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President Donald Trump on Friday voiced frustration with Iran’s stance in nuclear negotiations as US staff left Israel due to safety concerns — but mediator Oman promoted what it said was a “breakthrough” to avert war.Trump has ordered the biggest military build-up in decades in the Middle East, with the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, approaching the coast of Israel, as he demands Iran agree to sweeping concessions on concerns starting with its nuclear program.A day after the United States and Iran held talks in Geneva, Trump said that the cleric-run state was “not willing to give us what we have to have.” “We’re not exactly happy with the way they negotiated. They cannot have nuclear weapons, and we’re not thrilled with the way they’re negotiating,” Trump told reporters.He later said he wants Iran to have “no enrichment” at all of uranium that could go toward a nuclear bomb, which Iran denies it is pursuing.But Oman, which mediated the Geneva talks, offered a much rosier picture and said that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of any uranium, making moot the question of the level of enrichment.Iran also agreed to degrade current stockpiles into fuel, said Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who was in Washington meeting US Vice President JD Vance.”If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before,” Albusaidi told CBS News program “Face the Nation.””If we can capture that and build on it, I think a deal is within our reach,” he said, estimating that three months would be needed to finalize an accord.The renewed US pressure comes weeks after Iranian authorities killed thousands of people as they crushed mass protests.As Washington mobilizes forces, Trump said “nobody knows” if a US attack would bring down the Iranian government.Iran agreed to restrictions to low-level enrichment in a 2015 deal that Trump ripped up during his first term in office.Trump in June had said that Iran’s key nuclear sites had been “obliterated” after the United States joined a major Israeli bombing campaign on the country.- Rubio heads to Israel -Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Israel for talks on Iran on Monday, the State Department said. In a rare break from decades of precedent, the top US diplomat will travel without reporters on his plane.Rubio’s trip comes as the US embassy announced it was allowing non-emergency government personnel and family members to leave Israel “due to safety risks.”Germany in a new advisory said it “urgently” discouraged travel to Israel.Britain and Canada said they were moving some diplomatic staff out of Tel Aviv, Israel’s economic hub where most countries maintain embassies, as a precaution.China and Canada both called on their citizens to evacuate Iran, while Britain pulled its embassy staff in Tehran.- Issues beyond nuclear -Trump in his State of the Union address Tuesday alleged Iran was developing missiles that could strike the United States.Rubio later said it would be a “very big problem” for Iran if it does not discuss its missiles. Iran has insisted that the ongoing talks focus on the nuclear issue.Increasing pressure, Rubio on Friday designated Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detentions, a new blacklist, over jailings of US citizens.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that “success in this path requires seriousness and realism from the other side and avoidance of any miscalculation and excessive demands.”The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that it would hold technical discussions with Iran on Monday.The agency called on Iran to cooperate with it “constructively,” according to a confidential report seen by AFP. In their capital Tehran, ordinary Iranians expressed distrust of the United States and hoped negotiations would lead to economic relief for their sanctions-hit nation. “Whatever the outcome of the negotiations…it should lead to some improvement in people’s economic situation. Not just a little — it is our right,” Ali Bagheri, 34, told AFP. Hamid Beiranvand, 42, said Iran should “not give any concessions” as Washington “breaks promises” — but that “everyone prefers that a war doesn’t happen.” burs-sct/nro/sla

American singer and songwriter Neil Sedaka, who had a string of chart-topping hits in the 1960s and 1970s with songs like “Laughter in the Rain,” has died at age 86, his family said Friday.Over a career spanning six decades, Sedaka scored three No. 1 hits in the United States and also wrote chart-topping songs for other artists.”Our family is devastated by the sudden passing of our beloved husband, father and grandfather,” Sedaka’s family posted on his Facebook page, describing him as a “true rock and roll legend.”No cause of death was given.Born in New York, Sedaka’s musical career began in the late 1950s. One of his first successes was writing “Stupid Cupid” for one of the era’s most popular US female vocalists, Connie Francis.Sedaka, an accomplished pianist, became a star in his own right in the early 1960s, with pop hits including “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” His popularity faded in the second half the 1960s as bands like The Beatles came into fashion, but it revived in the 1970s with easy-listening favorites like “Laughter in the Rain” and “Bad Blood.”Sedaka’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” became a No. 1 hit for the husband-and-wife recording duo Captain & Tennille in 1975.Sedaka had dropped out of the charts by the 1980s. He remained a showbiz fixture and kept performing even as commercial successes waned.

