Republicans moved Tuesday to hold former US president Bill Clinton in criminal contempt after he skipped a subpoenaed deposition in the congressional investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — marking a sharp escalation in a politically charged inquiry.The Republican-led House Oversight Committee said it would begin contempt proceedings next week after the 79-year-old Democrat did not show up for closed-door testimony scheduled for Tuesday morning. The panel is also threatening similar action against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who is due to testify Wednesday but is also expected to be a no-show.The pressure comes as President Donald Trump faces mounting calls for transparency, with the Justice Department angering his supporters — many of whom believe Epstein was murdered in a cover-up — by releasing only a sliver of case files nearly a month past the legal deadline.”As a result of Bill Clinton not showing up for his lawful subpoena — which was voted unanimously by the committee in a bipartisan manner — we will move next week… to hold former President Clinton in contempt of Congress,” committee chairman James Comer told reporters.In an eight-page letter to Comer, the Clintons said they did not plan to appear for the depositions, describing the moment as one requiring resistance “no matter the consequences.”Invoking contempt against a former president is rare and would represent a significant step by House Republicans. Any contempt resolution would require approval by the full House before being referred to the Justice Department, which ultimately decides whether to prosecute. Criminal contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and fines of up to $100,000, though referrals are unevenly enforced.The Oversight Committee is investigating Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled by US authorities. – Conspiracy theories -Epstein, once a friend and associate of Trump and other high-profile figures, was convicted of sex crimes and later jailed pending trial for allegedly trafficking underage girls.The financier died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, a death officially ruled a suicide but long the subject of conspiracy theories amplified by Trump’s supporters.The Clintons were subpoenaed in August alongside other current and former officials, including former FBI director James Comey. Their depositions were initially scheduled for October, then delayed twice — once after Clinton said he needed to attend a funeral. Clinton’s spokesman Angel Urena has accused Comer of singling out the former president, saying his legal team offered the same terms accepted for other witnesses. Hillary Clinton’s office has questioned why she was subpoenaed at all, saying the committee had failed to explain the relevance of her testimony.The dispute comes amid controversy over the Trump administration’s handling of Epstein-related records. Weeks after a legal deadline to release the Epstein files, the Justice Department has offered up only one percent of the total archive, angering Trump supporters who had expected sweeping disclosures.Those documents included multiple photographs of Bill Clinton from the early 2000s. The former president has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private plane during Clinton Foundation trips before the financier was charged with any sex crimes, but denies wrongdoing and says he cut ties years before Epstein’s 2006 arrest.No evidence has emerged implicating either Bill or Hillary Clinton in criminal conduct related to Epstein.Contempt of Congress has taken on greater weight in recent years. Two Trump allies were jailed for defying subpoenas during the investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol — underscoring that defiance can carry real legal consequences.

Greenland would choose to remain Danish over a US takeover, its leader said Tuesday, ahead of crunch White House talks on the future of the Arctic island which President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened.Trump has been talking up the idea of buying or annexing the autonomous territory for years, and further stoked tensions this week by saying the United States would take it “one way or the other”.”We are now facing a geopolitical crisis, and if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at a press conference.”One thing must be clear to everyone: Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”He was speaking alongside Danish leader Mette Frederiksen, who said it had not been easy to stand up to what she slammed as “completely unacceptable pressure from our closest ally”.”However, there are many indications that the most challenging part is ahead of us,” Frederiksen said.Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt are to meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday to discuss Greenland’s future.Lokke said they had requested a meeting with Rubio, and Vance had asked to take part and host it at the White House.Vance made an uninvited visit to the island in March where he criticised Denmark for what he said was a lack of commitment to Greenland and security in the Arctic, and called it a “bad ally”.The comments enraged Copenhagen, which has been an ardent trans-Atlantic supporter and which has sent troops to fight US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.- ‘Misunderstandings’ -For Nuuk and Copenhagen, Wednesday’s meeting at the White House is aimed at ironing out “misunderstandings”. These relate to Greenland’s defence, Chinese and Russian military presence in the Arctic, and the relationship between Greenland and Copenhagen, which together with the Faroe Islands make up the Kingdom of Denmark. “To the uninformed American listener, the ongoing (independence) talks between Denmark and Greenland might have been construed as if Greenland’s secession from Denmark was imminent,” said Greenland specialist Mikaela Engell.For these listeners, “I can understand that, in this situation, it would be better for the Americans to take hold of that strategic place”, the former Danish representative on the island told AFP.But this “discussion has been going on for years and years and it has never meant that Greenland was on its way out the door”, she stressed.Denmark’s foreign minister said the reason Copenhagen and Nuuk had requested Wednesday’s meeting was “to move the entire discussion… into a meeting room, where you can look each other in the eye and talk through these issues”. Greenland’s location is highly strategic, lying on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States. It is therefore a crucial part of the US anti-missile shield.Washington has accused Copenhagen of doing little to protect Greenland from what it perceives as a growing Arctic threat from Russia and China, though analysts suggest Beijing is a small player in the region.Denmark’s government has rejected US claims, recalling that it has invested almost 90 billion kroner ($14 billion) to beef up its military presence in the Arctic.The Danish prime minister on Tuesday called for stronger cooperation with the US and NATO to improve the region’s security.She also called for NATO to defend Greenland, and said that security guarantees would be “the best defence against Chinese or Russian threats in the Arctic”.Diplomats at NATO say some Alliance members have floated the idea of launching a new mission in the region, although no concrete proposals are yet on the table.Rutte said on Monday that NATO was working on “the next steps” to bolster Arctic security.Greenland’s foreign minister and Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen are to meet NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte on January 19 to discuss the issue. “We are now moving forward with the whole issue of a more permanent, larger presence in Greenland from the Danish defence forces but also with the participation of other countries,” Lund Poulsen told reporters.

