AFP USA

France’s left-wing politicians on Saturday called on President Emmanuel Macron to intervene over US plans to destroy nearly $10 million worth of female contraceptives in Europe, calling it an “affront” to public health.A State Department spokesperson told AFP this week that “a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain” birth control products from “terminated Biden-era USAID contracts.” The US Agency for International Development, the country’s foreign aid arm, was dismantled by Donald Trump’s administration when he returned to office in January, replacing former president Joe Biden.Under the plan, some $9.7 million worth of implant and IUD contraceptives stored in Belgium are reportedly set to be incinerated in France.An open letter signed by French Green leader Marine Tondelier and several female lawmakers called the US decision “an affront to the fundamental principles of solidarity, public health and sexual and reproductive rights that France is committed to defending.”In the letter, they urged the French president “not to be complicit, even indirectly, in retrograde policies,” saying women’s contraception products such as IUDs and implants were intended for “low- and middle-income countries.””Cutting aid for contraception is shameful, destroying products that have already been manufactured and financed is even more mind-boggling,” Tondelier told AFP.The Greens urged Macron to request the suspension of the plan “as part of a joint initiative with the European Commission.”They also called on him to back humanitarian organisations that say they are ready to redistribute the contraception products.Separately, Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party, also urged Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to take action.”You have a responsibility to act to prevent this destruction, which will cost lives,” she said on X.”These resources are vital, particularly for the 218 million women who do not have access to contraceptive care.”The US plan has sparked outrage from global health NGOs, with Doctors Without Borders denouncing the “callous waste.””It is unconscionable to think of these health products being burned when the demand for them globally is so great,” said Rachel Milkovich of the medical charity’s US office.The State Department spokesperson said the destruction will cost $167,000 and “no HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed.”Doctors Without Borders says that other organisations have offered to cover the shipping and distribution costs of the supplies, but the US government declined to sign off.US lawmakers have approved slashing some $9 billion in aid primarily destined for foreign countries.

The highly anticipated science fiction series “Alien: Earth” officially landed at Comic-Con in California on Friday, where thousands of fans watched the pilot of a new TV series in the franchise.The pop culture convention held annually in San Diego was the chosen setting for the world premiere of the FX series created by Noah Hawley. “This is by far the biggest thing I’ve ever made,” Hawley told 6,500 cheering fans in Comic-Con’s Hall H before presenting the first episode, which he also directed.And in Hall H — unlike in space — you could hear them scream.”It was crazy!” squealed Nicole Martindale, a fan of the franchise who traveled from northern California for the event. “It wasn’t what I expected based on the Alien movies, but it was pretty cool,” she added.”Alien: Earth” is set a couple of years before the events of Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 film starring Sigourney Weaver.Scott served as executive producer of this expansion of the franchise, which will hit streaming platforms in August. “If I have a skill at adapting these films, it’s in an understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and trying to create it anew by telling you a totally different story,” Hawley told the audience. The panel also featured stars Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin, who discussed what it was like to become part of the storied franchise and share a scene with the Xenomorph. “It’s a dream, it was surreal,” said Chandler, who plays Wendy, a “hybrid” who is a blend of human consciousness and a synthetic body. “I’ve been a sci-fi and ‘Alien’ fan forever. I keep pinching myself.”- ‘Tron’ -One of the world’s largest celebrations of pop culture, Comic-Con brings together 130,000 people, many of whom come dressed as wizards, princesses or characters from movies, games or TV series.This year, the lines to enter Hall H have been less frenetic than in previous editions. Fans accustomed to camping out at the gates of the venue to get a spot inside say the lack of a big Marvel Studios presence has eased the crush.”Last year, we arrived the night before and had to wait hours to get” in, said Carla Gonzalez, who has attended the event every year with her family since 2013.”This year the first panel is about to start, and there are still empty chairs. If Marvel were here, it would be packed,” she added. There was still plenty for afficionados to get excited about, including a panel on “Predator: Badlands” directed by Dan Trachtenberg and set to hit US theaters in November. “There is something really special about strapping into something… and having no idea what will happen next, and that’s ‘Badlands’,” Trachtenberg said.Trachtenberg, responsible for revitalizing the franchise with “Prey” (2022), appeared alongside stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who plays the Predator, Dek. The production places the predator at the center of the plot for the first time as prey, not hunter. “He is ferocious and bad ass, and very much an anti-hero,” Trachtenberg said.Actors Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges and Greta Lee and the team from “Tron: Ares” also delighted fans. The film, directed by Joachim Ronning, is the third installment of another beloved science fiction franchise which began in 1982, with Bridges playing a hacker who becomes trapped in the digital world. Comic-Con concludes on Sunday.

