11/04/2026

SATURDAY | APR 11, 2026

9

US First Lady slams rumours on links to Epstein to meeting Epstein. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald.”

Pentagon violating court order on press access WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has failed to comply with a court order to restore press access, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. As part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the New York Times , the court ruled in March that the Pentagon’s changes last year to press access, which saw credentials from a host of prominent media outlets stripped, violated the Constitution. However, the Pentagon responded to the ruling with even tighter restrictions. “The very next business day, the department announced that it was immediately closing the ‘Correspondents’ Corridor’, the area in the Pentagon from which journalists had worked for years,“ said judge Paul Friedman. The Pentagon also moved to fully bar journalists from entering the sprawling military headquarters without an official escort. Instead, a new workspace would be provided “in an annex facility”. Friedman said the restrictions “are not security measures or efforts to make good on prior commitments, but rather transparent attempts to negate the impact of this court’s order”. “The department disagrees with the court’s ruling and intends to appeal,“ said Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. In his latest order, Friedman said the Defence Department must permit Times journalists and “all regulated parties” access to the Pentagon. – AFP was 1.48°C above the estimated pre-industrial monthly average in 1850 to 1900 and 0.53°C above the 1991 to 2020 March average, the data showed. Europe saw particularly strong warming. While much of the continent was drier than average, heavy rainfall led to flooding in parts of the Mediterranean and Scandinavia. The Arctic also recorded a record low for March sea ice extent, at 5.7% below average, the lowest ever observed for the month, according to Copernicus. – Bernama-dpa POPE TO BEGIN FIRST MAJOR FOREIGN TOUR VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV will embark on Monday on an 11-day visit to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea for his first major international trip since becoming pontiff last year. From peace efforts to inequality and human rights, the US-born pontiff will address a myriad of issues as he covers more than 18,000km across the African continent. Leo, who took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, will make 11 speeches, preside over seven masses and visit a dozen locations during the trip, which lasts until April 23. The 70-year-old’s words and actions, always closely watched, will have even deeper resonance at a time of deep global uncertainty caused by the Middle East war and resulting energy shock. This will be Leo’s third trip outside Italy, after Turkiye and Lebanon last year, and Monaco in March. – AFP EUROPE EXPERIENCES SECOND-WARMEST MARCH COLOGNE: Last month was Europe’s second-warmest March on record, according to the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service, which also reported the second-highest global sea surface temperature for the month, German Press Agency reported. Globally, March ranked as the fourth-warmest since records began, with an average temperature of 13.94°C. That

BR I E F S

Epstein’s crimes. A widely seen picture in the files shows Donald and Melania at their Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida along with Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. “I have never had any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant. I was never on Epstein’s plane and never visited his private island,” said Melania. “I have never been legally accused or convinced of a crime in connection with Epstein’s sex trafficking, abuse of minors and other repulsive behavior.” Speculation ran riot on social media about why Melania has decided to put the Epstein scandal back in the headlines after weeks of relative quiet. It comes just two days after her husband announced a ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran, which critics say has left the crucial Strait of Hormuz still largely shuttered by Tehran. But Melania has long been an elusive and often mysterious presence at the White House, who only rarely gives public remarks of the kind she delivered on Thursday. The last time she was seen with her husband was at an Easter Egg Roll with hundreds of children on Monday. – AFP

o ‘Individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect’ WASHINGTON: US First Lady Melania Trump made a surprise statement on Thursday, denying any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse or that she herself was a victim of the convicted sex offender. The 55-year-old’s rare on-camera remarks at the White House came out of the blue in an extraordinary intervention in a scandal that has long haunted her husband President Donald Trump. “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect.” It was not clear why the Slovenian-born former model decided to give the public statement, and she did not detail any specific allegations about her and Epstein. Melania and Donald had previously been photographed with Epstein, but she said she met her husband independently two years prior

She added that “fake images and statements about Epstein and me” have been circulating on social media “for years now, be cautious about what you believe, these images and stories are completely false”. She urged Congress to hold a public hearing for victims of Epstein’s abuse to “give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath”. Two of Epstein’s accusers, sisters Maria and Annie Farmer, reacted to Melania’s comments and told US media in a statement, “we cannot speak for other victims, but what we want is accountability, transparency and justice”. The sisters also called for the release of “the remaining records held by the Justice Department”, including one of their “complete FBI records from 1996”. Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges involving minors, but the scandal has repeatedly overshadowed Trump’s second presidency. Over the past year, the Justice Department has released huge tranches of files related to Epstein. Trump, 79, has also denied any link to

FIELD OF FLOWERS ... Workers collecting tulips at a farm near Grevenbroich in western

Germany. – AFPPIC

Trump posts tirade on right-wing commentators WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday lashed out at multiple well-known conservative commentators who have criticised his war against Iran, slamming his one-time allies as attention-seeking “nut jobs”. “They do not have what it takes, and they never did! They have all been thrown off television, lost their shows, and are not even invited on TV because nobody cares about them. They are nut jobs, troublemakers, and will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity,“ said Trump.

saying Kelly had “nastily asked me the now famous” question. He also personally attacked the other three, slamming Carlson for not obtaining a college degree, expressing hope that French First Lady Brigitte Macron wins her defamation suit against Owens and saying Jones deserved to go bankrupt after losing his own suit over calling a mass school shooting a hoax. Owens, 36, had accused Macron of being a man. “Actually, to me, the first lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it is not even close!” wrote Trump. Owens snapped back on X and said: “It may be time to put grandpa up in a home.“ Jones, for his part, said he has “made it very clear that I no longer support Trump and I am very thankful to him for making it clear that I have nothing to do with him”. “The new Trump is a rotting husk of the old Trump.“ – AFP

“They are stupid people, they know it, their families know it and everyone else knows it, too!” he wrote in a nearly 500-word diatribe. In his crosshairs were Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, two former Fox News hosts turned independent podcasters, and Candace Owens and Alex Jones, also podcasters and prominent conspiracy theorists. All four have vocally criticised Trump over the war, slamming him for abandoning his anti-war campaign promises and, to varying degrees, accusing him of bowing to pressure from Israel to launch the conflict. Their criticism has highlighted a divide among Trump supporters over the war, a potential major risk for the Republican party heading into the November midterm elections.

While all four have been backers of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, some have feuded with him. During Trump’s first presidential campaign, Kelly, then a Fox News host, asked the billionaire businessman about disparaging remarks he had made against women. Trump retorted with a joke about comedian Rosie O’Donnell, his longtime nemesis, and later prompted controversy by seeming to suggest that Kelly had asked the tough question because she was menstruating. “You can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.“ Trump referred to the saga on Thursday,