US media conglomerate Paramount Skydance announced Friday it will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valuing the combined company at $110 billion, after beating Netflix in a bruising bidding war.The agreement ends a five-month saga and creates an entertainment behemoth whose impact on a struggling media landscape — and connections to Donald Trump’s White House — will be closely scrutinized.The merged entity will include CNN, CBS, HBO and Nickelodeon as well as some of Hollywood’s most valuable franchises, including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, the DC Universe, Mission Impossible and SpongeBob SquarePants.Under the terms of the agreement, Paramount will pay $31.00 per share in cash for all outstanding Warner Bros. shares, implying an equity value of $81 billion — and $110 billion when including the mountain of debt Paramount will take on.The transaction has been unanimously approved by both companies’ boards and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, the companies said.”Our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” said Paramount chairman and CEO David Ellison.The deal closes a battle that ended Thursday when Netflix walked away, unwilling to match Paramount’s latest offer.- Regulatory hurdles ahead -Wall Street praised the deal, with shares of Paramount up more than 20 percent Friday. Simultaneously, Netflix was up nearly 14 percent, as many investors concluded the fight had not been worth it for the streamer.”Netflix’s withdrawal from the race will leave it free to refocus on its business, while its closest competitors grapple with long and distracting regulatory approval and merger integration processes,” said HSBC analyst Mohammed Khallouf.Questions now pivot to the Ellison family, which will control a constellation of media properties spanning the globe — though at the cost of accumulating a pile of debt.If regulators approve the deal, David Ellison is widely expected to embark on a painful round of cost-cutting to pare down the load.His father, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, largely financed the takeover, offering a financial guarantee that finally persuaded the Warner Bros. board.Larry Ellison is also a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, who said he would weigh in on the deal. Both Paramount and Netflix sought to curry favor with the White House, with Paramount winning out.The deal still faces regulatory hurdles. The European Commission is reviewing the merger, as are several US states, including California.”Paramount/Warner Bros is not a done deal,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Friday.The Paramount offer includes financing from three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds — those of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi — which could also attract extra scrutiny on national security concerns.Paramount has offered a $7 billion regulatory termination fee should the deal fail to close on regulatory grounds, and has covered the $2.8 billion breakup fee Warner Bros. Discovery owed Netflix when it walked away from their agreement.

President Donald Trump told the US government Friday to “immediately” stop using Anthropic’s technology after the AI startup rejected the Pentagon’s demand that it agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models.Anthropic insists its technology should not be used for the mass surveillance of US citizens or deployed in fully autonomous weapons systems, while the Pentagon says it operates within the law and that contracted suppliers cannot set terms on how their products are employed.”I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.”There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels,” the US president said, referring to the Department of Defense.”Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump added.Anthropic did not immediately reply to a request for comment.The Pentagon had said Anthropic must agree to comply with its demand by 5:01 pm (22:01 GMT) Friday or face compulsion under the Defense Production Act.The Cold War-era law, last invoked during the Covid pandemic, grants the federal government sweeping powers to direct private industry toward national security priorities.The Pentagon also threatened to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk — a label typically reserved for companies from adversary nations.- ‘Dangerous precedent’ -US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was directing the Pentagon to follow through on the latter threat, and that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.””Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” Hegseth wrote on X.The conflict had earlier drawn a show of solidarity from others in the industry, with hundreds of employees from AI giants Google DeepMind and OpenAI urging their companies to rally behind Anthropic in an open letter titled “We Will Not Be Divided.””We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight,” the letter said.”They’re trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in. That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand,” it added.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees Thursday that he too was seeking an agreement with the Pentagon that would include red lines similar to Anthropic’s, and that he hoped to help broker a resolution.”We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions,” he wrote in a memo to employees, according to US media.The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington-based technology policy NGO, sharply criticized Trump’s move against Anthropic.The president is “wielding the full weight of the federal government to blacklist a company for taking a narrowly-tailored, principled stance to restrict some of the most extreme uses of AI you could imagine,” CDT chief Alexandra Givens said in a statement.”This action sets a dangerous precedent. It chills private companies’ ability to engage frankly with the government about appropriate uses of their technology,” Givens added.