US President Donald Trump urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting against the country’s theocratic leadership, telling them “help is on its way” as international outrage grows over a crackdown rights groups say has left at least hundreds dead.Iranian authorities insisted they had regained control after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since Thursday that have posed one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah.Rights groups accuse the government of gunning down protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an internet blackout that has now lasted almost five days.New videos on social media, whose location AFP verified, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.International phone links were restored on Tuesday, but only for outgoing calls, according to an AFP journalist, and the quality remains spotty, with frequent interruptions.Trump, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention, said Iranians should continue their nationwide protests, take over institutions and record the names of “killers and abusers”.”Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”It was not immediately clear what meetings he was referring to or what the nature of the help would be.European nations also signalled their anger, with France, Germany and the United Kingdom among the countries that summoned their Iranian ambassadors to protest what French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called “state violence unquestioningly unleashed on peaceful protesters”.”The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, vowing further sanctions against those responsible.- ‘Killing must stop’ -The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it had confirmed 648 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely much higher — “according to some estimates, more than 6,000”.The internet shutdown has made it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports”, IHR said, adding that an estimated 10,000 people had been arrested. “The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies. Authorities have declared three days of national mourning for those killed.Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran.”On Thursday night, my friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighbourhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.- ‘Last days’ -The government on Monday sought to regain control of the streets with mass nationwide rallies that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed as proof that the protest movement was defeated, calling them a “warning” to the United States. In power since 1989 and now 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which resulted in the killing of top security officials and forced him to go into hiding.”When a regime can only hold on to power through violence, then it is effectively finished,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a trip to India. “I believe that we are now witnessing the last days and weeks of this regime.”Analysts, however, have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership has, including the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which are charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.”These protests arguably represent the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in years, both in scale and in their increasingly explicit political demands,” Nicole Grajewski, professor at the Sciences Po Centre for International Studies in Paris, told AFP.She said it was unclear if the protests would unseat the leadership, pointing to “the sheer depth and resilience of Iran’s repressive apparatus”.Iranian authorities will press capital charges of “moharebeh”, or “waging war against God”, against some suspects arrested over recent demonstrations, prosecutors said, as alarm grows that the Islamic republic could use the death penalty to crack down on the protests.IHR highlighted the case of Erfan Soltani, 26, who was arrested last week in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj and who, according to a family source, has already been sentenced to death and is due to be executed as early as Wednesday.

The US Supreme Court waded on Tuesday into the hot-button issue of transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports.The conservative-dominated court is hearing challenges to state laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from female competition.More than two dozen US states have passed laws in recent years barring athletes who were assigned as male at birth from taking part in girls’ or women’s sports.The Idaho case being heard by the nine justices stems from the Republican-led state’s 2020 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.It was challenged by a transgender athlete at an Idaho university, and lower courts ruled that it violates the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.”Idaho’s law classifies on the basis of sex, because sex is what matters in sports,” Alan Hurst, the Idaho solicitor general, said during Tuesday’s oral arguments.”It correlates strongly with countless athletic advantages like size, muscle mass, bone mass and heart and lung capacity,” Hurst said. “If women don’t have their own competitions, they won’t be able to compete.”West Virginia’s 2021 Save Women’s Sports Act was challenged by a middle school student who was not allowed to compete for the girls’ track team.An appeals court ruled that the ban amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex and violated Title IX, the federal civil rights law which prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs.Last February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports after campaigning for the White House on the issue.”From now on women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said. “With this executive order the war on women’s sports is over.”The executive order allows federal agencies to deny funding to schools that allow transgender athletes to compete on girls’ or women’s teams.- UPenn case a lightning rod -University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became a lightning rod in the debate over transgender athletes in women’s sports after competing in female collegiate meets in 2022. Critics and some fellow swimmers said Thomas, who had earlier swum on UPenn’s men’s team, should not have been allowed to compete against women due to an unfair physiological advantage.UPenn eventually agreed to ban transgender athletes from its women’s sports teams, settling a federal civil rights complaint stemming from the furor around Thomas.The move followed an investigation by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights which concluded the university had violated Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete in women’s competitions.Conservatives outnumber liberals six to three on the Supreme Court, and the justices weighed in on two high-profile transgender cases last year.They upheld a Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender minors and backed a move by Trump to have transgender troops dismissed from the military.The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the new case in June or early July.