Democrats in the US Congress released photos and videos Wednesday showing the luxury island home where convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein allegedly forced underage girls into sex with powerful men.The images of Epstein’s former Caribbean hideaway shed little new light on the complex scandal.However, they could add pressure on the Trump administration to comply with a requirement to release all the investigative files compiled during years of probes into Epstein’s activities — with potentially embarrassing and politically explosive repercussions.The 14 short videos and still photographs depict Epstein’s estate on Little Saint James island in the US Virgin Islands. Images show a luxurious villa, landscaping down to the seashore and a large outdoor swimming pool.A chalkboard in one room is inscribed with words that include “deception,” “power,” “truth,” and “political.” Other words have been redacted by the Democrats who released the images.President Donald Trump fought for months to prevent release of the Epstein files held by the Department of Justice.However, on November 19 he caved to pressure from Congress, including from his Republican Party, and signed a law compelling release of the materials.It remains to be seen how many of the extensive files will see the light of day, with the authorities likely to cite the need to protect ongoing investigations.Epstein, a successful financier, cultivated rich and powerful friends, and frequently hosted them at his lavish Caribbean home.He was convicted in 2008 on two sex crime counts, including solicitation of prostitution with a minor.He served only about a year in detention with unusually lenient conditions. He then avoided more serious charges until 2019 when he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking of minors.He died in pre-trial detention in New York the same year and the death was ruled to be a suicide.Trump and his allies spent years pushing theories about powerful Democrats being protected over involvement with Epstein, framing the case as a potent symbol of how rich men can hide behind lawyers, money and connections.But Trump himself was a longtime friend of Epstein, raising questions over what he knew about the notorious figure.After starting his second presidential term in January, Trump switched from having called for release of the investigative files on Epstein to calling the scandal a “hoax” and resisting any release.

A doctor who supplied “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine in the months before he fatally overdosed, musing to a fellow physician over “how much this moron will pay” for the drug, was jailed in California on Wednesday.Salvador Plasencia, 44, is the first of five people to face justice over Perry’s 2023 death in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home.Plasencia was ordered to serve 30 months in prison for supplying the drug to the actor — who had well documented struggles with addiction — at grossly inflated prices.In a victim impact statement filed with the court, Perry’s mother Suzanne Perry and his stepfather, Keith Morrison, said Plasencia — who did not supply the fatal dose of the drug — had neglected his duty as a doctor.”Matthew’s recovery counted on you saying NO,” they wrote. “Your motives? I can’t imagine. A doctor whose life is devoted to helping people?”Plasencia’s attorneys, Karen Goldstein and Debra White, who had argued for a probationary sentence, said their client, who has surrendered his medical license, was filled with regret.”He is not a villain. He is someone who made serious mistakes in his treatment decisions involving the off-label use of ketamine — a drug commonly used for depression that does not have uniform standards,” they said after the sentencing.”The mistakes he made over the 13 days during which he treated Mr. Perry will stay with him forever.”Another doctor, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.”I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors.The four other people who have also admitted their part in supplying drugs to the actor will be sentenced over the coming months.They include Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, who could be jailed for up to 65 years.Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.- Addiction struggles -The actor’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of “Friends” fans.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.In a plea deal with prosecutors, Plasencia said he went to Perry’s home to administer ketamine by injection and distributed 20 vials of the drug over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023.Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug.First airing between 1994 and 2004, the televised comedy “Friends” followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

