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US President Donald Trump said Sunday he backed lawmakers’ efforts to release more files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, despite previous opposition to the measure.”House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.The 79-year-old Republican has accused Democrats of pushing an “Epstein hoax” after emails emerged in which the disgraced financier suggested Trump “knew about the girls.”Some critics have accused Trump of trying to conceal details about his own alleged wrongdoing — something the president denies — by looking to block the vote.The issue has divided his typically loyal Republican party and driven a rift between Trump and some of his closest allies within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Over the weekend, Trump withdrew his endorsement for Congresswoman and MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2026 re-election bid. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would hold a vote this week on a bid to force the Justice Department to release the remaining files relating to the Epstein probe.”Some ‘members’ of the Republican Party are being ‘used,’ and we can’t let that happen,” Trump said in his post, in reference to lawmakers who backed a call by Democrats to release the files.- Justice Department probe -After the longest-ever US government shutdown ended last week, lawmakers in the US House of Representatives released a trove of emails obtained from Epstein’s estate.In one, Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours” with one of the victims at his house, and another referred to the president as “dirty.”Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the messages “raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes.”After the email trove’s release, Trump demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI investigate links between Epstein and ex-president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, along with former Harvard president Larry Summers, who served as Clinton’s treasury secretary.The order for a probe comes even though the FBI and Justice Department said in a memo in July that they had not uncovered evidence that would justify an investigation of uncharged third parties.With the help of Ghislaine Maxwell, who acted as a recruiter, Epstein brought underage girls to his residences — notably in New York and Florida — where they were sexually abused, often under the guise of providing erotic massages.Before Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial in a pedophile trafficking case, he had been required to register as a sex offender in Florida after pleading guilty in 2008 to solicitation of prostitution, including from a minor.Trump’s conspiracy-minded supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been furious since the FBI and Justice Department said on July 7 that Epstein had killed himself while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures and did not keep a “client list.”

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” — the third installment in the crime heist franchise about a group of magicians — debuted atop the North American box office, besting the Glen Powell-fronted remake of “The Running Man,” industry estimates showed Sunday.Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me” — which reunites Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Woody Harrelson as Robin Hood-style illusionists targeting dangerous criminals — raked in $21.3 million from Friday to Sunday, Exhibitor Relations said.This time out, the original Four Horsemen — who first appeared on screen in 2013 — are joined by three younger magicians: Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Justice Smith.”There aren’t a lot of crime heist series that get to episode 3, simply because it’s so hard to keep these stories fresh,” said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.”It’s serialized storytelling and there’s good material like this on TV. Still, these characters are connecting — these are very good figures.”Paramount’s “The Running Man,” a new take on Stephen King’s dystopian novel about a murderous game show, opened in second place with $17 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada.It comes 38 years after a loose adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987.”That’s a long time, and the storyline is showing some wear,” Gross said.”Predator: Badlands” from Disney’s 20th Century Studios dropped from first to third place, taking in $13 million.The latest installment in the decades-old sci-fi horror franchise stars Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as an outcast Predator who is the hero this time, teaming up with an android (Elle Fanning) on an epic journey to prove himselfParamount’s “Regretting You,” the latest film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover romantic novel, came in fourth at $4 million.And Universal’s horror sequel “Black Phone 2,” once again starring Ethan Hawke as a devilish villain, came in fifth place at $2.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 were:”Nuremberg” ($2.6 million)”Keeper” ($2.5 million)”Sarah’s Oil” ($2.3 million)”Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” ($1.6 million)”Bugonia” ($1.6 million)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday slammed new joint military exercises by the United States and its ally Trinidad and Tobago as “irresponsible,” with Washington increasing its armed presence in the Caribbean.Caracas claims recent US military activity in the region — which Washington says is directed against drug gangs — is really a ploy to overthrow leftist leader Maduro.This is the second joint training exercise carried out by the United States and Trinidad and Tobago in less than a month. In October, a US guided missile destroyer docked at Trinidad for four days for another round of practice drills — within firing range of Venezuela, whose government called it a “provocation.””The government of Trinidad and Tobago has once again announced irresponsible exercises, lending its waters