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Comic-Con attendees got their first glimpse Saturday at the new sci-fi space thriller “Project Hail Mary,” starring Ryan Gosling, ahead of its arrival in US theaters in March 2026.Gosling was joined on a convention panel by directing duo Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, as well as screenwriter Drew Goddard and book author Andy Weir — whose previous novel “The Martian” was also turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Matt Damon.Based on Weir’s 2021 book of the same title, “Project Hail Mary” follows astronaut Ryland Grace (Gosling), a science teacher waking up to learn he was recruited for a space mission to save Earth from an existential solar threat.Gosling described his character as “a scared guy who has to do something impossible.””I knew it would be brilliant, because it’s Andy [Weir],” Gosling told the crowd.”It took me places I’ve never been. It showed me things I had never seen. It was as heartbreaking as it was funny and I was… not just blown away, but also overwhelmed.”Weir for his part said it was “so cool” to see his book come to life and complimented Gosling for giving “many layers to this character I made up.”Lord and Miller, the Oscar-winning duo behind the “Spider-Verse” Spider-Man animated films, talked about the challenges of shooting a “crazy ambitious” film which takes place inside a spaceship for the most part.”We had to build an entire spaceship in two modes of gravity, and then we built this entire massive tunnel at scale,” Miller said.”This is insane, to build a tunnel that was like 100 feet (30 meters) long, filled up an entire stage.”The event also showcased various clips from the film, receiving a positive response from fans, who noted the bond formed between Gosling’s character and an alien named Rocky.”The relationship between these two characters is the heart of the movie,” Miller said.”I loved it,” attendee April Rodriguez, who also read the book, gushed about the film.”I just never, like, envisioned it that way. So that was pretty cool.”- Star Trek -Comic-Con, which bring some 130,000 fans for the convention in San Diego, California, welcomed the Star Trek universe to the main stage earlier in the day Saturday to showcase its upcoming releases.Thousands of fans filled the hall to watch exclusive footage from the fourth season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” before it premieres on Paramount+.One clip showed Captain Christopher Pike played by Anson Mount in an entire episode where the cast is depicted like puppets from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.Fans were also offered a first look of a new Star Trek series, dubbed “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” starring Holly Hunter.Hunter plays Nahla Ake, the academy’s chancellor and captain of the USS Athena, who in a clip shown at Comic-Con welcomes a new class of cadets.”It was really interesting to get the offer to be the captain, but then also to combine that with being the chancellor,” Hunter said.”The captain is there to analyze in emergency situations, and then to delegate. And the chancellor is there to guide, to collaborate and to have tremendous empathy.”It was just a wonderful combination of things,” she added.Comic-Con continues on Sunday for its final day of events.

Lisa Tate, whose family has been farming in Ventura County since 1876, cannot recall a threat to crops like the one emanating from Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant onslaught.Tate fears that the crackdown on illegal workers, far from addressing the problems of this vital agricultural region north of Los Angeles, could “dismantle the whole economy” and put the country’s food security at risk.”I began to get really concerned when we saw a group of border control agents come up to the Central Valley and just start going onto farms and just kind of trying to chase people down, evading the property owner,” the 46-year-old farmer, who grows avocados, citrus and coffee, told AFP in an interview.”That’s not something we’re used to happening in agriculture,” she added.The impact goes beyond harvesters, she said. “There’s a whole food chain involved,” from field workers to truck drivers to people working in packing houses and in sales.”It’s just, everybody’s scared,” she said — even a multi-generational American like her. “I’m nervous and I’m scared, because we’re feeling like we’re being attacked.”Other farmers contacted by AFP declined to speak to the media, saying they feared potential reprisals from the Trump administration. – Worker shortages -The agricultural sector has for years been trying to find permanent solutions for its perennial labor shortages, beyond issuing temporary permits for migrant workers.”Some of the work we have is seasonal. But really, around here, we need workers that are year-round,” Tate says.The number of government certified positions for temporary agricultural workers practically tripled between 2014 and 2024, Department of Labor statistics show, underlining just how much American agriculture depends on foreign workers.On top of that, some 42 percent of farm workers are not authorized to work in the United States, according to a 2022 study by the Department of Agriculture.Those numbers line up with the struggles many farmers go through to find labor. They say US citizens are not interested in the physically demanding work, with its long days under extreme temperatures, rain and sun.Against that backdrop, Tate warns that removing people who are actually doing the work will cause immeasurable damage. Not only will it harm farms and ranches, which could take years to recover, it will also send food prices soaring, and even endanger US food security, possibly requiring the country to start importing provisions that may previously have been grown at home, she says. “What we really need is some legislation that has the type of program that we need, and that works for both the workers, that ensures their safety, it ensures a fair playing field when it comes to international trade, as well as as domestic needs,” Tate said.