01:14, 20 Dec 2025Updated 01:37, 20 Dec 2025

Never-before-seen images show inside Epstein’s lair

Chilling images inside the Manhattan townhouse of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been released as part of the largest dump of evidence taken from Epstein’s estate on Friday.

Never-before-seen images showed massage rooms, erotic paintings of women on his walls and hidden cameras. There were nearly 1,500 photos from the FBI’s searches of Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse around the time of his arrest in July 2019 and more than 1,600 of the Little St. John property from searches conducted on Aug. 12, 2019, two days after Epstein’s death in his prison cell.

Many photos released by the Justice Department were put out without context or explanation, making it difficult to determine what relevancy, if any, the images had to the criminal investigations. Simply being pictured or named in these files is not proof of any wrongdoing.

Chilling images from inside the Manhattan home of Jeffrey Epstein show a large number of paintings and pictures of scantily-clad women

The $77million townhouse is filled with bizarre decor, including a sculpture of a woman clutching a rope hanging from the ceiling in his entryway. In what is thought to be Epstein’s bedroom, a hidden camera could be seen perched high up on an alcove above the room. An oriental blue porcelain sculpture was also seen.

And a humiliating painting of former President Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress, an image that became infamous amid the fallout of the Epstein scandal, was found hanging in the halls.

A massage room

Several White House officials have reacted to some of the content released from the Epstein files. In a post on social media platform X, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung reacted to a picture of Bill Clinton, former U.S. president, in what appears to be a hot tub.

Cheung wrote: “just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…”

The US justice department says all reasonable efforts have been made to “review and redact personal information” about victims and other private individuals.

It adds: “That said, because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature.”

A camera can be seen in the top right of Epstein’s bedroom

This new federal legislation mandates the Department of Justice to publish all remaining documentation as part of an extensive drive towards openness. The released files include materials obtained from search warrants, FBI affidavits supporting these warrants, financial records, travel records, and more.

The world remains gripped by the life and death of the infamous financier and convicted child sex offender, who died in his prison cell in 2019. That same year, he had pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges in New York. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted associate and girlfriend, was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences linked to Epstein in 2021. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Texas.

The US Department of Justice has admitted that tonight’s Epstein file release is incomplete. Further documents are set to be released by the end of the year, it said.

Follow our live blog for the latest updates by clicking here.

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A German man has been jailed for repeatedly drugging and sexually assaulting his wife and posting videos of the attacks online, in a case that has drawn comparisons with a high-profile French trial last year.

The defendant, identified as 61-year-old Fernando P in line with German privacy laws, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison by a regional court in the western city of Aachen.

He was found ​guilty of aggravated rape and bodily harm.

The man was ​also convicted of violating his wife’s privacy for making recordings and distributing them online, ‍the court said.

A spokesperson for the court in Aachen said: “Between 2018 and 2024, the defendant repeatedly sedated his wife in ​their former home and then sexually abused her.

“He is also alleged to have uploaded videos of these acts to chat groups and internet platforms, thereby making ‍them available to other users.”

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Pic: AP

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The man’s court-appointed defence lawyer has declined to comment.

The ‍verdict in Aachen was delivered in open session, but most of the trial was held behind closed doors to protect the victim’s privacy.

A lawyer representing the victim said the court had handled the case in a highly sensitive manner, adding that ​her client “really has had a voice in this trial”.

The lawyer, however, declined to comment on the sentence, as she had not yet discussed it with her client.

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How the Pelicot trial unfolded

Similarities to French trial

German media have compared the case to the 2024 trial of Dominique Pelicot in Avignon, France, who was sentenced to 20 years for drugging and repeatedly raping his wife and for inviting dozens of strangers to abuse her while she was unconscious.

The Pelicot case led France to reform its rape laws this year, adding a clear requirement for “freely given and informed” consent – a standard similar to legislation in Sweden, Spain and the UK.

Germany updated its rape law in 2016 to lower the threshold for prosecution, but some campaigners argue it still falls short of a fully consent-based model.

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The administration of President Donald Trump has announced it will halt the visa lottery programme that allowed the suspect in the Brown University shooting to enter the United States.

The lottery awards approximately 50,000 immigrant visas each year, according to the US government.

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But Trump has long opposed the Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, sometimes known as the DV Programme. On Friday, his secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, revealed that he had directed her to end the lottery immediately.

She also identified the suspect as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who received his green card, a certificate for permanent residency, through the lottery in 2017.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote in her social media statement.

“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS [US Citizenship and Immigration Services] to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”

Campaign to end visa lottery

Friday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has sought to wind down the diversity visa lottery.

Trump has long sought to narrow the country’s pathways to legal immigration, and he has used crime as a pretext for doing so.

Noem herself pointed out that, in 2017, Trump “fought” to shut down the diversity visa lottery in the wake of an attack in New York City in which a truck rammed into a crowd of people, killing eight.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for the FBI in December 2017, Trump, then in his first term as president, called on Congress to “end the visa lottery system”.

“They have a lottery. You pick people. Do you think the country is giving us their best people? No,” Trump said.

“What kind of a system is that? They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people.”

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme was established in 1990 to ensure applicants from underrepresented countries had access to the US immigration system.

