Jeffrey Epstein cast himself as a Trump insider and wanted to leverage potentially damaging information about the president, according to emails with associates.
The dust may have settled on Zohran Mamdani’s astounding, against-the-odds victory in the New York mayoral election. But a week on, the scale of his achievement looks no less impressive.
As Ed Pilkington outlines in this week’s big story, Mamdani swept away his establishment-backed heavyweight opponent Andrew Cuomo by mobilising an army of grassroots volunteers and donors, while also connecting deeply with the voters whose support he most needed on the issues that mattered most to them, namely affordability and economic justice.
It’s a ground-up approach to doing things that US Democrats – who also won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey on an encouraging night – can learn from as they reflect on a torrid year since Donald Trump swept to power.
Spotlight | The green monster of Cop30 Amid bombast, strife and competing interests, is the annual climate summit, which opened in Brazil this week, still the forum we need to save the planet? Fiona Harvey reports from the Amazonian city of Bélem
Spotlight | The extraordinary fall of the BBC’s top bosses A whirlwind that began with a report criticising the editing of a speech by Donald Trump is part of a wider political story, some say. Media editor Michael Savage charts the tale
Feature | Why not everyone is sad to see the end of USAID When Donald Trump set about dismantling USAID, many around the world were shocked. But on the ground in Sierra Leone, the latest betrayal was not unexpected. Mara Kardas-Nelson finds out why
Opinion | A president groped? Sadly it isn’t a shock After Claudia Sheinbaum was assaulted last week, her opponents claimed she staged it. From their own experiences, the women Mona Eltahawy met know she didn’t have to
Culture | Rosalía, the Catalan queen of pop With a towering new album about female saints in 13 languages, she’s pop’s boldest star – and one of its most controversial. She tells Laura Snapes why we need forgiveness instead of cancel culture
Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct
In a message obtained by Congress, the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Donald Trump spent hours at his house with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims.
The shake-up in China’s armed forces comes as both Beijing and Washington are pushing through major changes in their country’s militaries, in different ways.
The vote to end the longest ever U.S. shutdown came after a splinter group of Democrats backed a deal without the main concession their party had urged.
Those responsible for the explosion “will not be spared,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said. The blast killed at least eight people near a subway station at evening rush hour.
Even though the pardons will have little practical effect, they stand as a reminder that President Trump often uses his powers to reward and protect his allies.
Around the U.S., primary candidates will decide the party’s direction on policy issues, and ultimately whether it has a center-left or left-wing vision.
The Justice Department moved an inquiry that appeared initially focused on the former C.I.A. director, John Brennan, to Florida, and is recruiting prosecutors.
With no negotiations, no oversight and no clarity about Iran’s stock of nuclear material, many in the region fear that another war with Israel is inevitable.
The Times interviewed dozens of migrant men sent to a prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration. Independent forensic analysts called the testimony credible and consistent and said the treatment met the U.N.’s definition of torture.
The Trump administration ordered the cuts as the shutdown left air traffic controllers working without pay. Disruptions at major airports appeared limited for now.
The government shutdown canceled a second straight jobs report, but private data sources suggested the labor market has weakened modestly since summer.
The Chinese government followed through on promises it made publicly after a recent summit, but has not yet taken other actions sought by the White House.
For some time now, El Fasher in Sudan has been a city beyond the reach of journalists. But the haunting satellite image on our cover this week, of smoke billowing from fires near El Fasher’s airport, told its own story as starkly as anything that could be reported from the ground.
Other satellite images showed clusters of burned-out vehicles, and what appeared to be pools of blood beside piles of bodies on the ground. A massacre was under way that could be seen from space.
The last major city in Darfur to fall to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was already the scene of catastrophic levels of human suffering, but has “descended into an even darker hell”, senior UN officials warned last week. This key moment in the two-and-a-half-year-long civil war has unfolded in plain sight with minimal intervention from the international community, unless you count the United Arab Emirates, which has been arming the RSF paramilitaries.
Spotlight | The Andrew formerly known as a prince Stupidity and self-entitlement sank King Charles III’s disgraced younger brother – and the royal reckoning may not be over yet, writes Stephen Bates
Technology | What if the internet just … stopped working? Could everything suddenly go offline and if so, how? Aisha Down goes inside the fragile system holding the modern world together
Interview | Margaret Atwood puts the world to rights At 85, she’s a literary seer and saint – and queen of the Canadian resistance. So what does the writer make of our dystopian society? Lisa Allardice finds out
Opinion | World leaders: Cop30 could be your great legacy With the US backing away from the climate crisis, now is the moment when other nations must step up, says former British prime minister Gordon Brown
Culture | Back to black with Lynne Ramsay The Scottish film director burst on to the scene with Ratcatcher and terrified audiences with We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her latest film stars Hollywood darling Jennifer Lawrence, but it doesn’t flinch from the dark side of family life, finds Amy Raphael
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
Boomers Daily 