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A top Department of Justice official was meeting on Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, US media reported, as President Donald Trump struggles to tamp down a furor over his handling of the explosive case.The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial in his own sex trafficking case.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump’s former personal lawyer for his hush money trial and two federal criminal cases — was interviewing Maxwell at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, CNN, NBC and the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper said.”If Ghislaine Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said on Tuesday. “No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits.”Trump, 79, was once a close friend of Epstein and The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president’s name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of the so-called “Epstein files,” even if there was no indication of wrongdoing.Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the report “fake news” and said Trump had long ago broken with Epstein and “kicked him out of his (Florida) club for being a creep.”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.Maxwell, 63, is the only former Epstein associate convicted in connection with his activities, which right-wing conspiracy theorists allege included trafficking young models for VIPs.The meeting with Maxwell marks another attempt by the Trump administration to defuse anger among the Republican president’s own supporters over what they have long seen as a cover-up of sex crimes by Epstein, a wealthy financier with high-level connections.- ‘A Trump-friendly tale?’ -Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said Blanche’s meeting with Maxwell raises a number of troubling questions.”Is he really going as (deputy attorney general) or is he going de facto as Trump’s personal criminal attorney, Tom Hagen style?” the senator said in a reference to the Corleone family lawyer in “The Godfather.””Will he promise her a pardon for silence, or for a Trump-friendly tale?” Whitehouse asked. “Who will be in the room? What records will be kept?”Many of the president’s core supporters want more transparency on the Epstein case, and Trump — who has long fanned the conspiracy theories — had promised to deliver that on retaking the White House in January.But he has since dismissed the controversy as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” and the DOJ and FBI released a memo this month claiming the so-called Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation.Epstein committed suicide while in jail and was not murdered, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list,” according to the July 7 FBI-DOJ memo.Seeking to redirect public attention, the White House has promoted unfounded claims in recent days that former president Barack Obama led a “years-long coup” against Trump around his victorious 2016 election.The extraordinary narrative claims that Obama had ordered intelligence assessments to be manipulated to accuse Russia of election interference to help Trump.Yet it runs counter to four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes between 2019 and 2023 — each of them concluding that Russia did interfere and did, in various ways, help Trump.Epstein was found hanging dead in his New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited hundreds of victims at his homes in New York and Florida.Among those with connections to Epstein was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.

Donald Trump is due to visit the US Federal Reserve Thursday as the president escalates pressure on its chairman Jerome Powell over the central bank’s management of the economy.Trump — who wants to oust Powell for refusing to lower interest rates but likely lacks the legal authority — has threatened to fire the Fed chief over cost overruns for a renovation of its Washington headquarters.The White House did not specify whether Trump would meet Powell, who has vowed to remain in place until the end of his term next May, but the president would likely welcome any encounter.The afternoon tour comes with Trump desperate to shift focus from the crisis engulfing his administration over its decision to close the file on multi-millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on trafficking charges. Attorney General Pam Bondi informed the president in the spring that his name appeared in the Epstein files, according to the Wall Street Journal.Trump has picked all manner of targets, including his Democratic predecessors and former chiefs of the security and intelligence services, as he bids to move Epstein out of the headlines.He again berated Powell on Wednesday, moments after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had appeared on television to claim the banker’s job was safe.”Housing in our Country is lagging because Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell refuses to lower Interest Rates,” Trump thundered on his social media platform, Truth Social.Presidential visits to the Federal Reserve are not unheard of — Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush all made the trip — but they are rare.Trump has criticized Powell for months over his insistence on keeping short-term interest rate at 4.3 percent this year, after cutting it three times last year, when Joe Biden was in office.Powell says he is monitoring the response of the economy to Trump’s dizzying array of import tariffs, which he has warned could lead to a hike in inflation.But Trump has angrily accused Powell of holding back the economy, calling the man he nominated in his first term “stupid” and a “loser.”- Threats and abuse -Soaring costs for the Fed’s facelift of its 88-year-old Washington headquarters and a neighboring building — from an initial $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion — have caught Trump’s eye.Ahead of his visit, staff gave reporters a tour of the renovations, on track to finish in 2027.A significant driver of the cost is security, including blast resistant windows and measures to prevent the building from collapsing in the event of an explosion. Plans for a rooftop seating area were abandoned, the staff said, as they were seen as an unnecessary “amenity.”Trump’s budget director Russell Vought wrote to Powell earlier this month to tell him the president was “extremely troubled by your mismanagement of the Federal Reserve System.””Instead of attempting to right the Fed’s fiscal ship, you have plowed ahead with an ostentatious overhaul of your Washington, D.C. headquarters,” Vought wrote. The Federal Reserve, the world’s most important central bank, makes independent monetary policy decisions and its board members typically serve under both Republican and Democratic presidents.Experts question whether Trump has the authority to fire Powell, especially since a Supreme Court opinion in May that allowed the president to remove other independent agency members but suggested that this did not apply to the Fed.Before the visit, Trump plans to sign executive orders at the White House on Thursday afternoon, as he continues to face pushback from his supporters over his handling of the Epstein case.Justice Department officials were to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice on Thursday in her cell in Tallahassee, Florida, US media reported.