Immigration rights advocates have long argued that pathways to permanent residency are narrow for those who do not already have a spouse, relative or some other kind of sponsor in the country.

The visa lottery helps to answer that need by creating an alternative route to residency.

The lottery system selects visa recipients randomly, but critics argue it remains a long-shot avenue to gain US residency, and even successful applicants must still pass a rigorous screening process after the lottery.

While the Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme used to accept 55,000 applicants each year, in 2000, that number was lowered to its current level, according to the American Immigration Council.

Surveillance images released by police show Claudio Neves Valente, the suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University [Providence Police Dept via AP Photo]

Suspect identified

Friday’s decision to immediately suspend the lottery comes as new details emerge about Neves Valente, a physics scholar found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire after a nationwide manhunt.

The search began on December 13, when gunfire erupted on the campus of Brown University, a prestigious Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island.

The school’s fall semester was at its conclusion, and the exam period had begun. Students in the Barus and Holley physics laboratory were taking their end-of-course exams when a suspect, clad in black, entered the building and opened fire, killing two students and injuring nine others.

The physics lab was close to the edge of campus, and the suspect was able to escape on foot undetected.

The manhunt included several false starts, as authorities said they quickly detained a person of interest, only to release the individual without charges.

Then, on November 15, law enforcement officials announced that a plasma physics scholar named Nuno Loureiro had been found dead at his home after suffering multiple gunshot wounds.

Loureiro was also a Portuguese immigrant, and he had served as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a highly regarded science institution.

It was not immediately clear that the two shooting incidents were related, and authorities faced pressure to bring the Brown University shooter to justice as the manhunt dragged on.

But on Thursday night, officials announced they had discovered Neves Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and that they believed him to be responsible for both attacks.

Neves Valente had previously studied in a PhD programme at Brown, though he did not complete his degree, and he had been Loureiro’s classmate in Portugal.

Visa revocations

The Trump administration has a track record of revoking visas and terminating immigration programmes after high-profile attacks.

On November 26, for example, two National Guard members from West Virginia were shot while on patrol in Washington, DC, as part of Trump’s crime crackdown in the capital.

The suspect in that case was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had previously worked with allied forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan.

One of the National Guard soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, ultimately died from her wounds.

Trump responded to the incident by announcing that he was halting all visa applications and asylum requests from Afghan nationals, despite outcry from human rights and veterans groups.

The Republican leader also said he would pursue a “permanent pause” on entry for immigrants from “all third-world countries”.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Trump’s White House tightened entry for 19 countries it had identified in June as “high risk” and expanded the list of restrictions to include 20 more countries.

Trump has also taken targeted actions to strip individuals of their immigration status following shootings.

After the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in September, the Trump administration announced it was yanking visas from six foreign nationals who posted disrespectful comments or memes online about the attack. They hailed from countries ranging from Argentina to Brazil, and Germany to Paraguay.

Free-speech advocates said the decision was a clear violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the freedom of expression.

But the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to boot foreign nationals whose views do not align with its policy priorities.

“Aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed,” the US State Department wrote in response.

The suspect in the Kirk shooting is a 22-year-old US citizen named Tyler James Robinson from Utah.

Studies have repeatedly shown that US-born citizens are more likely to commit violent crimes than immigrants.

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The US says its military has carried out a “massive strike” against the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria, in response to a deadly attack on American forces in the country.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery “struck more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria”. Aircraft from Jordan were also involved.

It said the operation “employed more than 100 precision munitions” targeting known IS infrastructure and weapons sites.

President Donald Trump said “we are striking very strongly” against IS strongholds, following the 13 December IS ambush in the city of Palmyra in which two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter were killed.

In a statement on X, Centcom, which directs American military operations in Europe, Africa and the Indo-Pacific, said Operation Hawkeye Strike was launched at 16:00 Eastern Time (21:00 GMT) on Friday.

Centcom commander Admiral Brad Cooper said that the US “will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists who seek to harm Americans and our partners across the region”.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation “is not the beginning of a war – it is a declaration of vengeance.

“If you target Americans – anywhere in the world – you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.

“Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue,” the US defence secretary added.

Posting on Truth Social, President Trump said the US “is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible”.

He said the Syrian government was “fully in support”.

Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OBHR) said IS positions near the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez Zor were targeted.

It said that a prominent IS leader and a number of fighters were killed.

IS has not publicly commented. The BBC was unable to verify the targets immediately.

Centcom earlier said that the deadly attack in Palmyra was carried out by an IS gunman, who was “engaged and killed”.

Another three US soldiers were injured in the ambush, with a Pentagon official saying that it happened “in an area where the Syrian president does not have control.”

At the same time, the SOHR said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the identity of the gunman has not been released.

In 2019, a US-backed alliance of Syrian fighters announced IS had lost the last pocket of territory in Syria it controlled, but since then the jihadist group has carried out some attacks.

The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

US troops have maintained a presence in Syria since 2015 to help train other forces as part of a campaign against IS.

Syria has recently joined an international coalition to combat IS and has pledged to co-operate with the US.

In November, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former jihadist leader whose coalition forces toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024 – met Trump at the White House, describing his visit as part of a “new era” for the two countries.

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