Fired by France’s imminent recognition of Palestinian statehood, UN members meet next week to breathe life into the push for a two-state solution as Israel, expected to be absent, presses its war in Gaza.Days before the July 28-30 conference on fostering Israeli and Palestinian states living peacefully side-by-side to be co-chaired by Riyadh and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognize the State of Palestine in September.His declaration “will breathe new life into a conference that seemed destined to irrelevance,” said Richard Gowan, an analyst at International Crisis Group.”Macron’s announcement changes the game. Other participants will be scrabbling to decide if they should also declare an intent to recognize Palestine.”According to an AFP database, at least 142 of the 193 UN member states — including France — now recognize the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestinian leadership in exile in 1988. In 1947, a resolution of the UN General Assembly decided on the partition of Palestine, then under a British mandate, into two independent states — one Jewish and the other Arab. The following year, the State of Israel was proclaimed, and for several decades, the vast majority of UN member states have supported the idea of a two-state solution: Israeli and Palestinian, living side-by-side peacefully and securely. But after more than 21 months of war in Gaza, the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and senior Israeli officials declaring designs to annex occupied territory, it is feared a Palestinian state could be geographically impossible. The war in Gaza started following a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel, which responded with a large-scale military response that has claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.The New York conference is a response to the crisis, with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and several dozen ministers from around the world expected to attend.- ‘No alternative’ -The meeting comes as a two-state solution is “more threatened than it has ever been (but) even more necessary than before, because we see very clearly that there is no alternative,” said a French diplomatic source.Beyond facilitating conditions for recognition of a Palestinian state, the meeting will have three other focuses — reform of the Palestinian Authority, disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from Palestinian public life, and normalization of relations with Israel by Arab states that have not yet done so.The diplomatic source warned that no announcement of new normalization deals was expected next week.Ahead of the conference, which was delayed from June, Britain said it would not recognize a Palestinian state unilaterally and would wait for “a wider plan” for peace in the region.Macron has also not yet persuaded Germany to follow suit and recognize a Palestinian state in the short term.The conference “offers a unique opportunity to transform international law and the international consensus into an achievable plan and to demonstrate resolve to end the occupation and conflict once and for all, for the benefit of all peoples,” said the Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, calling for “courage” from participants.Israel and the United States will not take part in the meeting.Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon “has announced that Israel will not be taking part in this conference, which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” according to embassy spokesman Jonathan Harounoff.As international pressure continues to mount on Israel to end nearly two years of war in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe in the ravaged coastal territory is expected to dominate speeches by representatives of more than 100 countries as they take to the podium from Monday to Wednesday.Gowan said he expected “very fierce criticism of Israel.” 