NASA on Friday abruptly said it was shaking up its Artemis lunar program that has suffered multiple delays in recent years, a bid to ensure Americans can return to the Moon’s surface by 2028.That goal remains unchanged, but the US space agency is shifting its flight lineup to include a test mission before an eventual lunar landing to improve launch “muscle memory,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said.That strategic revision comes amid repeated delays to the Artemis 2 mission, which was originally due to take off as early as February, but now will not launch before April. It is meant to see the first flyby of the Moon in more than half a century.Earlier this week that mission faced another setback when NASA rolled back its towering SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft off the launchpad to investigate problems and make necessary repairs.The announced changes mean that Artemis 3, which was meant to send astronauts to the Moon’s surface, will now have the different test goal of “rendezvous in low-Earth orbit” of at least one lunar lander.The next phase, Artemis 4, will aim for a lunar landing in early 2028. Isaacman said he hoped that mission could be followed relatively quickly by a second landing within the year.”We’re not necessarily committing to launching two missions in 2028,” he told a briefing, “but we want to have the opportunity to be able to do that.”- ‘Back to basics’ -The announcement comes two days after NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said in its annual report that the Artemis 3 Moon landing plan carried “significant risk” including for the number of “firsts” it was attempting.The NASA chief said Friday speeding up the cadence of Artemis launches would allow for building more institutional knowledge in the model of the Apollo program, which originally put Americans on the Moon.”Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, through the shuttle program — I don’t think it would surprise many of the folks in the room that our average launch cadence was closer to three months throughout all those programs, not three years,” he said. “We need to start getting back to basics and moving in this direction.””Launching every three years, your skills atrophy, you lose muscle memory.” Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Insistute, told AFP at first glance it seemed Isaacman was “making some realistic and necessary decisions.”But Clayton Swope of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told AFP it left him with “a lot of question marks,” namely in terms of both the SLS rocket or the SpaceX landing system being ready according to NASA’s timeline.Still, with the revised architecture, “you will potentially be buying down some risk that we would have carried all the way to the Moon had we gone straight to the Moon with the original plan,” he said.- ‘Space race’? -During his first term President Donald Trump announced he wanted Americans to once again set foot on the lunar surface.NASA hopes to put humans back on the Moon as China forges ahead with its own effort, which is targeting 2030 at the latest for a first crewed mission.China’s uncrewed Chang’e 7 mission is expected to be launched in 2026 for an exploration of the Moon’s south pole, and testing of its crewed spacecraft Mengzhou is also set to go ahead this year.Queried on the so-called “space race,” Isaacman said Friday that “I think competition is good.” “We’re here talking to you about what is a common-sense approach to achieve the objective, whether we had a great rival in the running or not.”But delays to space travel are not uncommon — and could also stem from the progress of NASA’s private partners.SpaceX and Blue Origin, the respective space companies of dueling billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are contracted to develop lunar landers used in the Artemis program.Both companies posted praise of NASA’s plans on social media Friday.”We’re all in!” wrote Blue Origin on X, while SpaceX said it “shares the same goal as NASA of returning to the Moon with a permanent presence as expeditiously and safely as possible.””Frequent human exploration flights help establish a sustainable presence for humans in space,” SpaceX said.