- “Everyone loses” -Some farmworkers agreed to speak to AFP on condition of not being fully identified, for fear of being arrested.”All we do is work,” a worker named Silvia told AFP. She saw several friends arrested in a raid in in Oxnard, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Ventura.The 32-year-old Mexican lives in constant fear that she will be the next one picked up and, in the end, separated from her two US-born daughters.”We’re between a rock and a hard place. If we don’t work, how will we pay our bills? And if we go out, we run the risk of running into them,” she said, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.”The way the goverment is working right now, everybody loses,” said Miguel, who has been working in the fields of southern California for three decades. The 54-year-old said that workers are losing jobs, farm owners are losing their labor, and as a result, the United States is losing its food.  Miguel has worked in various different agriculture sector jobs, including during the Covid-19 pandemic. All of them were “very hard jobs,” he said.Now he feels like he has a target on his back.”They should do a little research so they understand. The food they eat comes from the fields, right?” he said. “So it would be good if they were more aware, and gave us an opportunity to contribute positively, and not send us into hiding.”

Mervin Yamarte left Venezuela with his younger brother, hoping for a better life. But after a perilous jungle march, US detention, and long months in a Salvadoran jail surviving riots, beatings and fear, he has returned home a wounded and changed man.On entering the sweltering Caribbean port of Maracaibo, the first thing Yamarte did after hugging his mother and six-year-old daughter was to burn the baggy white prison shorts he wore during four months of “hell.””The suffering is over now,” said the 29-year-old, enjoying a longed-for moment of catharsis.Yamarte was one of 252 Venezuelans detained in US President Donald Trump’s March immigration crackdown, accused without evidence of gang activity, and deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.According to four ex-detainees interviewed by AFP, the months were marked by abuse, violence, spoiled food and legal limbo.”You are going to die here!” heavily armed guards taunted them on arrival to the maximum security facility east of the capital San Salvador. “Welcome to hell!”The men had their heads shaved and were issued with prison clothes: a T-shirt, shorts, socks, and white plastic clogs.Yamarte said a small tuft of hair was left at the nape of his neck, which the guards tugged at.The Venezuelans were held separately from the local prison population in “Pavilion 8” — a building with 32 cells, each measuring about 100 square meters (1,076 square feet).Each cell — roughly the size of an average two-bedroom apartment — was designed to hold 80 prisoners.- ‘Carried out unconscious’ -Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele built the prison to house the country’s most dangerous gang members in deliberately brutal conditions, drawing constant criticism from rights groups.Trump’s administration paid Bukele $6 million to keep the Venezuelans behind bars.AFP has unsuccessfully requested a tour of the facility and interviews with CECOT authorities.Another prisoner, 37-year-old Maikel Olivera, recounted there were “beatings 24 hours a day” and sadistic guards who warned, “You are going to rot here, you’re going to be in jail for 300 years.””I thought I would never return to Venezuela,” he said.For four months, the prisoners had no access to the internet, phone calls, visits from loved ones, or even lawyers.At least one said he was sexually abused.The men said they slept mostly on metal cots, with no mattresses to provide comfort.There were several small, poorly-ventilated cells where prisoners would be locked up for 24 hours at a time for transgressions — real or imagined.”There were fellow detainees who couldn’t endure even two hours and were carried out unconscious,” Yamarte recounted. The men never saw sunlight and were allowed one shower a day at 4:00 am. If they showered out of turn, they were beaten.Andy Perozo, 30, told AFP of guards firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the cells.For a week after one of two riots that were brutally suppressed, “they shot me every morning. It was hell for me. Every time I went to the doctor, they beat me,” he said. Edwuar Hernandez, 23, also told of being beaten at the infirmary.”They would kick you… kicks everywhere,” he said. “Look at the marks; I have marks, I’m all marked.”The detainees killed time playing games with dice made from bits of tortilla dough.They counted the passing days with notches on a bar of soap.