The US Justice Department’s deputy chief conducted a second day of questioning Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose infamous case has dragged President Donald Trump into a political firestorm.Todd Blanche, who is also Trump’s former personal attorney, has so far declined to say what he discussed with Maxwell in the highly unusual meetings between a convicted felon and a top DOJ official.Maxwell’s lawyer David Markus said Friday afternoon that she was asked about “everything” and “answered every single question” during the second day of questioning at a courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida.”They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine,” Markus told reporters outside the courtroom, without elaborating.But he did say there was “no offers” of clemency made to Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex trafficking charges.Trump is looking to move past the Epstein scandal, which has seen him on rare unsure footing over claims his administration mishandled a review of the notorious case.On Friday, Trump again sought to put distance between himself and Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.”I have nothing to do with the guy,” Trump, whose past friendship with Epstein has received much media attention this week, told reporters ahead of a visit to Scotland.- ‘Never briefed’ -Trump urged journalists to “focus” instead on Democratic Party figures like former president Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary, former Harvard president Larry Summers, whom the Republican claimed were “really close friends” of Epstein.Asked whether he was considering a pardon or commutation of Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump said it was something “I haven’t thought about” — but stressed he had the power to do so.He also denied multiple US media reports that he was briefed in the spring by Attorney General Pam Bondi that his name appeared multiple times in the so-called “Epstein Files.””No, I was never — never briefed, no,” Trump said.Multi-millionaire Epstein was accused of procuring underage girls for sex with his circle of wealthy, high-profile associates when he died by suicide in a New York jail cell.His death fueled conspiracy theories that he was murdered to stop him testifying against prominent accomplices.Trump, who had promised his supporters revelations about the case, infuriated some after his administration announced in early July that it had not discovered any new elements warranting the release of additional documents.The Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no proof that there was a “list” of Epstein’s clients, while affirming he died by suicide.- ‘Scapegoat’? -Ahead of the second round of questioning, Markus told reporters “Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now” and described her as a “scapegoat.””Everything she says can be corroborated and she’s telling the truth. She’s got no reason to lie at this point and she’s going to keep telling the truth,” he added.Maxwell, the only former Epstein associate who has been convicted, was jailed in 2022 for grooming underage girls between 1994 and 2004 so that Epstein could sexually exploit them.Her lawyer said she still intended to appeal her conviction in the Supreme Court.The Wall Street Journal reported  Wednesday that Trump’s name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of Epstein’s case files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.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.House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the legislative session this week, sending lawmakers home on summer recess a day early to avoid potentially combustible debate — particularly among Trump’s Republicans — on the release of files.

Disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was expelled from the US Congress for using stolen donor cash to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, reported to prison Friday to start his seven-year sentence, authorities said.Santos, 37, had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft for his elaborate grifting while a lawmaker representing New York.He turned himself in Friday at the federal prison in Fairton, New Jersey, the Bureau of Prisons told AFP.Despite his guilty plea, prosecutors insisted Santos’s social media showed his claims of remorse “ring hollow” and Judge Joanna Seybert in April handed down a sentence of seven years and three months.The downfall of the congressman from Long Island came after it was revealed he had fabricated almost his entire backstory including his education, religion and work history.Santos was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2022 and indicted the following year for stealing  campaign donors’ identities and using their credit cards, among other charges.Santos used the stolen funds for Botox treatments and the OnlyFans porn website, as well as luxury Italian goods and vacations to the Hamptons and Las Vegas, according to an investigation by a congressional ethics committee.Santos’s bizarre biographical fabrications included claiming to have worked for Goldman Sachs, being Jewish and having been a college volleyball star.He was ultimately doomed by the congressional probe that found overwhelming evidence of misconduct and accused him of seeking to “fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy.”Santos was expelled from the House in 2023, becoming only the third person to be ejected as a US lawmaker since the Civil War, a rebuke previously reserved for traitors and convicted criminals.