Greenpeace must pay $345 million in damages to the operator of the US oil pipeline it protested, a North Dakota court ordered Friday.The decision finalizes this phase of the explosive, yearslong case that has pitted the environmental organization against the company Energy Transfer, opening the door to an appeals process in the closely watched legal saga.The Dallas-based energy conglomerate accused Greenpeace of orchestrating violence and defamation during the controversial construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline nearly a decade ago.A jury last year took their side, awarding more than $660 million in damages across three Greenpeace entities, citing charges including trespass, nuisance, conspiracy and deprivation of property access.Judge James Gion of North Dakota cut those damages in half, determining some damages had been counted twice.But the sum remains staggering.Greenpeace categorically rejects the accusations, denouncing the proceedings as abusive and a means to silence dissent.Legal experts and advocacy groups alike have closely followed the case, given its potentially far-reaching implications for protest mobilization and advocacy movements.Greenpeace has indicated its intention to appeal and has repeatedly stated it cannot pay hundreds of millions of dollars.”This legal fight is far from over,” Kristin Casper, Greenpeace International general counsel, said in a statement to AFP.Marco Simons, another Greenpeace legal official, said “speaking out against corporations that cause environmental harm should never be deemed unlawful.””This is a setback, but the movement to defend people and the planet has always faced setbacks and resistance, and Energy Transfer will fail in its goal of silencing its critics.”Energy Transfer, meanwhile, has objected to the halving of its award.Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s climate change law center, told AFP the judgment was “devastating.””It is very bad not only for Greenpeace, but for the global environmental movement,” he said.- Global impact -The case could have ripple effects worldwide.When the initial verdict dropped last year, environmental defenders rallied around Greenpeace, denouncing the verdict as a chilling attack on climate action around the globe.”Fossil fuel companies invest billions in new oil and gas while they spread misinformation, lobby against climate policies, and attempt to silence dissent against their destructive business model,” Allie Rosenbluth, the US campaign manager of Oil Change International, said in a statement to AFP.”They must not be allowed to act with impunity.”At the heart of the North Dakota court battle was the Dakota Access Pipeline, where from 2016 to 2017 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe led one of the largest anti-fossil-fuel protests in US history.The demonstrations saw hundreds arrested and injured, drawing the attention of the United Nations, which raised concerns over potential violations of Indigenous sovereignty.Despite the protests, the pipeline — designed to transport fracked crude oil to refineries and on to global markets — became operational in 2017.Energy Transfer, however, continued its legal pursuit of Greenpeace.After its federal lawsuit was dismissed, it shifted its legal strategy to the state courts in North Dakota, one of the minority of US states without protections against so-called “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” or SLAPPs.Throughout the yearslong legal fight, Energy Transfer’s billionaire CEO Kelcy Warren, a major donor to President Donald Trump, was open about his motivations.His “primary objective” in suing Greenpeace, he said in interviews, was not just financial compensation but to “send a message.” Warren went so far as to say that activists “should be removed from the gene pool.”Energy Transfer did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.Greenpeace maintains that it played only a small and peaceful role in the movement, which was led by Native Americans.Greenpeace International in 2025 announced plans to counter-sue Energy Transfer in the Netherlands, where the NGO’s international headquarters are, accusing the company of using nuisance lawsuits to suppress dissent.It is seeking compensation for the costs incurred in these legal battles.