- ‘Out of hell’ -An estimated eight million Venezuelans have fled the political and economic chaos of their homeland to try to find a job in the United States that would allow them to send money home.Yamarte left in September 2023, making the weeks-long journey on foot through the Darien Gap that separates Colombia from Panama.It is unforgiving terrain that has claimed the lives of countless migrants who must brave predatory criminal gangs and wild animals.Yamarte was arrested in Dallas in March and deported three days later, without a court hearing.All 252 detainees were suddenly, and unexpectedly, freed on July 18 in a prisoner exchange deal between Caracas and Washington.Now, many are contemplating legal action.Many of the men believe they were arrested in the United States simply for sporting tattoos wrongly interpreted as proof of association with the feared Tren de Aragua gang.Yamarte has one that reads: “Strong like Mom.””I am clean. I can prove it to anyone,” he said indignantly, hurt at being falsely accused of being a criminal.”We went… to seek a better future for our families; we didn’t go there to steal or kill.”Yamarte, Perozo, and Hernandez are from the same poor neighborhood of Maracaibo, where their loved ones decorated homes with balloons and banners once news broke of their release.Yamarte’s mom, 46-year-old Mercedes, had prepared a special lunch of steak, mashed potatoes, and fried green plantain. At her house on Tuesday, the phone rang shortly after Yamarte’s arrival.It was his brother Juan, who works in the United States without papers and moves from place to place to evade Trump’s migrant dragnet.Juan told AFP he just wants to stay long enough to earn the $1,700 he needs to pay off the house he had bought for his wife and child in Venezuela.”Every day we thought of you, every day,” Juan told his brother. “I always had you in my mind, always, always.” “The suffering is over now,” replied Mervin. “We’ve come out of hell.”

Donald Trump’s promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history has appalled some Americans. But others are cashing in on the boom in demand for private detention centers.Migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to be temporarily housed in places like the facility being readied in California City, prior to deportation.”When you talk to the majority of residents here, they have a favorable perspective on it,” said Marquette Hawkins, mayor of the hardscrabble settlement of 15,000 people, 100 miles (160 kilometres) north of Los Angeles.”They look at the economic impact, right?”California City is to be home to a sprawling detention center that will be operated by CoreCivic, one of the largest companies in the private detention sector.The company, which declined AFP requests for an interview, says the facility would generate around 500 jobs, and funnel $2 million in tax revenue to the city.”Many of our residents have already been hired out there to work in that facility,” Hawkins told AFP.”Any revenue source that is going to assist the town in rebuilding itself, rebranding itself, is going to be seen as a plus,” he said.- Boom -Trump’s ramped-up immigration arrests, like those that provoked protests in Los Angeles, saw a record 60,000 people in detention in June, according to ICE figures.Those same figures show the vast majority have no conviction, despite the president’s election campaign promises to go after hardened criminals.More than 80 percent of detainees are in facilities run by the private sector, according to the TRAC project at Syracuse University. And with Washington’s directive to triple the number of daily arrests — and $45 billion earmarked for new detention centers — the sector is looking at an unprecedented boom. “Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,” Damon Hininger, executive director of CoreCivic, said in a May call with investors.When Trump took office in January, some 107 centers were operating. The number now hovers around 200. For Democratic politicians, this proliferation is intentional.”Private prison companies are profiting from human suffering, and Republicans are allowing them to get away with it,” Congresswoman Norma Torres told reporters outside a detention center in the southern California city of Adelanto.At the start of the year, there were three people detained there; there are now hundreds, each one of them attracting a daily stipend of taxpayer cash for the operator. Torres was refused permission to visit the facility, run by the privately owned GEO Group, because she had not given seven days’ notice, she said.”Denying members of Congress access to private detention facilities like Adelanto isn’t just disrespectful, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it is a desperate attempt to hide the abuse happening behind these walls,” she said.”We’ve heard the horrifying stories of detainees being violently arrested, denied basic medical care, isolated for days, and left injured without treatment,” she added.Kristen Hunsberger, a staff attorney at the Law Center for Immigrant Advocates, said one client complained of having to wait “six or seven hours to get clean water.”It is “not sanitary and certainly not… in compliance with just basic human rights.”Hunsberger, who spends hours on the road going from one center to another to locate her clients, says many have been denied access to legal counsel, a constitutional right in the United States. Both GEO and ICE have denied allegations of mistreatment at the detention centers.”Claims there is overcrowding or subprime conditions in ICE facilities are categorically FALSE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.”All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.” – ‘Strategy’ -But some relatives of detainees tell a different story.Alejandra Morales, an American citizen, said her undocumented husband was detained incommunicado for five days in Los Angeles before being transferred to Adelanto. In the Los Angeles facility, “they don’t even let them brush their teeth, they don’t let them bathe, nothing. They have them all sleeping on the floor, in a cell, all together,” she said. Hunsberger said that for detainees and their relatives, the treatment appears to be deliberate.”They’re starting to feel that this is a strategy to wear people down, to have them in these inhumane conditions, and then pressure them to sign something where they could then agree to being deported,” she said.