US President Donald Trump landed in Scotland on Friday for a five-day visit set to mix diplomacy, business and leisure, as a huge UK security operation swung into place amid planned protests near his family-owned golf resorts. The president, whose mother was born in Scotland, will split his time between two seaside golf courses bearing his name, in Turnberry on the southwestern coast and Aberdeen in the northeast.Air Force One, carrying the president and White House staff, touched down at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow shortly before 8:30 pm (1930 GMT). Police officers lined surrounding streets and several hundred curious Scots came out hoping for a glimpse of the US leader as he then made his way to Turnberry by motorcade.Trump has no public events scheduled for Saturday and is expected to play golf at his picturesque resort, before meeting EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday for trade talks.Trump is also due to meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip.He said the meeting would be “more of a celebration than a workout,” appearing to row back on previous comments that a bilateral trade deal struck in May needed “fine tuning”.”The deal is concluded,” he told reporters on the tarmac at Prestwick.But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK request for reduced steel and aluminium tariffs.Trump has exempted British exports from blanket 50 percent tariffs on both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear.”If I do it for one, I have to do it for all,” Trump said in Washington before embarking on his flight, when asked if he had any “wiggle room” for the UK on the issue. The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognise a Palestinian state.- Protests -Trump is due to return to the UK in September for a state visit — his second — at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish.During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18.”He’s original, he does things the way he wants to. I think a lot of our politicians could take a good leaf out of his book,” 45-year-old Trump fan Lisa Hart told AFP as she waited to see his plane touch down.But the affection between Trump and Scotland is not always mutual.Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family’s construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday.Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump’s golf courses, have said there will be a “significant operation across the country over many days”.Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation “shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries”.Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland’s oil industry.In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should “stop with the costly and unsightly windmills” as he urged incentivising drilling for oil in the North Sea.- US discontent -The trip to Scotland puts physical distance between Trump and the latest twists in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier accused of sex trafficking who died in prison in 2019 before facing trial.In his heyday, Epstein was friends with Trump and others in the New York jet-set, but the president is now facing backlash from his own MAGA supporters who demand access to the Epstein case files.Many support a conspiracy theory under which “deep state” elites protected rich and famous people who took part in an Epstein sex ring. But Trump is urging his supporters to move on from the case.The Wall Street Journal, which published an article detailing longstanding links between Trump and the sex offender, is being punished by the White House.Its reporting team plans to travel to Scotland on their own and join the White House press pool. But it has now been denied a seat on Air Force One for the flight back home.While Trump’s family has undertaken many development projects worldwide, the president no longer legally controls the family holdings.But opponents and watchdog groups have accused him of having many conflicts of interest and using his position as US president to promote private family investments, especially abroad.aue-jkb-jj-pdh/dc

Fake AI-generated photos and videos purporting to show Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein socializing with underage girls have flooded social media, racking up millions of views, researchers said Friday.The surge in deepfakes comes as the US president — frequently photographed with Epstein during their 15-year friendship — attempts to distance himself from the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. One widely circulated AI-generated video appears to show Trump and Epstein leering at a group of young girls dancing, with the song “Is it a Crime?” by the English band Sade added as background music.At least two other fake photos appear to show the pair on a couch alongside underaged girls.Another such photograph purports to shows Trump dancing with a teenage girl on Epstein’s private island. Overlaying the image is the caption: “Trump was in his 50’s when this was taken. What kind of man does that?”At least seven such AI-generated images and one video cumulatively garnered more than 7.2 million views across social media platforms, according to a conservative estimate by disinformation watchdog group NewsGuard.The watchdog said it used multiple detection tools, including Hive and IdentifAI, to establish that the content was fabricated using AI tools and the actual number of views was likely much higher than its manual tally of high-engagement posts.Trump’s ties to Epstein are extensive, and the pair were frequently pictured partying together during their friendship before they fell out in 2004 over a property deal.But there appear to be no known authentic photographs of the pair with underage girls or of Trump visiting Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, NewsGuard said.AI slop — low-quality visual content generated using cheap and widely available artificial intelligence tools –- increasingly appears to be flooding social media sites, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.Many content creators on YouTube and TikTok offer paid courses on how to monetize viral AI slop on tech platforms, many of which have reduced their reliance on human fact-checkers and scaled back content moderation.AI-generated images of Trump spread rapidly after the FBI and Justice Department said in a July 7 memo that there was no proof that Epstein kept a “client list” of elite co-conspirators as conspiracy theorists have contended.Trump’s core Make America Great Again (MAGA) base erupted in anger over the memo, calling on the White House to release the so-called “Epstein files.”Some even within the Republican president’s own party have demanded the files be released, but his administration has declined to do so. Fake images appear to be gaining traction in that vacuum.The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president’s name was among hundreds found during an official review of the files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the newspaper last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003.