An explosive docuseries about Sean “Diddy” Combs — produced by his longtime rival 50 Cent — has been released on Netflix, despite the disgraced music mogul’s attempts to block its airing.The four-part “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” chronicles the career and dramatic fall of the 56-year-old rapper and record executive, who was sentenced in October to 50 months in prison for prostitution-related crimes.During his trial, a New York court heard how he coerced his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura into performing so-called “freak offs” — sexual marathons with hired men that Combs directed and sometimes filmed.The Netflix series features interviews with other associates who detail his allegedly predatory behavior, as well as with two people who claim that the hip-hop star sexually assaulted them.Combs’s lawyers had sought to halt the show’s Tuesday release, sending a cease and desist letter to Netflix a day earlier claiming an apparent copyright violation.They point to footage in the show of Combs speaking with his legal team days before his September 2024 arrest, in which he urges them to “find somebody that will work with us, that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business of media and propaganda.”Juda Engelmayer, Combs’s spokesperson, told AFP that the artist had been capturing the video to “tell his own story, in his own way.””It is fundamentally unfair, and illegal, for Netflix to misappropriate that work.”Netflix, in a statement cited by the Washington Post, said the footage of Combs was legally obtained.Engelmayer also complained that rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson was allowed to executive produce the documentary series, calling him a “longtime adversary with a personal vendetta who has spent too much time slandering Mr Combs.”The pair have a feud that dates back to the mid-2000s, when 50 Cent released a diss track accusing Combs of knowing who murdered famed rapper The Notorious B.I.G. in 1997.Combs was convicted in July of two counts of transporting people across state lines for prostitution. But a jury acquitted him of the most serious charges: sex trafficking and racketeering.He is currently being held in a low-security federal prison some 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of New York. He is due to be released in May 2028.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he believes Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants to end the Ukraine war despite inconclusive talks in Moscow, as US officials prepared for a follow-up meeting with Kyiv’s top negotiator.Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner huddled into the early hours with Putin in the Kremlin but reached no breakthrough on halting Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.The Kremlin said afterward it found parts of the US plan to end the war unacceptable, even though the proposal includes Ukraine ceding parts of the eastern Donbas region it still holds nearly four years after Russia’s invasion.”I can tell you that they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin,” Trump said when an AFP reporter asked him about the talks, adding afterwards that the talks were “very good.”Trump said it was too soon to tell what would happen “because it does take two to tango.”Pressed on whether Witkoff and Kushner got any sense that Putin genuinely wanted to halt Russia’s nearly four-year-old invasion, Trump replied: “He would like to end the war. That was their impression.”Trump added that Ukraine “pretty well” backed the US proposal, although he added that Kyiv should have done so earlier when he had a notoriously heated meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval office in February.Witkoff and Kushner were now due to meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday, two US officials told AFP, to follow up on the Kremlin talks.- ‘Successes of the Russian army’ -But while the White House had voiced optimism ahead of the Kremlin talks, Moscow said that the two sides had failed to reach a compromise and that more work was needed.The Kremlin added Wednesday that its army’s recent battlefield successes in Ukraine had bolstered its position and that Kyiv’s ties to NATO remained a key question.Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine gathered pace last month and Putin has said in recent days that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims if Kyiv does not surrender it.”The progress and nature of the negotiations were influenced by the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield in recent weeks,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in the US-Russia talks, told reporters, including AFP.Moscow insisted it was incorrect to say Putin rejected the plan in its entirety.It also said Russia was still committed to diplomacy, despite Putin’s stark warning earlier this week that Moscow was prepared to fight Europe if it wanted war.”We are still ready to meet as many times as is needed to reach a peace settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. – ‘Opportunity to end the war’ -In Kyiv, Zelensky said that though a window of opportunity for peace has opened, it must be accompanied by pressure on Moscow. “The world now clearly feels that there is an opportunity to end the war, and the current activity in negotiations must be supported by pressure on Russia,” he said in a regular evening address. The fresh talks come as NATO pledges to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of US arms for Kyiv. NATO chief Mark Rutte said it was positive that peace talks were ongoing, but that the alliance should make sure that “Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going”.Russian troops have been grinding forward across the front line against outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces.Earlier this week, Moscow claimed to have captured the important stronghold of Pokrovsk, but a Ukrainian army unit fighting in the city said urban combat was still ongoing.European countries have expressed fears Washington and Moscow will reach agreements without them and have spent the last weeks trying to amend the US plan so that it does not force Kyiv to capitulate. burs-dk