A top Department of Justice official was expected to meet on Thursday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as President Donald Trump struggles to quell fury over his handling of the notorious case.The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking minors on behalf of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial in his own pedophile trafficking case.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump’s former personal lawyer for his hush money trial and two federal criminal cases — was to interview Maxwell at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, multiple US media reported.”If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said in a statement on Tuesday. “No one is above the law — and no lead is off-limits.”Maxwell, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, is the only former Epstein associate who was convicted in connection with his activities, which right-wing conspiracy theorists allege included trafficking young models for VIPs.But Joyce Vance, an ex-federal prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Alabama, said any “‘new’ testimony (Maxwell) offers is inherently unreliable unless backed by evidence.””Trump could give Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon on his last day in office, in exchange for favorable testimony now,” Vance said in a post on X. “She knows he’s her only chance for release.”The meeting with Maxwell marks another attempt by the Trump administration to defuse anger among the Republican president’s own supporters over what they have long seen as a cover-up of sex crimes by Epstein, a wealthy financier with high-level connections.- ‘A creep’ -A Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday hiked up that pressure as it claimed Trump’s name was among hundreds found during a review of DOJ documents on Epstein, even if there was no indication of wrongdoing.Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the report “fake news” and said Trump had long ago broken with Epstein and “kicked him out of his (Florida) club for being a creep.”The same newspaper claimed last week that Trump had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein, a former friend, for his birthday in 2003. Trump has sued for at least $10 billion over the story.Many of the president’s core supporters want more transparency on the Epstein case, and Trump — who has long fanned conspiracy theories — had promised to deliver that on retaking the White House in January.But he has since dismissed the controversy as a “hoax,” and the DOJ and FBI released a memo this month claiming the so-called Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation.Epstein had committed suicide while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list,” according to the FBI-DOJ memo.- Diversion -Seeking to redirect public attention, the White House has promoted unfounded claims in recent days that former president Barack Obama led a “years-long coup” against Trump around his victorious 2016 election.The extraordinary narrative claims that Obama had ordered intelligence assessments to be manipulated to accuse Russia of election interference to help Trump.Yet it runs counter to four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes between 2019 and 2023 — each of them concluding that Russia did interfere and did, in various ways, help Trump.Epstein was found hanging dead in his New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually exploited hundreds of victims at his homes in New York and Florida.Among those with connections to Epstein was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.