President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to upend a foundational scientific determination about the harms of greenhouse gases that underpins the US government’s ability to curb climate change.A proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change the so-called “Endangerment Finding” was sent to the White House on June 30, a spokesperson told AFP. An announcement is expected imminently. Here’s what to know — and what’s at stake if the finding is overturned.- What is the Endangerment Finding? -The Clean Air Act of 1970 empowered the EPA to regulate “air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”For decades, the law applied to pollutants like lead, ozone and soot.But as climate science around the dangers of heat-trapping greenhouse gases advanced in the 2000s, a coalition of states and nonprofit groups petitioned the EPA to include them under the law, focusing on motor vehicles.The issue reached the Supreme Court, which in 2007 ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants and directed the EPA to revisit its stance.That led to the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which declared greenhouse gases a threat to public health and welfare, based on overwhelming scientific consensus and peer-reviewed research.”That 2009 finding formed the basis for all of EPA’s subsequent regulations,” Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney on climate and energy for the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, told AFP.”They’ve issued greenhouse gas standards for tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles, smokestack emissions from power plants — all of these individual rulemakings trace themselves back to the 2009 Endangerment Finding.”- What is the Trump administration doing? -The Endangerment Finding has withstood multiple legal challenges, and although Trump’s first administration considered reversing it, they ultimately held back.But the finding is now a direct target of Project 2025, a far-right governance blueprint closely followed by the administration.In March, the EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a formal reconsideration of the finding.”The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas,” he said.The government is expected to undo the earlier finding that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare.It will argue that the economic costs of regulation have been undervalued — and downplay the role of US motor vehicle emissions in climate change.In fact, transportation is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions.”If vehicle emissions don’t pass muster as a contribution to climate change, it’s hard to imagine what would,” Dena Adler of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University told AFP.”It’s fatalistic to avoid taking the many actions that could cumulatively fix climate change, because none of them can individually solve the entire problem.”Since 1970, the United States has emitted more vehicle-based greenhouse gases than the next nine countries combined, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity that will soon be published in full.- Could they succeed? -In March, the EPA said it would lean on recent court rulings, including a landmark 2024 decision that narrowed federal regulatory power.Still, legal experts say the administration faces an uphill battle.”It will take a few years for the rule to be finalized and wind its way up to the Supreme Court for review,” said Adler. “If EPA loses before the Supreme Court, it gets sent back, and EPA then gets it back to the drawing board” — by which time Trump’s term may be nearing its end.To succeed, the high court may need to overturn its own 2007 decision that led to the Endangerment Finding.None of the justices who wrote the majority opinion remain on the bench, while three dissenters — John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito — still serve, and could spearhead a drive to upend the original ruling.Even then, market forces may blunt the impact of any rollback.”Utilities making long-term investments and companies purchasing capital goods expected to be used for decades won’t base those decisions on short-term policy changes,” said John Tobin-de la Puente, a professor at Cornell University’s business school.That’s especially true when those swings run counter to business trends and could be undone by a future administration, he added.