The US space agency NASA will lose about 3,900 employees under Donald Trump’s sweeping effort to trim the federal workforce — at the same time as the president prioritizes plans for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.In an emailed statement, NASA said around 3,000 employees took part in the second round of its deferred resignation program, which closed late Friday.Combined with the 870 who joined the first round and regular staff departures, the agency’s civil servant workforce is set to drop from more than 18,000 before Trump took office in January to roughly 14,000 — a more than 20 percent decrease.Those leaving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the deferred resignation program will be placed on administrative leave until an agreed departure date. An agency spokesperson said the figures could shift slightly in the coming weeks.”Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars,” the agency said.Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s proposed NASA budget put a return to the Moon and a journey to Mars front and center, slashing science and climate programs.The White House says it wants to focus on “beating China back to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars.” China is aiming for its first crewed lunar landing by 2030, while the US program, called Artemis, has faced repeated delays.NASA is still run by an acting administrator after the administration’s initial pick to lead the agency, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman — endorsed by former Trump advisor Elon Musk — was ultimately rejected by the Republican president.

France’s left-wing politicians on Saturday called on President Emmanuel Macron to intervene over US plans to destroy nearly $10 million worth of female contraceptives in Europe, calling it an “affront” to public health.A State Department spokesperson told AFP this week that “a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain” birth control products from “terminated Biden-era USAID contracts.” The US Agency for International Development, the country’s foreign aid arm, was dismantled by Donald Trump’s administration when he returned to office in January, replacing former president Joe Biden.Under the plan, some $9.7 million worth of implant and IUD contraceptives stored in Belgium are reportedly set to be incinerated in France.An open letter signed by French Green leader Marine Tondelier and several female lawmakers called the US decision “an affront to the fundamental principles of solidarity, public health and sexual and reproductive rights that France is committed to defending.”In the letter, they urged the French president “not to be complicit, even indirectly, in retrograde policies,” saying women’s contraception products such as IUDs and implants were intended for “low- and middle-income countries.””Cutting aid for contraception is shameful, destroying products that have already been manufactured and financed is even more mind-boggling,” Tondelier told AFP.The Greens urged Macron to request the suspension of the plan “as part of a joint initiative with the European Commission.”They also called on him to back humanitarian organisations that say they are ready to redistribute the contraception products.Separately, Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party, also urged Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to take action.”You have a responsibility to act to prevent this destruction, which will cost lives,” she said on X.”These resources are vital, particularly for the 218 million women who do not have access to contraceptive care.”The US plan has sparked outrage from global health NGOs, with Doctors Without Borders denouncing the “callous waste.””It is unconscionable to think of these health products being burned when the demand for them globally is so great,” said Rachel Milkovich of the medical charity’s US office.The State Department spokesperson said the destruction will cost $167,000 and “no HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed.”Doctors Without Borders says that other organisations have offered to cover the shipping and distribution costs of the supplies, but the US government declined to sign off.US lawmakers have approved slashing some $9 billion in aid primarily destined for foreign countries.