off the coast of Sucre state for military exercises that are intended to be threatening to a republic like Venezuela, which does not allow itself to be threatened by anyone,” Maduro said during an event in Caracas on Saturday.Maduro called on his supporters in the eastern states of the country to hold “a vigil and a permanent march in the streets” during the military maneuvers, scheduled for November 16-21. The United States has deployed warships, fighter jets and thousands of soldiers to Latin America in recent weeks and launched strikes on 21 alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing at least 80 people.Washington has provided no evidence those targeted were traffickers, and rights observer groups say the strikes are illegal regardless.On Tuesday, a US aircraft carrier strike group also arrived in the region, prompting Caracas to announce a “massive” retaliatory deployment.US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced a military operation aimed at “narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere,” but it was unclear how it might differ from the existing US military deployment.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former key political ally of Donald Trump, said Saturday she was being targeted by a wave of threats after the US president lashed out at her on social media.The 51-year-old Republican congresswoman had previously been a standard-bearer of Trump’s Make America Great Again Movement (MAGA), but the president on Friday announced he was withdrawing all support for “‘Wacky’ Marjorie.”He followed up again Saturday morning with multiple posts on his Truth Social platform attacking Greene as a “lightweight” and even a “traitor” to the Republican Party.Greene said later on X that she was “being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.”The high-profile rupture comes after Greene in recent weeks has distanced herself from the president, as he faces growing criticism over US cost of living concerns and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.The dispute also marks an extraordinary rift in the MAGA movement a year before US midterm elections.Until recently a diehard pro-Trump supporter, Greene has broken with the president on a host of issues. Trump expressed frustration with her for the first time on Monday, saying she had “lost her way.”Greene’s sudden shift has prompted speculation that she is lining up for her own presidential bid in 2028, although she has dismissed it as “baseless gossip.”Perhaps the most sensitive area of criticism has been Greene’s position on the Epstein scandal, which ensnared Trump again in recent days with the release of a new trove of emails.After becoming a leading voice calling for justice for victims of the notorious sex offender over the summer, Greene this week was one of a few MAGA rebels who backed a push to vote on demanding the public release of files relating to the Epstein probe.In her Saturday morning post on X, she again touched on the Epstein scandal. “As a woman I take threats from men seriously,” Greene said. “I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.”

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would sue the BBC for up to $5 billion, after the British broadcaster apologized but said it would not pay damages for a misleading speech edit.The broadcaster has rejected Trump’s legal defamation claim, but the president appears determined not to let the matter rest, even after the departure of top BBC executives and as the controversy threatens to become a strain on ties with London.”We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars, probably some time next week. I think I have to do it. They’ve even admitted that they cheated,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.Trump earlier said he would sue the BBC for $1 billion, an already enormous sum that represents 13 percent of the organization’s annual revenue. It is mostly funded by a license fee paid by the British public.The broadcaster has been in turmoil since the edited clip from its flagship news program “Panorama” — aired before the 2024 presidential elections — resurfaced last week.On Monday, the BBC apologized for giving the impression in the documentary that Trump had directly urged “violent action” just before the assault on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.”The people of the UK are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news,” Trump said on Friday.He added that he planned to raise the issue with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has backed the broadcaster’s independence while avoiding taking sides against Trump.”I’m going to call him over the weekend. He actually put a call into me. He’s very embarrassed,” Trump said.- Sensitive period for BBC -Trump’s lawyers sent the BBC a letter on Monday accusing the broadcaster of defaming the president and giving it until Friday to apologize and pay compensation.The BBC said Thursday that its chairman Samir Shah had sent “a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech.”However, it added: “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”In Britain, the controversy has reignited a heated debate on the operations and impartiality of public broadcasting, as the organization has already been shaken in recent years by several scandals.The editing row comes at a politically sensitive time for the BBC, which is due to renegotiate the Royal Charter that outlines the corporation’s governance. Its current charter will end in 2027.The firestorm over the video edit has led the BBC director-general and the organization’s top news executive to resign.The broadcaster has confirmed it is also investigating another edit of Trump’s speech from the day of the Capital riots, which the Telegraph newspaper reported had aired in June 2022 on the BBC’s “Newsnight” program.In an interview with UK channel GB News broadcast on Friday, Trump again said he had an obligation to pursue legal action.”This was so egregious,” he said of the video edit.”If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