Hugs, tears, and cheers greeted makeup artist Andry Hernandez on a joyous return home to the Venezuelan Andes on Wednesday — ending a months-long ordeal involving US deportation, a notorious El Salvador jail, and alleged sexual abuse.  The 33-year-old was one of 252 Venezuelan migrants swept up in US President Donald Trump’s immigration dragnet and sent without trial to El Salvador last March. Hernandez has spent the last four months incommunicado at El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. He and the rest of the men were returned to Venezuela on Friday as part of an exchange for 10 US citizens and permanent residents who were held in Venezuela. As Hernandez drove into his tiny hometown of Capacho, on the rugged southwestern border with Colombia, he was met by elated family members, who for months knew nothing of his fate. A small crowd chanted “Andry, Andry, Andry,” as he jumped out of the vehicle and embraced his overjoyed parents, who were sobbing with relief. Hernandez had left for the United States in 2024, hoping for a better life free of the discrimination faced by Venezuela’s LGBTQ community. “I left my home with a suitcase full of dreams, with dreams of helping my people, of helping my family,” he told reporters. Instead, Hernandez said he got “a nightmare that I thought would never end.” US authorities had claimed that the crown tattoos on his wrists were “evidence” he belonged to Tren de Aragua, something that Hernandez and his family fervently denied. “Thank you for all the love you have for me and for showing me that I was never alone, that I was never alone in that maximum-security prison,” he said. His case was closely followed by international human rights organizations. Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab released a video in which Hernandez said he had been sexually abused by CECOT prison guards.   – ‘Every night I prayed’ -The tearful homecoming was echoed in villages and towns across Venezuela on Wednesday, as the former CECOT detainees returned home after days in the capital, Caracas.  In the working-class neighborhood of Maracaibo, a throng of people gave thanks for the return of four friends released from El Salvador. Edwuar Hernandez, Ringo Rincon, Andy Perozo, and Mervin Yamarte were welcomed with waving flags, spraying foam, and blowing horns.  With his arms outstretched and his eyes lifted to the sky, Yamarte thanked God for his freedom.  “Thank you, Father God,” he whispered through tears, standing beside his former prison companions. A tearful Hernandez recalled the pain of his ordeal. “I thought I was never going to get out of there,” he said. The relief of his mother Yarelis was palpable. “Every night I prayed to God that he would give me at least a glimpse of him in my dreams,” she said, adding that “the days went on forever.””I don’t wish it on any mother.”

Donald Trump is due to visit the US Federal Reserve Thursday as the president escalates his pressure on its chairman Jerome Powell over the central bank’s management of the economy. Trump — who wants to oust Powell for refusing to lower interest rates but likely lacks the legal authority — has threatened instead to fire the Fed chief over cost overruns for a renovation of its Washington headquarters.The White House did not specify whether Trump would meet Powell, who has vowed to remain in place until the end of his term next May, but the president would likely welcome any encounter.The afternoon tour comes with Trump desperate to shift focus from the crisis engulfing his administration over its decision to close the file on multi-millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on trafficking charges. Attorney General Pam Bondi informed the president in the spring that his name appeared in the Epstein files, according to the Wall Street Journal.Trump has picked all manner of targets, including his Democratic predecessors and former chiefs of the security and intelligence services, as he bids to move Epstein out of the headlines.He again berated Powell on Wednesday, moments after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had appeared on television to claim Powell’s job was safe.”Housing in our Country is lagging because Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell refuses to lower Interest Rates,” Trump thundered on his social media platform, Truth Social.Presidential visits to the Federal Reserve are not unheard of — Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and  George W. Bush all made the trip — but they are rare.They have been viewed in the past as an attempt to influence monetary policy.  Trump has criticized Powell for months over his insistence on keeping short-term interest rate at 4.3 percent this year, after cutting it three times last year, when Joe Biden was in office.Powell says he is monitoring the response of the economy to Trump’s dizzying array of import tariffs, which he has warned could lead to a hike in inflation.But Trump has angrily accused Powell of holding back the economy, calling the man he nominated in his first term “stupid” and a “loser.”- Threats and abuse -Soaring costs for the Fed’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and a neighboring building — from an initial $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion — have caught Trump’s attention.Trump’s budget director Russell Vought wrote to Powell earlier this month to tell him the president was “extremely troubled by your mismanagement of the Federal Reserve System.””Instead of attempting to right the Fed’s fiscal ship, you have plowed ahead with an ostentatious overhaul of your Washington, D.C. headquarters,” Vought wrote. The Federal Reserve, the world’s most important central bank, makes independent monetary policy decisions and its board members typically serve under both Republican and Democratic presidents.Its 12-member Federal Open Market Committee votes on any decisions concerning interest rates and can in theory disagree with the views of the chairman.Experts question whether Trump has the authority to fire Powell, especially since a Supreme Court opinion in May that allowed the president to remove other independent agency members but suggested that this did not apply to the Fed.When asked last week if the costly rebuilding could be grounds to fire Powell, Trump said, “I think it is.”Before the visit, Trump plans to sign executive orders at the White House on Thursday afternoon, as he continues to face pushback from his supporters over his handling of the Epstein case.Justice Department officials were to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice on Thursday in her cell in Tallahassee, Florida, US media reported.