US President Donald Trump on Friday voiced frustration with Iran’s stance in nuclear negotiations but said he had not yet decided whether to carry out a threatened attack, as US staff were authorized to leave Israel due to heightened risks.Trump has ordered the biggest military build-up in decades in the Middle East, with the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, approaching the coast of Israel, as he demands Iran agree to sweeping concessions on concerns starting with its nuclear program.A day after the United States and Iran held talks in Geneva, Trump said that the cleric-run state was “not willing to give us what we have to have” but added on military force, “We haven’t made a final decision.””We’re not exactly happy with the way they negotiated. They cannot have nuclear weapons, and we’re not thrilled with the way they’re negotiating,” Trump told reporters.”We want no nuclear weapons by Iran and they’re not saying those golden words.”Iran has said repeatedly that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons and agreed to restrictions on enrichment in a 2015 deal that Trump ripped up during his first term in office.Trump in June had said that Iran’s key nuclear sites had been “obliterated” after the United States joined a major Israeli bombing campaign.The renewed pressure comes weeks after Iranian authorities killed thousands of people as they crushed one of the biggest threats to the Islamic republic established after the 1979 revolution deposed the pro-Western shah.Trump said “nobody knows” if an attack would bring down the Iranian government.- Rubio heads to Israel -US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Israel for talks on Iran on Monday, the State Department announced. In a rare break from decades of precedent, the top US diplomat will travel without reporters on his plane.Rubio will head to Israel even after the US embassy announced it was allowing non-emergency US government personnel and family members to leave “due to safety risks.”Americans “may wish to consider leaving Israel while commercial flights are available,” the embassy said on its website. Germany in a new advisory said it “urgently” discouraged travel to Israel.Britain said it was moving diplomatic staff out of Tel Aviv, Israel’s economic hub where most countries maintain embassies, to another location in the country as a “precautionary measure.”China, a main partner of Tehran, called on its citizens to evacuate Iran “as soon as possible.” The United States and European countries already have longstanding warnings on travel to Iran.- Holding out hope for talks -On February 19, Trump gave Iran 15 days to reach a deal. While Iran has insisted discussions focus solely on nuclear issues, Washington wants Tehran’s missile programme and its support for militant groups curtailed.Oman, which brokered the negotiations in Iran that included Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and roving negotiator Steve Witkoff, has offered a positive take on the talks.Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi met Friday in Washington with Vice President JD Vance.Busaidi wrote on X that he looked forward to “further and decisive progress in the coming days.” “Peace is within our reach,” he wrote.Iran has trumpeted what it calls progress during the negotiations. But Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also sounded a warning on Friday in talks with his Egyptian counterpart, saying that “success in this path requires seriousness and realism from the other side and avoidance of any miscalculation and excessive demands.”The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that it would hold technical discussions with Iran on Monday.The agency called on Iran to cooperate with it “constructively,” stressing “the utmost urgency” of its request to verify all its nuclear material, according to a confidential report seen by AFP. In their capital Tehran, ordinary Iranians expressed distrust of the United States and hoped negotiations would lead to economic relief for their sanctions-hit nation. “Whatever the outcome of the negotiations… it should lead to some improvement in people’s economic situation. Not just a little — it is our right,” Ali Bagheri, 34, told AFP. Hamid Beiranvand, 42, said Iran should “not give any concessions” as Washington “breaks promises,” but that “everyone prefers that a war doesn’t happen.” burs-sct/aha

Lionel Messi was knocked to the ground as fans invaded the pitch during chaotic scenes at a match in Puerto Rico on Thursday.Messi was playing for Inter Miami in a friendly against Ecuador’s Independiente del Valle when supporters raced onto the field in the game’s 88th minute.While one fan demanded a selfie with the Argentine great and another asked for his shirt to be signed, a third rushed to embrace Messi from behind. A security guard tackled the fan, who dragged the World Cup winner to the floor.Messi did not appear to be injured in the incident, landing on the fan, before picking himself up and walking away in apparent frustration.It capped a farcical night for a friendly that started an hour late due to a disagreement over which colors each team should wear.The argument was seemingly never resolved, as both teams ended up playing in black.A penalty kick by Messi gave Miami a 2-1 victory.Messi, who came on as a substitute at the start of the second half, scored the winning goal in the 70th minute.Inter Miami had opened the scoring in the 16th minute with a goal from fellow Argentine Santi Morales.Ecuadorian international Patrik Mercado leveled the score in the 17th minute.The friendly was originally scheduled for February 13 but was postponed due to a Messi injury.Nearly 20,000 spectators in Bayamon, on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, a US territory, gave the Argentine idol a standing ovation when he finally entered the game.An eight-time Ballon d’Or winner widely considered one of the greatest soccer players of all time, Messi is expected to represent Argentina at a record sixth World Cup this summer.He has not yet officially confirmed he will participate in the tournament, taking place across the United States, Mexico and Canada. 