US President Donald Trump said Friday he was pulling his endorsement for key ally Marjorie Taylor Greene after a string of disagreements, calling the hard-right lawmaker a “ranting lunatic.”It marks an extraordinary rift in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement a year before US midterm elections, with Trump facing growing criticism on the cost of living and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. “I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.”All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”Trump said he would be open to backing an opponent if Republicans in her state of Georgia decided to mount a primary challenge against Greene, saying people there were “fed up with her and her antics.””If the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support. She has gone Far Left,” Trump said.Trump has, largely successfully, supported primary challenges against Republicans he considers insufficiently loyal in the past.Greene responded quickly on X saying “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.” She asserted that Trump was attacking her as punishment — and as a warning to other Republicans — because she supports efforts for Congress to call on the administration to release the full Epstein probe files.The split comes at a delicate time for Trump, following heavy off-year election losses earlier this month that have caused Republican jitters a year away from the 2026 midterms.Firebrand Greene, 51, was until recently a diehard pro-Trump supporter — even wearing a “Trump Was Right About Everything” hat when he addressed Congress in March. She has since broken with him on a host of issues, and Trump expressed frustration with her for the first time on Monday, saying she had “lost her way.”The first signs came when she split with other Republicans over the summer when she called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.”Greene has also been critical on health care and particularly the cost of living crisis, telling Trump to focus on the “home front” instead of foreign policy and peace deals.Perhaps the most sensitive area of criticism has been Greene’s position on the Epstein scandal, which ensnared Trump again in recent days with the release of a new trove of emails.After becoming a leading voice calling for justice for victims of the notorious sex offender over the summer, Greene this week was one of a few MAGA rebels who backed a call by Democrats on a vote to push Trump to release files relating to the Epstein probe.”And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” Greene said in her X post Friday night.”It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” she added.Greene’s sudden shift has prompted speculation that she is lining up for her own presidential bid in 2028, although she has dismissed it as “baseless gossip.” Famed for her scathing comments towards Democrats and journalists, Greene had previously made her name as a fierce defender of Trump’s policies.She also embraced QAnon conspiracy theories and in 2018 asserted that California wildfires were ignited by a space laser controlled by the Jewish Rothschild family.

US President Donald Trump said Friday he was pulling his endorsement for key ally Marjorie Taylor Greene after a string of disagreements, calling the hard-right lawmaker a “ranting lunatic.”It marks extraordinary rift in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement a year before US mid-term elections, with Trump facing growing criticism on the cost of living and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. “I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.”All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”Trump said he would be open to backing an opponent if Republicans in her state of Georgia decided to mount a primary challenge against Greene, saying people there were “fed up with her and her antics.””If the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support. She has gone Far Left,” Trump said.Trump has, largely successfully, supported primary challenges against Republicans he considers insufficiently loyal in the past.The split comes at a delicate time for Trump, following heavy off-year election losses earlier this month that have caused Republican jitters a year away from the 2026 midterms.Firebrand Greene, 51, was until recently a diehard pro-Trump supporter — even wearing a “Trump Was Right About Everything” hat when he addressed Congress in March. She has since broken with him on a host of issues, and Trump expressed frustration with her for the first time on Monday, saying she had “lost her way.”The first signs came when she split with other Republicans over the summer when she called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.”Greene has also been critical on health care and particularly the cost of living crisis, telling Trump to focus on the “home front” instead of foreign policy and peace deals.Perhaps the most sensitive area of criticism has been Greene’s position on the Epstein scandal, which ensnared Trump again in recent days with the release of a new trove of emails.After becoming a leading voice calling for justice for victims of the notorious sex offender over the summer, Greene this week was one of a few MAGA rebels who backed a call by Democrats on a vote to push Trump to release files relating to the Epstein probe.Greene’s sudden shift has prompted speculation that she is lining up for her own presidential bid in 2028, although she has dismissed it as “baseless gossip.” Famed for her scathing comments towards Democrats and journalists, Greene had previously made her name as a fierce defender of Trump’s policies.She also embraced QAnon conspiracy theories and in 2018 asserted that California wildfires were ignited by a space laser controlled by the Jewish Rothschild family.