3 h. ago Meet Joel Pashcow, the real estate mogul who introduced Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein and added crude massage picture to pedophile's birthday book

He has jumped from a wealthy but obscure pillar of old-money Palm Beach society to a central figure in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal in two days flat.

Politics

6 h. ago Epstein birthday book renews questions about links to rich and powerful men

Book compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell contains multiple innuendo-laden letters – including one from Donald TrumpAfter House Democrats released a scrapbook gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, questions have emerged about whether the late child-sex trafficker’s proclivities were an open secret or, at the very least, rumored in the circle of powerful and rich people that surrounded him.Indeed, the so-called birthday book, which was compiled by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, contains multiple letters that are laden with sexual innuendo – including one alleged missive from Donald Trump. Continue reading...

Politics

35 h. ago Shocked by Epstein’s birthday book? That culture was everywhere before feminism | Rebecca Solnit

Feminism exposed the ubiquity of child abuse, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence – and helped fight that cultureI was there. I kept the receipts. I remember how normalized the sexual exploitation of teenage girls and even tweens by adult men was, how it showed up in movies, in the tales of rock stars and “baby groupies”, in counterculture and mainstream culture, how normalized rape, exploitation, grooming, objectification, commodification was.The last Woody Allen movie I ever saw was Manhattan, in which he cast himself as more or less himself, a dweeb in his mid-40s, dating a high school student played by Mariel Hemingway. She was my age, 17, and I was only too familiar with creeps, and the movie creeped me out, even though it was only long afterward that I read that she said he was at the time pressuring her to get sexually involved with him in real life.Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunat...

Events

49 h. ago Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book is a horrifying document | Moira Donegan

Conspiracy theorists wonder about what Epstein and his powerful friends may have done to cover up his crimes. But they barely were covered upJeffrey Epstein had a lot of friends. When his girlfriend-cum-assistant and convicted fellow sex trafficker, Ghislane Maxwell, set out to compile letters, drawings and well wishes from friends in celebration of the pedophile financier’s 50th birthday in 2003, the resulting scrapbook was 238 pages long. The book, titled The First 50 Years, included letters from prominent well-wishers such as former president Bill Clinton and the Bear Stearns executives James Cayne and Alan Greenberg, as well as from the late Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling scout and Epstein’s fellow pedophilic rapist.The lawyer and longtime Epstein friend Alan Dershowitz contributed a mock cover of the magazine Vanity Fair, which was working on a profile of Epstein at the time; Peter Mandelson, until this week the UK ambassador to the United States, wrote that Epstein was “my...

Culture

3 d. ago As the Epstein case shows, Trump’s Maga faithful care about only one kind of sex

E Jean Carroll won her case, but in Trumpland the only sex offences that matter are committed by paedophiles with links to DemocratsOn Monday, Donald Trump appeared in two, unrelated stories involving the sexual abuse of women. The first was a ruling by the US federal court of appeals, upholding an earlier judgment in which the president was found liable for $83.3m in damages for defaming the writer E Jean Carroll – a woman whom, it was ruled in civil court in 2023, had been sexually abused by Trump. On the same day, Trump’s alleged contribution to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book” was shared by Democrats on social media in the form of a lewd drawing the president denied having made. The E Jean Carroll news caused no public inconvenience for Trump; the Epstein story went up like a mushroom cloud in what has become the most politically dangerous episode of his presidency.What, exactly, is the difference then between the sexual abuse of E Jean Carroll, for which ...

Politics

4 d. ago A look at Trump’s signature over the years after president denies signing Epstein birthday letter

President Trump has claimed a signature attached to a lewd letter in the latest tranche of Epstein files is not his

Politics

4 d. ago Voices: Starmer is risking becoming mired in sleaze as he backs Mandelson over ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid all the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that the US ambassador helped the late paedophile broker a $1bn deal, when he was Labour’s business secretary, be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Events

4 d. ago Voices: Starmer must ask Mandelson some serious questions about his ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that Peter Mandelson helped broker a $1bn deal for Epstein be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Politics

4 d. ago Voices: Starmer must ask serious questions of Mandelson and ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that Lord Mandelson helped broker a $1bn deal for Epstein, be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Politics

4 d. ago Jimmy Kimmel blasts Republican ‘sycophants’ defending Trump over Epstein birthday book

Kimmel taunted Republicans questioning the authenticity of Trump’s signature in the disgraced financier’s birthday book

Politics

4 d. ago Lord Mandelson admits more 'embarrassing' details of his friendship with Jeffery Epstein will emerge

Lord Mandelson said he ‘never saw any evidence of criminal activity’ and suggested Epstein had not introduced him to women ‘because I'm a gay man’

Politics

4 d. ago Trump live: Oversight Committee chair says he takes president at his word over Epstein signature

Trump and the White House intensify their pushback over the ‘bawdy’ letter inside Epstein’s birthday book

Politics

4 d. ago Mandelson: more ‘very embarrassing’ details of Epstein friendship to come

UK ambassador to US says he regrets continuing his association with paedophile financier ‘far longer than I should have done’UK politics live – latest updatesThe UK’s ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, has said more “very embarrassing” details of his friendship with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein will come out, as he said he had never seen any “wrongdoing”.His admission comes after US lawmakers released a 50th “birthday book” Epstein, in which Mandelson called him “my best pal”, in a handwritten note. Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Trump lays out the reasons why ‘bawdy’ letter in Epstein’s birthday book is ‘nonsense’: Live

Trump and the White House have intensified their pushback over a sexually suggestive letter allegedly signed by the president for Epstein’s 50th birthday

Politics

4 d. ago 'Embarrassed' Lord Mandelson admits friendship with Jeffery Epstein went on ‘far longer’ that it should

Lord Mandelson said he ‘never saw any evidence of criminal activity’ and suggested Epstein had not introduced him to women ‘because I'm a gay man’

Politics

4 d. ago Trump lays out three reasons why ‘bawdy’ letter in Epstein’s birthday book is ‘nonsense’: Live

Trump and the White House have intensified their pushback over a sexually suggestive letter allegedly signed by the president for Epstein’s 50th birthday

Politics

4 d. ago Trump live: White House supports ‘forensic’ analysis of ‘Donald’ signature on ‘bawdy’ birthday letter to Epstein

An infamous sexually suggestive letter in Epstein’s 50th birthday book sparks uproar as White House maintains it is a hoax

Politics

4 d. ago The subpoenaed Epstein files: Everything we know about latest release, including 50th birthday book with ‘Trump sketch’

Lawmakers released a trove of Epstein-related documents including a book that celebrated his 50th birthday in 2003 with contributions from Ghislaine Maxwell, Bill Clinton - and allegedly Donald Trump

Politics

4 d. ago Trump White House supports ‘forensic’ analysis of ‘Donald’ signature on ‘bawdy’ birthday letter to Epstein: Live updates

Infamous ‘bawdy’ letter in Epstein’s 50th birthday book sparks uproar as White House maintains it is a hoax

Politics

4 d. ago Trump calls release of suggestive note to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein a ‘dead issue’

Administration says it would support an expert review of signature to determine whether it was Trump who signed itWhite House officials on Tuesday doubled down on their assertion that a sexually suggestive letter carrying what appeared to be Donald Trump’s signature that was included in a birthday book for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had not been signed by the president.The letter, and its drawing of a naked woman’s torso around an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein, was part of a batch of documents released by the House oversight committee in response to a subpoena after its existence was first reported in July by the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading...

Politics