NASA on Friday said it would revise its Artemis lunar program that has suffered multiple delays in recent years, in a bid to ensure Americans can return to the Moon’s surface by 2028.The US space agency will add missions between this spring’s Artemis 2 and the ultimate lunar landing, a strategic revision that NASA administrator Jared Isaacman told a briefing would allow for improved launch “muscle memory.”That means Artemis 3, which was meant to send astronauts to the Moon’s surface, will now have the alternate goal of “rendezvous in low-Earth orbit” of at least one lunar lander.The next phase, Artemis 4, will aim for a lunar landing in early 2028. Isaacman said he hoped that mission could be followed relatively quickly by a second Moon landing within the year.”We’re not necessarily committing to launching two missions in 2028,” he said, “but we want to have the opportunity to be able to do that.”The NASA chief said speeding up the cadence of Artemis launches would allow for building more institutional knowledge in the model of the Apollo program, which originally put Americans on the Moon.”Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, through the shuttle program — I don’t think it would surprise many of the folks in the room that our average launch cadence was closer to three months throughout all those programs, not three years,” he said. “We need to start getting back to basics and moving in this direction.””Launching every three years, your skills atrophy, you lose muscle memory.”- ‘Space race’? -The revised architecture announcement comes in the wake of repeated delays to the Artemis 2 mission, which now will not launch before April. It is meant to see the first flyby of the Moon in more than half a century.Earlier this week, the US space agency rolled back its towering SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft off the launchpad to investigate its problems and make necessary repairs.President Donald Trump announced he wanted Americans to once again set foot on the lunar surface in his first term.The US space agency now hopes to put humans back on the Moon as China forges ahead with its own effort, which is targeting 2030 at the latest for a first crewed mission.China’s uncrewed Chang’e 7 mission is expected to be launched in 2026 for an exploration of the Moon’s south pole, and testing of its crewed spacecraft Mengzhou is also set to go ahead this year.Queried on the so-called “space race,” Isaacman said Friday that “I think competition is good.” “We’re here talking to you about what is a common-sense approach to achieve the objective, whether we had a great rival in the running or not.”

Former US president Bill Clinton faces a “lots of questions” from a Congressional panel Friday on his well-documented links to Jeffrey Epstein, as Democrats seek to shift focus toward Donald Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender.Clinton features prominently throughout the Epstein files, but the former president insists that he broke ties with him well before the disgraced billionaire’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses.”It took seven months to get the Clintons in here. But we’ve got them in here and we look forward to asking lots of questions,” said the Republican chair of the House committee probing Epstein, James Comer, ahead of Bill Clinton’s deposition.But Democrats on the committee reiterated their call for Trump to be quizzed.”Let’s be real, we are talking to the wrong president,” said Democrat committee member Suhas Subramanyam. Being mentioned in the files released by the US Department of Justice does not imply wrongdoing, and Clinton has not been accused of a crime or formally investigated.He follows his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who testified Thursday, defiantly calling for President Trump — who like Bill Clinton had many ties with Epstein — to appear before the panel.”If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes… it would ask (Trump) directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said.The depositions under oath are being held behind closed doors, with Bill Clinton likening the proceedings to a “kangaroo court.” The couple has called for them to be open and televised.The grilling comes with greater peril for the former president than for his wife, as he has acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein, but said he never visited the financier’s private Caribbean island.Epstein mingled with the world’s rich, famous and powerful, and was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. He died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing those who were linked to Epstein, particularly in light of the Justice Department’s disclosures of millions of new documents related to its investigation of him.The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify in the panel’s probe, but the Democratic power couple agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress.- Newly released pictures -Hillary Clinton said in her opening statement to the panel that it “justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.” “Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”Democrats say the investigation is being weaponized to attack Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.Previously unseen photographs from the files include one showing Bill Clinton reclining in a hot tub, part of the image obscured by a stark black rectangle.In another, Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.Bill Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work, while Hillary said she did not know Epstein.The depositions are being held in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside.Dozens of journalists have converged on the wealthy hamlet and the Secret Service erected metal barricades around the arts center where the depositions are happening.