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, blamed for helping to fuel a deadly opioid crisis, said Friday that a US bankruptcy judge will sign off on a deal to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company, which will cease to exist.Purdue and other opioid makers and distributors were accused of encouraging free-wheeling prescription of their products through aggressive marketing tactics while hiding how addictive the drugs are.Earlier this year, several US states reached a $7.4 billion settlement with the Sackler family and Purdue, the company they owned for decades, that will see funds routed to affected communities and individuals.Federal judge Sean Lane said in a New York court that he would sign off on the company Chapter 11 plan, with a formal ruling expected at a hearing on Tuesday.”Today cements the end of a long chapter, and brings us very near to the end of the book for Purdue,” board chairman Steve Miller said in a statement. “Soon, Purdue will cease to exist.””We will now commence the process of satisfying all outstanding requirements for Purdue to emerge from bankruptcy so that resources from the settlements can flow to communities across America as quickly as possible,” he said.The Sacklers will pay $6.5-7.0 billion while the company will pay $900 million. A separate fund of $865 million will be created to compensate victims.The remnants of Purdue will become Knoa Pharma, a company owned by a foundation, that will provide opioid use disorder treatments and overdose reversal medicines, “with no obligation to maximize profits,” the company said.For many people, opioid addiction begins with prescribed pain pills, such as OxyContin, before they increase their consumption and eventually turn to illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl, an extremely powerful synthetic opioid.The Sacklers have consistently denied wrongdoing over the opioid crisis.The company statement says the family “have had no involvement in Purdue since the end of 2018,” while officials said the January settlement had ended the Sacklers’ control of Purdue Pharma.

US President Donald Trump told law enforcement chiefs Friday to investigate links between Jeffrey Epstein and ex-president Bill Clinton, seeking to deflect growing questions about his own ties to the late alleged sex trafficker.Under mounting pressure from the release of a new trove of Epstein emails, Trump also demanded the Justice Department and FBI probe banking giant JPMorgan Chase and ex-Harvard president Larry Summers, who served as Clinton’s treasury secretary.The 79-year-old Republican accused Democrats of pushing the “Epstein hoax” after emails emerged in which the disgraced financier suggested Trump “knew about the girls” and spent hours with one of the victims at his house.”I know nothing about that. They would have announced that a long time ago,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he headed to Florida for the weekend.”Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years.” Questions about his long friendship with Epstein have dogged Trump since his return to the White House in January.Epstein died in prison in 2019 — by suicide, authorities ruled — before he could face trial on federal sex trafficking charges. But questions over his alleged masterminding of a sex ring where powerful men were provided with underaged girls have only mounted.Trump said on Truth Social that he would be “asking” Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI “to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions.””Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.'”Bondi named senior New York prosecutor Jay Clayton to “take the lead” on Trump’s request.- ‘Damning information’ -The order for a probe comes even though the FBI and Justice Department said in a memo in July that they had not uncovered evidence that would justify an investigation of uncharged third parties.That memo also sparked a huge backlash in Trump’s MAGA movement after it said a “client list” Bondi claimed to have been reviewing did not in fact exist.Democratic former president Clinton has long faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein and flew on his private plane, although he has never been accused of wrongdoing in the scandal, either.Epstein said that Clinton had “never ever” been to his notorious private island in the Caribbean, according to several emails in the latest trove dating from 2011 and viewed by AFP.Clinton spokesman Angel Urena said on X that the emails “prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”JPMorgan Chase — which in 2023 agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by victims of Epstein, its former client — rejected Trump’s claims.”The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” it said in a statement to AFP.”We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”There was no immediate comment from Summers or Hoffman, the founder of professional networking app LinkedIn. – ‘No middle ground’ -Trump’s message and comments broke two days of silence over the scandal, which has overshadowed his victory lap after Democrats agreed to end the longest government shutdown in US history.The email traffic between Epstein and friends said Trump had spent “hours” with Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim and his main accuser.The White House said that Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, had cleared Trump of any wrongdoing and had declared that Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier.”Trump’s efforts to put a lid on the scandal have repeatedly failed, in part because there are photos and videos of him interacting with Epstein decades ago.Another problem is that Trump and some of his close allies had in the past promised his right-wing base they would seek the release of all the evidence against Epstein.The US House of Representatives is to vote as early as next week on a motion demanding that the White House release the files, after a rebellion by a handful of MAGA lawmakers provided sufficient votes.Surviving Epstein victims and the relatives of Giuffre sent US lawmakers a letter Friday urging the release of those files and saying: “There is no middle ground here. There is no hiding behind party affiliation.”Trump on Friday made clear he does not want the effort in Congress to proceed.”Don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!” he said on social media.