The Department of Justice was to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Thursday, US media reported, as President Donald Trump struggles to quell fury over his handling of the notorious case.The former British socialite is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking minors on behalf of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial in his own pedophile trafficking case.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump’s former personal lawyer for his 2024 hush money trial — was expected to meet Maxwell in Tallahassee, Florida, according to US media.”If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Blanche said in a statement on Tuesday.It marks another attempt by the Trump administration to defuse spiraling anger among the Republican president’s own supporters over what they have long seen as a cover-up of Epstein’s crimes and high-level connections.A Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday hiked up that pressure as it claimed Trump’s name was among hundreds found during a review of DOJ documents on Epstein. The White House has denied this.The same paper claimed last week that Trump penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein, a former friend, for his birthday in 2003. Trump has sued for at least $10 billion over the story.Many of his core supporters want more transparency on the Epstein case, and Trump — who has long fanned conspiracy theories — had promised to deliver that on retaking the White House in January.But he has since dismissed the controversy as a “hoax,” while the DOJ and FBI released a heavily-criticized memo this month claiming the so-called Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation.Seeking to redirect public attention, the White House has promoted unfounded claims that former president Barack Obama led a “years-long coup” against Trump around his victorious 2016 election.The extraordinary narrative claims that Obama had ordered intelligence assessments to be manipulated to accuse Russia of election interference to help Trump.But it runs counter to four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes between 2019 and 2023 — each of them concluding that Russia did interfere and did, in various ways, help Trump.

Donald Trump will fly into Scotland on Friday for a private visit to the land where his mother was born and spent her childhood on the remote Isle of Lewis.”It’s great to be home, this was the home of my mother,” he said when he arrived on his last visit in 2023.Born Mary Anne MacLeod, Trump’s mum emigrated to the United States when she was 18. She then met and married Fred Trump, kickstarting the family’s meteoric rise that has led their son, Donald, all the way to the White House.During his visit the current US president, who is six months into his second term, plans to officially open his latest golf course in northeastern Aberdeen — making him the owner of three such links in Scotland.Although Donald Trump has talked openly about his father Fred — a self-made millionaire and property developer whose own father emigrated from Germany — he remains more discreet about his mother, who died in 2000 at the age of 88.She was born in 1912 on Lewis, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides in northwest Scotland, and grew up in the small town of Tong. Trump visited the humble family home in 2008, pausing for a photo in front of the two-storey house. He has cousins who still live in the house, which has been modernised since Mary Anne MacLeod’s time but remains modest, standing just around 200 metres (650 feet) from the sea.Its slate roof and grey walls are a world away from Trump’s luxury Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, or his gold-adorned apartment in Trump Tower, New York. According to the British press, which based its reports on local documents, Trump’s grandfather was a fisherman. MacLeod was the 10th and last child of the family, and her first language was Gaelic before she learnt English at school.Life was tough on Lewis after World War I, which claimed the lives of many of the island’s young men. Following in the footsteps of her older sister, and so many other Scots over the decades, she decided to emigrate to the United States.MacLeod boarded the SS Transylvania from Glasgow in 1930, bound for New York.- Pink Rolls-Royce -On her immigration papers she wrote she was a “domestic” when asked about her profession. One of Trump’s sisters recalled that MacLeod had worked as a nanny in a wealthy family.But a few years later her life turned around when she reportedly met Fred Trump at an evening dance. They were married in 1936 in Manhattan’s wealthy Upper East Side, and MacLeod became a US citizen in 1942.As Fred Trump built and expanded his property empire in the city by constructing middle-class homes in districts such as Queens and Brooklyn, Mary Anne devoted herself to charitable works.”Even in old age, rich and respected and with her hair arranged in a dynamic orange swirl, she would drive a rose-coloured Rolls-Royce to collect coins from laundry machines in apartment blocks that belonged to the Trumps,” the Times wrote this month.Photos of her hobnobbing with New York high society show her with her blonde hair swept up in a bun, reminiscent of her son’s distinctive side-swept coiffure.She was “a great beauty”, Donald Trump has gushed in one of his rare comments about his mother, adding she was also “one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known”.And on X he has pointed to “great advice from my mother: ‘Trust in God and be true to yourself'”.In 2018 then-British prime minister Theresa May presented Trump with his family tree tracing his Scottish ancestors.Less than 20,000 people live on Lewis, and MacLeod is a common surname.Residents tell how Mary Anne MacLeod regularly returned to her roots until her death, while one of the president’s sisters won over the locals by making a large donation to a retirement home.But Donald Trump has not impressed everyone in Scotland, and protests against his visit are planned on Saturday in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.Earlier this year in April a banner fluttered from a shop in the port of Stornoway, the island’s largest town. “Shame on you Donald John,” it proclaimed.Local authorities have asked for the banner to be taken down, but it is due to tour the island this summer with residents invited to sign it.

