On Monday, Democratic lawmakers released a report calling for a special counsel to investigate possible ties between U.S. President Donald Trump and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, just over a week before the midterm elections.
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The more than 50-page report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee alleges that Trump was an “active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women in the mid-to-late 1990s.”
The document, titled “The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging From the Epstein Files and the Justice Department’s Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up,” includes the names of five women who have accused Trump of “raping or sexually assaulting them” in the company of Epstein.
Among the women’s accounts is one being made public for the first time. It describes an alleged rape by Trump during a pageant held in November 1993 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, although the account provides no evidence beyond the woman’s statements.
“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the full files that the law requires, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s accomplices and the Justice Department’s cover-up, and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top-ranking Democrat.
🇺🇸 Rep. Ted Lieu says there is “ample evidence” in the full Epstein files alleging Donald Trump raped children.
— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) October 5, 2026
“This is all on videotape.” pic.twitter.com/X6PRNdGGDZ
Trump, for his part, has repeatedly denied committing any wrongdoing related to Epstein’s actions. He has also repeatedly said that he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and barred him from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, “for being a creep.”
The Democratic lawmakers’ report also calls for greater federal cooperation in legal proceedings against Epstein’s accomplices and increased congressional action to uncover all possible connections within his sex trafficking network.
With the document’s release, Democrats are signaling that they have no intention of backing down from their efforts to continue investigating the connections between Trump and Epstein’s sex trafficking network. They are doing so at a time when they could win a majority in the House of Representatives and even challenge Republican control of the Senate on Nov. 3.
The midterm elections will determine all seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the seats in the Senate, as well as numerous state and local offices.
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Source: EFE
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The basketball star seems proud to leave the job to his partner. That’s so last century
Nobody can accuse the basketball star LaMelo Ball of being bad at his job. That said, the Minnesota Timberwolves point guard doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of dribbling.
Ball has a nine-month-old son, LaOne, with his partner Ana Montana (real name: Analicia Chaves) and is apparently uninterested in dealing with all the body fluids that come with a baby.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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© Photograph: Matt Krohn/AP
© Photograph: Matt Krohn/AP
© Photograph: Matt Krohn/AP
Alois uses the first veto of his reign to quash parliament-approved bill backed by a national petition
The hereditary prince of Liechtenstein has used his veto for the first time in his reign to quash a bill aimed at bringing abortion laws in line with much of Europe.
The legislation was approved by Liechtenstein’s parliament last month after the presentation of a citizens’ initiative signed by roughly a quarter of the nation’s voters.
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© Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
From the heinous crimes of the Epstein class to the Cornell 7, from the toxic cultures of the “manosphere” to the increase of antisocial relationships with online pornography and AI bots, we need to talk about what is going on with men in our society. We speak with renowned scholar, author, and commentator Dr. Mark Anthony Neal about his new book Save a Seat for Me: Notes on American Fatherhood, and about the ways American capitalism damages everyone and trains boys to become monstrous men.
Credits:
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I’m here at Red Emmas at the Baltimore Book Festival, and I’m sitting with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. Brother Mark, it’s so great to have you back here in Baltimore, man. I know I only got you for a second, and we’re talking about your incredible new book, Save a Seat for Me, Notes on American Fatherhood. And I was thinking as another father in America in 2026, I wanted to ask you, it doesn’t take PhDs like we have to know that we’ve got a real fricking crisis in this country with men and masculinity and masculine culture and fatherhood, or we have a whole lot of crises that men are experiencing but aren’t dealing with well. So what do you make of all this? What do we do about it? And how can your book help us get there?
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
I think we have tried, America has tried to raise generations of warriors, if you will, to be on the front lines of American imperialism. And you can’t be human to do that. You can’t think, you can’t question, you can’t be vulnerable. So what we have done is raise two or three generations of men in America who don’t know how to be human, who don’t know how to lead into full range of who they are. We’ve been socialized to show up only certain kinds of ways, anger, rage, the ability to follow directions. Things like vulnerability are made fun of at the highest levels.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And those of us who are very vulnerable people have been made fun of.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Because of that.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Because of that.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
We’ve been made to think that our responsibility in a capitalist system has literally been reduced to only making money, that our only value. And I think about this a lot as a Black father, my own father, that I’m sure he thought that his only value to me was making sure that I was fed and clothed and taken care of. And I get all of that, but I needed much more from him. As a father, I needed to be more than that for my daughters. And so I think when we look at young men who are clearly feeling so much with no outlet, their outlets become dangerous behaviors, self-directed violence,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Toxic online cultures,
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
All kinds of addictions, alcohol, Percocet, weed, porn. I mean, we can name all these things and understand it. And the fact that so many of the young men in the world today, their lives are what they can connect with on their handheld device. They don’t actually have relationships with people in the real world, don’t see a value in that. And I don’t know how we sustain that. I don’t know how we sustain our humanity in a situation where we don’t value human relationship anymore.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and it’s like you see that the path that we’re on as a society or what’s left of a society is being driven by the sociopathic, psychopathic, bloodthirsty –