As the Studio Museum reopens this weekend in its gleaming new building, New York’s premier institution for Black art finds itself looking back and looking forward at the same time.Colorful signs featuring permanent works have sprouted near the museum’s home in Harlem, a center point in Black life and imagination in America for more than a century.The museum, closed for the more than seven-year project, has commissioned new works to commemorate the reboot, which features expanded studios for the institution’s artists-in-residence program.But the 57-year-old museum is also hearkening back to its roots with a retrospective of the late Tom Lloyd, whose electronically programmed wall sculptures anticipated today’s digital age.Some of the same pieces were hung in the museum’s inaugural 1968 show back when works by artists of African descent were mostly absent from New York’s leading museums.Today’s art scene is very different. Rashid Johnson, Amy Sherald and others are regularly showcased in shows at the Guggenheim, Whitney and other nameplate New York museums, which have also hosted retrospectives belatedly recognizing Black movements.”In the time of the museum’s life, we have seen this incredible trajectory and some of that is a result of the work that the museum did in its establishment and its early years,” said Studio Museum director Thelma Golden, who oversaw a more than $300 million drive to finance a teardown and newbuild project that cements the museum’s ties to Harlem.”The aperture opens, but even with that, we still believe deeply in the work that continues to need to be done.”- ‘Truly current work’ -The museum’s history is laid out in photos of the 1968 groundbreaking, and there are posters of jazz nights, “Uptown Friday” gatherings, high school programs and of shows such as a retrospective of James Van Der Zee, a famed photographer during the Harlem Renaissance.The founders’ ambitions included creating a place distinct from New York establishments like the Museum of Modern Art.The Studio Museum will present “truly current work,” founders wrote in 1966. The work “could turn out to be a flash in the pan or could conceivably begin an entire new school or new direction in art.”Backers also sought to redefine Harlem, “which is all too often equated with slums, violence and other evils,” and to deepen the commitment of supporters — some white — to “make New York City a united city rather than one which is currently divided by an invisible Berlin wall.”Key turning points included 1981, when the Studio Museum broke ground at its current address at 144 West 125th Street.Another shift came after Golden joined in 2000, when the mission statement was expanded beyond US-born creators to artists of African descent “locally, nationally and internationally.”- Signature works -That broadened scope is boldly expressed on the building’s exterior with a red, black and green flag by David Hammons inspired by the Pan-African flag of the 1920s associated with activist Marcus Garvey.Another signature work is Houston Conwill’s “The Joyful Mysteries,” containing statements by seven prominent Black Americans written for future generations. The time capsules will be opened in September 2034, 50 years after their creation.The new edifice itself nods to Harlem’s architectural vernacular, with a mass of geometries in gray concrete and glass. The building has received rapturous reviews, and this weekend offers the public a first look.Golden described the site as aiming to “redefine what a museum can be in its space and content.”She credited her predecessors, not all of whom lived to see Black art achieve mainstream acceptance.”I am well aware that they did not get to see the fruits of the labor,” Golden told AFP. “The inheritance I have from them is that they believed so deeply that that belief carries from ’68 to this moment.”