The highly anticipated science fiction series “Alien: Earth” officially landed at Comic-Con in California on Friday, where thousands of fans watched the pilot of a new TV series in the franchise.The pop culture convention held annually in San Diego was the chosen setting for the world premiere of the FX series created by Noah Hawley. “This is by far the biggest thing I’ve ever made,” Hawley told 6,500 cheering fans in Comic-Con’s Hall H before presenting the first episode, which he also directed.And in Hall H — unlike in space — you could hear them scream.”It was crazy!” squealed Nicole Martindale, a fan of the franchise who traveled from northern California for the event. “It wasn’t what I expected based on the Alien movies, but it was pretty cool,” she added.”Alien: Earth” is set a couple of years before the events of Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver.Scott served as executive producer of this expansion of the franchise, which will hit streaming platforms in August. “If I have a skill at adapting these films, it’s in an understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and trying to create it anew by telling you a totally different story,” Hawley told the audience. The panel also featured stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin, who discussed what it was like to become part of the storied franchise and share a scene with the Xenomorph. “It’s a dream, it was surreal,” said Chandler, who plays Wendy, a “hybrid” who is a blend of human consciousness and a synthetic body. “I’ve been a sci-fi and ‘Alien’ fan forever. I keep pinching myself.”- ‘Tron’ -One of the world’s largest celebrations of pop culture, Comic-Con brings together 130,000 people, many of whom come dressed as wizards, princesses or characters from movies, games or TV series.This year, the lines to enter Hall H have been less frenetic than in previous editions. Fans accustomed to camping out at the gates of the venue to get a spot inside say the lack of a big Marvel Studios presence has eased the crush.”Last year, we arrived the night before and had to wait hours to get” in, said Carla Gonzalez, who has attended the event every year with her family since 2013.”This year the first panel is about to start, and there are still empty chairs. If Marvel were here, it would be packed,” she added. There was still plenty for afficionados to get excited about, including a panel on “Predator: Badlands” directed by Dan Trachtenberg and set to hit US theaters in November. “There is something really special about strapping into something… and having no idea what will happen next, and that’s ‘Badlands’,” Trachtenberg said.Trachtenberg, responsible for revitalizing the franchise with “Prey” (2022), appeared alongside stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who plays the Predator, Dek. The production places the predator at the center of the plot for the first time as prey, not hunter. “He is ferocious and bad ass, and very much an anti-hero,” Trachtenberg said.Actors Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges and Greta Lee and the team from “Tron: Ares” also delighted fans. The film, directed by Joachim Ronning, is the third installment of another beloved science fiction franchise which began in 1982, with Bridges playing a hacker who becomes trapped in the digital world. Comic-Con concludes on Sunday.

Fired by France’s imminent recognition of Palestinian statehood, UN members meet next week to breathe life into the push for a two-state solution as Israel, expected to be absent, presses its war in Gaza.Days before the July 28-30 conference on fostering Israeli and Palestinian states living peacefully side-by-side to be co-chaired by Riyadh and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognize the State of Palestine in September.His declaration “will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at International Crisis Group.”Macron’s announcement changes the game. Other participants will be scrabbling to decide if they should also declare an intent to recognize Palestine.”According to an AFP database, at least 142 of the 193 UN member states — including France — now recognize the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in exile in 1988. In 1947, a resolution of the UN General Assembly decided on the partition of Palestine, then under a British mandate, into two independent states — one Jewish and the other Arab. The following year, the State of Israel was proclaimed, and for several decades, the vast majority of UN member states have supported the idea of a two-state solution: Israeli and Palestinian, living side-by-side peacefully and securely. But after more than 21 months of war in Gaza, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and senior Israeli officials declaring designs to annex occupied territory, it is feared a Palestinian state could be geographically impossible. The war in Gaza started following a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel, which responded with a large-scale military response that has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.The New York conference is a response to the crisis, with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and several dozen ministers from around the world expected to attend.- ‘No alternative’ -The meeting comes as a two-state solution is “more threatened than it has ever been (but) even more necessary than before, because we see very clearly that there is no alternative,” said a French diplomatic source.Beyond facilitating conditions for recognition of a Palestinian state, the meeting will have three other focuses — reform of the Palestinian Authority, disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from Palestinian public life, and normalization of relations with Israel by Arab states that have not yet done so.The diplomatic source warned that no announcement of new normalization deals was expected next week.Ahead of the conference, which was delayed from June, Britain said it would not recognize a Palestinian state unilaterally and would wait for “a wider plan” for peace in the region.Macron has also not yet persuaded Germany to follow suit and recognize a Palestinian state in the short term.The conference “offers a unique opportunity to transform international law and the international consensus into an achievable plan and to demonstrate resolve to end the occupation and conflict once and for all, for the benefit of all peoples,” said the Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, calling for “courage” from participants.Israel and the United States will not take part in the meeting.Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon “has announced that Israel will not be taking part in this conference, which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” according to embassy spokesman Jonathan Harounoff.As international pressure continues to mount on Israel to end nearly two years of war in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe in the ravaged coastal territory is expected to dominate speeches by representatives of more than 100 countries as they take to the podium from Monday to Wednesday.Gowan said he expected “very fierce criticism of Israel.” 