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Or just plain evils.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Just plain evil maniacs who want a future where they get all the benefits of human society, but don’t have to deal with any of the humans in it. Whether they’re thinking of like, oh, AI is going to replace all their jobs and we’re going to get all the money. They’re not thinking about what the heck that’s going to mean for us. They’re just going to push us into slums and prisons and police us, hunt us, surveil us. That’s their big goddamn plan. And I think you put it so powerfully that it’s like so many men out there have the same human needs that we all have and we’re feeling them so acutely the more isolated we are, but we’re looking to find, we’re seeking inhuman avenues.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
I mean, think about all the folks who are in relationships with chat bots. I mean, it’s surreal. I can’t have a relationship with an actual person. I don’t desire a relationship with an actual person. I need to have a relationship with some facsimile, some avatar that somehow that’s more meaningful to me than having a relationship with a person.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah. And I think even as a editor in chief and co-ED of a media network, as a media star, we recognize there’s only so much you can do online. You got to get the hell offline and you got to meet each other back on that level of shared humanity and shared reality because that’s the only way we’re going to deal with anything, anything in this country.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
And that’s why the Baltimore Book Festival is really important. First of all, not only just a reminder, someplace that’s celebrating the written word, obviously, but folks coming together in community. We have to get back to a culture where we share in community. We read together, we listen together, we debate together instead of these media silos. I’m going to have this debate over here on this network and you’re going to have this debate over there and never the twain shall meet.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and final question, but it goes really to the heart of your book. Here in Baltimore, I see this every day. I feel it as a father, but right down the street from where I live in Mondamin, earlier this summer, there were six youth who were caught on camera just beating the hell out of an elderly member of the community, a former Black Panther. It was horrific. I’ve interviewed this man and the community that’s trying to help him, but clearly everyone who is showing up to help is seeing in that video the deficit of guidance, of fatherhood, of love.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Of respect. Basic respect.
Maximillian Alvarez:
So what can we do about that in our everyday lives at the person to person level?
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
We have to be willing not just to be witnesses to these experiences or commentators.
We have to intervene and feel comfortable enough to intervene. Whoever sat down with those young men, first of all, to explain, because the easy part is to say, no, this man was important to our movement in the past. The more difficult thing is like, no, this man is important because he’s another human being and you should value life and his humanity. But if they are young men who do not value their own humanity, don’t see their own humanity, they’re going to reproduce that behavior over and over again. And so we have to have the willingness because it’s real easy to go, I’m just going to build my life in this silo and protect my family and I get it. But to take that next step to say, okay, I might not be able to talk to all six of these brothers, try to talk to two of them.
Begin that process, that one-on-one conversation that can blossom into something that’s much more significant.
With the FIDE presidential election approaching in Samarkand, one of the candidates, Wadim Rosenstein (pictured), has become the subject of a formal appeal by a Ukrainian lawmaker. Oleg Dunda, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, is asking Ukrainian and German officials to examine whether Rosenstein and WR Group Holding may have violated sanctions rules.
The appeal was directed to Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and German Ambassador Boris Ruge. Dunda’s request goes beyond a general review: he wants the German side to consider a criminal investigation and has also asked for possible Ukrainian sanctions against Rosenstein.
At the center of the case described by Dunda are media investigations into LLC WR Rus. Ukrainian publications cited in the request say that Rosenstein controls the Russian company either directly or through his German business structure, WR Group. The company’s reported financial performance has expanded sharply. From 2023, revenue allegedly rose almost fifteenfold and reached €18 million, while net profit increased about three-and-a-half times to €1.8 million.
The same investigations pointed to the identity of some of the company’s customers. The reporting claimed that WR Rus worked with entities connected to Russian oligarchs already under sanctions. It also described a 2025 shipment of Italian footwear worth more than €500,000 that was allegedly imported for Anastasia Zadorina, identified as the daughter of Russian FSB Colonel General Mikhail Shekin.
Attention has also been drawn to a separate company belonging to Rosenstein’s brother Mikhail. His logistics firm, LLC 2R Integra, reportedly saw its revenue climb almost forty times after Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine began, reaching €21 million. The Ukrainian reports cited by Dunda alleged that the company continued sending industrial products to Russia through sanctions-avoidance channels, including dual-use goods from the Indian manufacturer Polycab.
The issue had already entered the chess world before Dunda’s intervention. Vladimir Kovalchuk, vice-president of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, previously called for similar measures. He argued that money generated through Russian business activity could contribute to the country’s broader wartime economy. Kovalchuk also said Rosenstein should consider ending his campaign voluntarily before the September 26 vote.
The Ukrainian Chess Federation has taken a prominent position on sanctions within international chess. The source states that it was among those pushing for sanctions against former FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich. After his inclusion on EU sanctions lists, Dvorkovich left the presidency.
More recently, the federation succeeded in excluding the Russian team from the World Chess Olympiad, which is scheduled for late September in Samarkand. FIDE’s presidential election is also expected to take place there.
Rosenstein is not the only candidate. The source identifies two other contenders: Timur Turlov, a businessman from Kazakhstan, and Jan Henric Buettner, a well-known German venture investor and multimillionaire. Yet the election may encounter logistical problems unrelated to the controversy. An official FIDE statement cited in the text says that some voting delegates have faced visa issues, raising uncertainty over whether the ballot can be held on schedule.
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