Columbia University said Wednesday it will pay $200 million to the US government after President Donald Trump threatened to pull federal funding over what he said was its unwillingness to protect Jewish students.In a sweeping deal that will restore the prestigious New York institution’s federal monies, Columbia has pledged to obey rules that bar it from taking race into consideration in admissions or hiring, among other concessions.”Columbia University has reached an agreement with the United States government to resolve multiple federal agency investigations into alleged violations of federal anti-discrimination laws,” a statement said, adding that the $200 million would be paid over three years.The university will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it said.”Under today’s agreement, a vast majority of the federal grants which were terminated or paused in March 2025 will be reinstated and Columbia’s access to billions of dollars in current and future grants will be restored,” the statement said.The promise of the federal funding spigot reopening offers relief for the university, which was under growing financial pressure, despite a comfortable endowment and a reputation it can bank on.The agreement also represents a victory for Trump, who has repeatedly claimed elite universities brainwash students against his nationalist ideas with left-wing bias.Thanking Columbia for “agreeing to do what is right,” Trump warned in a social media post that “numerous other Higher Education Institutions that have hurt so many, and been so unfair and unjust… are upcoming.”The centuries-old Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also in a fight with the administration over Trump’s threats to rip away federal funding, and Wednesday’s carefully worded agreement — in which Columbia admitted no wrongdoing — could offer a framework for future deals.”This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,” Columbia’s acting president Claire Shipman said.”The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track. “Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.”- Disciplinary actions -Under the settlement, Columbia will maintain a security force to prevent demonstrations in academic spaces, such as those that rocked the campus last year when pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with law enforcement and occupied university buildings. The school also agreed to “promptly provide” federal authorities with any requested information on “disciplinary actions involving student visa-holders resulting in expulsions or suspensions, and arrest records that Columbia is aware of for criminal activity, including trespass or other violation of law.”Columbia found itself at the center of a firestorm last year over claims of anti-Semitism triggered by campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.Some Jewish students claimed they were intimidated and that authorities did not act to protect them.The school announced a wave of various student punishments on Tuesday, including expulsions and degree revocations, against nearly 80 students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement that has called on the university to divest from Israel.”Our institution must focus on delivering on its academic mission for our community,” Columbia said in a statement about student protests on its campus. “Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences.” While the university appears to be acquiescing to the Trump administration’s demands to quash student protest, one of the most prominent leaders of the US pro-Palestinian campus protests is still raising his voice.Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate active in campus demonstrations, has sued the Trump administration for $20 million over his arrest and detention by immigration agents.Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States who is married to a US citizen, missed the birth of his son while being held in a federal immigration detention center in Louisiana. He called the lawsuit a “first step towards accountability.”

The power company whose lines are suspected of starting one of the deadly fires that ravaged Los Angeles this year said Wednesday it would compensate victims even without any formal finding it was at fault.Southern California Edison — which faces multiple costly lawsuits over the huge blazes — said it would establish a fund that would offer payouts to those who lost their homes or whose health was affected.It gave no figure for the size of the fund, and no precise timeline, but such a system could allow the company to avoid some of the bumper legal battles it is expected to face.Two enormous fires that erupted in January killed 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and buildings around Los Angeles. Investigations are still ongoing to determine the causes of two separate blazes that ravaged the affluent neighborhood of Pacific Palisades and parts of Malibu, and the city of Altadena, a more modest suburb located in the mountains to the northeast.For several months, the finger of blame has been pointing at a Southern California Edison (SCE) powerline as the root of the Eaton Fire that consumed Altadena. Several videos and witness accounts suggest that the equipment produced sparks that could have caused the fast-moving conflagration.Victims “shouldn’t have to wait for the final conclusions in the Eaton Fire investigation to get the financial support they need to begin rebuilding,” said Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, SCE’s parent company. “Even though the details of how the Eaton Fire started are still being evaluated, SCE will offer an expedited process to pay and resolve claims fairly and promptly.”This allows the community to focus more on recovery instead of lengthy, expensive litigation.”The fund will cover homeowners and tenants whose homes were damaged or destroyed, as well as business owners whose property was damaged or whose business was interrupted, a statement said.It will also pay out for personal injuries and offer compensation to family members of those who died in the fire.California’s changing climate — a result of humanity’s unchecked use of fossil fuels over the last 150 years — is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events, including wildfires.But SCE’s powerlines have frequently been pinpointed as the source of ignition in large blazes.That has included the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and ravaged the mountains behind Malibu.Last May, the utility also agreed to pay $82.5 million to settle lawsuits related to the Bobcat Fire, a blaze that burned nearly 116,000 acres (47,000 hectares) in the San Gabriel Mountains in 2020. 

Robyn Bedell Zalewa grew up and spent all her adult life in the United States, but is part of a little-known chapter of Greek history — the adoption of some 4,000 infants during the Cold War.Always knowing she came from Greece, she rediscovered her long-lost sister Sophia, who lives in the Athens area, and regained her Greek nationality two years ago.Connecticut-based Robyn goes by the name of Joanna when in Greece.There’s just one snag.Her sister Sophia only speaks Greek, so the siblings communicate through an online translator tool.”What hurts me the most is not being able to have a conversation with Sophia,” the 68-year-old told AFP.At the close of the Second World War and a brutal occupation by Nazi Germany, Greece was consumed by civil strife between royalists and communists that saw fighting continue until 1949.With thousands of Greek families plunged into disaster and poverty, an adoption movement gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s, which saw babies and children sent abroad for adoption, mainly in the United States.Gonda Van Steen, director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London, told AFP that Greece “was the main country of origin of children adopted in the US in the early 1950s”.”American childless couples were willing to pay any price for a healthy white newborn,” said Van Steen, who has conducted extensive research and authored a book on the subject.Greek-American Mary Cardaras campaigned for years so that children born in Greece, who are now in their sixties or seventies, could retrieve their birth nationality.”What followed (the first adoptions in Greece) was a tsunami of international adoptions,” she said, citing in particular China, Vietnam, Russia and especially South Korea, where at least 140,000 children were adopted by foreign parents between 1955 and 1999.- ‘A better life’ -In Greece, the biological mothers of adopted children were often impoverished widows, some of whom had been raped, or faced social stigmatisation for having a child out of wedlock.”They saw no other solution than to give the child away for him or her to have ‘a better life’,” Van Steen said.Greece simplified in May the process of obtaining birth documents to specifically enable individuals adopted until 1976 to regain Greek nationality.On the terrace of an Athens café, Bedell Zalewa proudly pulls her Greek passport and identity card from her handbag.Even though she had her adoption certificate — not all children did — she began the process well before new regulations were implemented and had to wait a long time before regaining Greek citizenship.”I always knew I had been adopted in Greece,” said the pensioner who was born in Messini, in the Peloponnese region, before being adopted in Texas.”What I’ve wanted my entire life is to find my family,” said Bedell Zalewa, her eyes welling up.Her story is one of a tenacious search for one’s roots.Bedell Zalewa found her brothers and sister and even met her biological mother before she passed away.As the youngest of five, she was apparently given up for adoption because her widowed mother was too poor to raise her.The ties she has forged in Greece encourage her to stay there whenever she can.Cardaras, the retired journalist who was adopted in the Chicago area and lived for a long time in California, also always knew that she was of Greek origin.She kept her Greek birth passport, which was originally revoked when she left the country as a baby.- Faces on the street -When she returned to her native country for the first time on a summer vacation in 1972, she remembers looking “at every woman’s face” on the street.”I wondered… if she was my mother,” she said.Everything felt familiar to her: “The smells, the atmosphere, I was completely at home.””But it was only when my (adoptive) parents died that I really began to question the first months and years of my life,” Cardaras said.Now settled in Athens, she is taking Greek classes and is making progress in understanding her native language.Better access to Greek nationality constitutes a deeply emotional breakthrough for adoptees with fragmented backgrounds.One of them recently shared their experience on social media.”At 12:47 PM Greek time, I received a message announcing that I am now reinstated as a Greek citizen! I am overwhelmed with emotion, thrilled, and on cloud nine!” Stephanie Pazoles wrote on Facebook.