The US Justice Department’s deputy chief conducted a second day of questioning Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose infamous case has dragged President Donald Trump into a political firestorm.Todd Blanche, who is also Trump’s former personal attorney, has so far declined to say what he discussed with Maxwell in the highly unusual meetings between a convicted felon and a top DOJ official.Maxwell’s lawyer David Markus said Friday afternoon that she was asked about “everything” and “answered every single question” during the second day of questioning at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.”They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine,” Markus told reporters outside the courtroom, without elaborating.But he did say there was “no offers” of clemency made to Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex trafficking charges.Trump is looking to move past the Epstein scandal, which has seen him on rare unsure footing over claims his administration mishandled a review of the notorious case.On Friday, Trump again sought to put distance between himself and Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.”I have nothing to do with the guy,” Trump, whose past friendship with Epstein has received much media attention this week, told reporters ahead of a visit to Scotland.- ‘Never briefed’ -Trump urged journalists to “focus” instead on Democratic Party figures like former president Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary, former Harvard president Larry Summers, whom the Republican claimed were “really close friends” of Epstein.Asked whether he was considering a pardon or commutation of Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump said it was something “I haven’t thought about” — but stressed he had the power to do so.He also denied multiple US media reports that he was briefed in the spring by Attorney General Pam Bondi that his name appeared multiple times in the so-called “Epstein Files.””No, I was never — never briefed, no,” Trump said.Multi-millionaire Epstein was accused of procuring underage girls for sex with his circle of wealthy, high-profile associates when he died by suicide in a New York jail cell.His death fueled conspiracy theories that he was murdered to stop him testifying against prominent accomplices.Trump, who had promised his supporters revelations about the case, infuriated some after his administration announced in early July that it had not discovered any new elements warranting the release of additional documents.The Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no proof that there was a “list” of Epstein’s clients, while affirming he died by suicide.- ‘Scapegoat’? -Ahead of the second round of questioning, Markus told reporters “Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now” and described her as a “scapegoat.””Everything she says can be corroborated and she’s telling the truth. She’s got no reason to lie at this point and she’s going to keep telling the truth,” he added.Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate who has been convicted, was jailed in 2022 for grooming underage girls between 1994 and 2004 so that Epstein could sexually exploit them.Her lawyer said she still intended to appeal her conviction in the Supreme Court.The Wall Street Journal reported  Wednesday that Trump’s name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of Epstein’s case files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the Journal last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the legislative session this week, sending lawmakers home on summer recess a day early to avoid potentially combustible debate — particularly among Trump’s Republicans — on the release of files.

Disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was expelled from the US Congress for using stolen donor cash to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, reported to prison Friday to start his seven-year sentence, authorities said.Santos, 37, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft for his elaborate grifting while a lawmaker representing New York.He turned himself in Friday at the federal prison in Fairton, New Jersey, the Bureau of Prisons told AFP.Despite his guilty plea, prosecutors insisted Santos’s social media showed his claims of remorse “ring hollow” and Judge Joanna Seybert in April handed down a sentence of seven years and three months.The downfall of the congressman from Long Island came after it was revealed he had fabricated almost his entire backstory including his education, religion and work history.Santos was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2022 and indicted the following year for stealing  campaign donors’ identities and using their credit cards, among other charges.Santos used the stolen funds for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas, according to an investigation by a congressional ethics committee.Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish and having been a college volleyball star.He was ultimately doomed by the congressional probe that found overwhelming evidence of misconduct and accused him of seeking to “fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy.”Santos was expelled from the House in 2023, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals.