US President Donald Trump on Tuesday reiterated his denial that he had authored a lewd birthday note to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, after the alleged letter was released to the public a day earlier.The Wall Street Journal reported in July on the existence of the alleged 2003 letter, prompting a $10 billion defamation suit from the Republican president against the newspaper and its owners.The letter, a type-written message inserted into the sketched outline of a nude woman — with Trump’s alleged signature in the place of her pubic hair — was one of many notes sent by Epstein’s friends that his associate Ghislaine Maxwell had compiled into a book for his 50th birthday.On Monday, the House Oversight Committee published a copy of the book and other personal files subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate.”It’s not my signature and it’s not the way I speak,” Trump told reporters Tuesday evening, as he made a rare trip to dine out in the US capital.”Anybody that’s covered me for a long time knows that’s not my language. It’s nonsense. And frankly, you’re wasting your time,” he added.The letter consists of a short dialogue between “Donald” and “Jeffrey,” with the former at one point remarking that “enigmas never age.”It ends with Donald wishing Jeffrey a happy birthday, adding: “may every day be another wonderful secret.”- Handwriting expert? -In arguing that the signature on the alleged letter is not authentic, Trump’s allies have pointed to differences with documents he has signed since he first became president in 2017.However, The New York Times on Monday published several letters signed by Trump from the late 1990s and early 2000s, in which his signature bears a striking resemblance to the 2003 letter.Asked if the White House would approve of a professional handwriting expert reviewing the documents, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday: “Sure we would support that.”Epstein, a wealthy financier with high-level connections around the world, was convicted of sex offenses and found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking of underage girls recruited to provide him with sexual massages.Trump has been dogged for months by controversy surrounding the late sex offender, after his administration confirmed Epstein’s death was a suicide and deemed the release of more case files unnecessary — despite having previously fanned long-running conspiracies of covered-up wrongdoing.Trump’s prior relationship with Epstein has also proved to be potent fodder for his political opponents, with the president and his allies seeking to downplay the whole saga as a Democratic “hoax.”After Monday’s publication of the letter, Leavitt posted on social media that “it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it.””This is FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!” she said.Asked on Tuesday to clarify which aspect was a hoax — given the documents were provided by the Epstein estate — Leavitt said: “I did not say the documents are a hoax.”I said the entire narrative surrounding Jeffrey Epstein right now that is absorbing many of the liberal cable channels on television is a hoax that is being perpetuated by opportunistic Democrats… who are trying to push this hoax against the president of the United States.”

US Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed Tuesday to pursue the “maximum penalty” against a man charged with murdering a Ukrainian refugee, as the Trump administration continues touting its tough-on-crime agenda in Democratic-led cities.Authorities say Iryna Zarutska was repeatedly stabbed from behind by 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr. last month while riding a light rail train in the southern city of Charlotte, North Carolina.”We will seek the maximum penalty for this unforgivable act of violence — he will never again see the light of day as a free man,” Bondi said in a statement. Brown is charged with one federal count of committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system, and faces life in prison or the death penalty, the statement said.Mecklenburg County prosecutors have separately charged Brown with first degree murder.Local Democratic leaders came under fire for highlighting Brown’s history of mental health issues in their response to the slaying.Zarutska, 23, left Ukraine in 2022 following Russia’s invasion, and “her blood is on the hands of the Democrats,” US President Donald Trump wrote on social media Monday.Chilling security footage that went viral shows a man boarding the tramway, sitting behind her, and minutes later stabbing her three times — with no prior interaction.The case has been seized upon by Trump administration officials, who accuse Democrats of being lenient on crime. Criminal cases are typically the jurisdiction of local prosecutors in the United States, based on state and local criminal codes. Federal prosecutions are typically limited to crimes committed against federal law.Brown has multiple prior convictions — including an armed robbery that led to five years in prison, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday.”This monster should have been locked up, and Iryna should still be alive, but Democrat politicians, liberal judges and weak prosecutors would rather virtue signal than lock up criminals and protect their communities,” Leavitt said.Brown also has “a long history” of mental health issues, according to his lawyer in a previous case, the Raleigh News & Observer newspaper reported.

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday unveiled the Trump administration’s long-awaited roadmap to tackle chronic disease, calling for better nutrition, tighter scrutiny of medical advertising, and even a new push to boost fertility.Conspicuously absent, however, were concrete proposals to directly restrict ultra-processed foods or pesticides — long priorities of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. The omissions are viewed as wins for the food and agriculture industries.”There has never been an effort like this across all the government agencies,” said Kennedy during a Washington event where he released the plan, calling chronic illness “an existential crisis for our country.”President Donald Trump later signed a memorandum directing agencies to step up enforcement of existing rules on online pharmaceutical advertising to curb misleading claims, backing one of the report’s priorities. Kennedy, however, had previously called for an outright ban on drug marketing.Experts also criticized what they called the vague and voluntary nature of the “Make Our Children Healthy Again” strategy, a follow-up to an initial assessment published this spring.”The administration is trying to have it both ways,” Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, told AFP.”In May, they described a hellscape of junk food and toxic exposures that put all our children at risk. In September, they are calling for more studies and plans and proposals.”The new 20-page report highlights many of Kennedy’s signature causes: reviewing fluoride in drinking water, revisiting childhood vaccine schedules and expanding parental opt-outs, and raising doubts about antidepressants.Many of these positions sit well outside mainstream medicine, particularly his take on vaccines.Other eye-catching ideas include a MAHA fertility education campaign — reflecting right-wing anxieties over declining birth rates — and a call to probe “electromagnetic radiation,” apparently a reference to cellphone use, though it is not spelled out.The first report was widely ridiculed after it was found to contain numerous fabricated citations, apparently from using AI tools. The new paper avoids that pitfall by omitting citations altogether. – Deregulation push -Critics said the plan was thin on specifics, even for areas that enjoy broad consensus, like tackling America’s junk-food addiction.One section calls for a government-wide definition of ultra-processed foods, without saying what should follow. “This is such an opportunity. I sure wish they had taken it,” Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition at New York University, told AFP.It also says the government wants to boost breastfeeding rates, reduce animal testing, and promote innovation in the sunscreen market, where the United States lags behind many countries.On the use of pesticides, the report on the one hand evokes the possible use of “precision technology” to “decrease pesticide volumes,” while elsewhere it calls for deregulation to help bring “chemical and biologic products to protect against weeds, pests, and disease” to market faster.It comes as Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is bringing a new wave of pesticides to market despite experts warning the proposed substances constitute harmful so-called “forever chemicals.”Zen Honeycutt, a health activist aligned with the MAHA movement, did not hide her disappointment at the fact pesticides were barely mentioned — but said she did not blame Kennedy.”It was not as strongly worded about pesticides as it would have been had it been only Bobby writing the report,” she told AFP, adding this was a “glaring example of chemical company corruption.”Similarly, even as the MAHA report urges higher birth rates, the EPA’s weakening of air-pollution standards risks undermining fertility, given the well-established harms of contaminants to sperm and egg health.