The US Justice Department’s deputy chief met Friday for a second day with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose infamous case has dragged President Donald Trump into a political firestorm.Todd Blanche, the DOJ number-two who is also Trump’s former personal attorney, has declined for now to say what he is discussing with Maxwell in their Tallahassee, Florida meetings.Maxwell’s lawyer David Markus has similarly declined to give details on the meetings’ content, but said after a first hours-long session on Thursday that his client had answered every question.Trump is looking to quickly move past the saga, which has seen him on rare unsure footing over claims his administration mishandled a review of the notorious case.On Friday, Trump again sought to put distance between himself and Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.”I have nothing to do with the guy,” Trump, whose past friendship with Epstein has received much media attention this week, told reporters ahead of a visit to Scotland.He urged journalists to rather “focus” on Democratic Party figures like former president Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary, former Harvard president Larry Summers, whom the president claimed were “really close friends” of Epstein.Asked whether he was considering a pardon or commutation of Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump said it was something “I haven’t thought about” — but stressed he had the power to do so.Epstein’s death in his New York prison cell was ruled a suicide, but it fueled conspiracy theories that he was murdered to stop him testifying against high-profile accomplices.Trump, who had promised his base revelations about the case, has infuriated some of his supporters after his administration announced in early July that it had not discovered any new elements warranting the release of additional documents.The Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no proof that there was a “list” of Epstein’s clients, while affirming that he died by suicide.- ‘Scapegoat’? -Blanche and his team entered the Tallahassee courthouse where they were meeting Maxwell through a back door, US media reported.Maxwell’s lawyer Markus spoke briefly to journalists ahead of his client’s renewed questioning by Blanche.”Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now,” he said, describing Maxwell as a “scapegoat.””Everything she says can be corroborated and she’s telling the truth. She’s got no reason to lie at this point and she’s going to keep telling the truth,” he added, declining to give any details about the questions being put to Maxwell.Maxwell was convicted in 2022 for grooming underage girls between 1994 and 2004 so that Epstein could sexually exploit them.”The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time,” Blanche wrote on X Thursday.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,” though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.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.House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the legislative session this week, sending lawmakers home on summer recess a day early to avoid potentially combustible debate — particularly among Trump’s Republicans — on the release of files.

US President Donald Trump departed for Scotland on Friday for a mix of diplomacy, business and leisure, as a huge UK security operation swung into place amid planned protests near his family-owned golf resorts. The president, whose mother was born in Scotland, is expected to split his time between two seaside golf courses bearing his name, in Turnberry on the southwestern coast and Aberdeen in the northeast.Air Force One was due to arrive around at 8:20 pm local time (1920 GMT) with the president and White House staff, and Trump has no public events scheduled for Saturday or Sunday, the White House said.However, he is due to meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip.”We’re going to do a little celebrating together, because we got along very well,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday, calling Starmer “a good guy” doing “a very good job”.He said they would discuss “fine tuning” the bilateral trade deal struck in May, and would “maybe even improve it”.But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK demand for flexibility over reduced steel and aluminium tariffs.Trump has exempted London from blanket 50 percent tariffs on imports of both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear.”If I do it for one, I have to do it for all,” Trump told reporters, when asked if he had any “wiggle room” for the UK on the issue. The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the pair’s agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognise a Palestinian state.- Protests -Trump is expected to return to the UK in September for a state visit — his second — at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish.During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18.The affection is not necessarily mutual.Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family’s construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday.Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump’s golf courses, have said there will be a “significant operation across the country over many days”.Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation “shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries”.He added it would provide Scotland with a “platform to make its voice heard on the issues that matter, including war and peace, justice and democracy”.Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland’s oil industry.In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should “stop with the costly and unsightly windmills” as he urged incentivising drilling for oil in the North Sea.- US discontent -The trip to Scotland puts physical distance between Trump and the latest twists in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier accused of sex trafficking who died in prison in 2019 before facing trial.In his heyday, Epstein was friends with Trump and others in the New York jet-set, but the president is now facing backlash from his own MAGA supporters who demand access to the Epstein case files.Many support a conspiracy theory under which “deep state” elites protected rich and famous people who took part in an Epstein sex ring. But Trump is urging his supporters to move on from the case.The Wall Street Journal, which published an article detailing longstanding links between Trump and the sex offender, is being punished by the White House.Its reporting staff plans to travel to Scotland on their own and join the White House press pool. But it has now been denied a seat on Air Force One for the flight back home.While Trump’s family has undertaken many development projects worldwide, the president no longer legally controls the family holdings.But opponents and watchdog groups have accused him of many conflicts of interest and using his position as US president to promote private family investments, especially abroad.The American NGO Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in May that 21 development projects were already underway abroad during Trump’s second term.