Met chief pressing US for access to unredacted Epstein files

 

Britain’s top police officer is pressing the US authorities to share unredacted versions of the Epstein files as the Metropolitan Police investigate claims that Peter Mandelson leaked sensitive information to the late paedophile.

The Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is said to have last month asked the US ambassador Warren Stephens for full documents relating to the peer, who was sacked as UK ambassador to the US over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Sir Mark is expected to push the US authorities further during a visit to Washington this week, according to reports.

Police are investigating the Labour peer on suspicion of misconduct in public office, while Thames Valley Police is leading a separate probe into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor for the same alleged offence.

Both men were arrested and bailed last month after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) released 3 million documents relating to the late billionaire.

However, some information in the exchanges had been redacted to protect victims and avoid jeopardising ongoing investigations.

The Met has confirmed it is actively seeking further details from law enforcement partners, including in the US.

It is feared that if the American authorities refuse to cooperate, formal requests for the emails will need to be submitted under a legal agreement between the US and the UK.

It could take up to a year to access the documents under the formal process, called a mutual legal assistance (MLA) request, and there is no guarantee the DoJ will release them.

The Met is investigating claims Lord Mandelson passed on market-sensitive information to Epstein during his time as business secretary. The 72-year-old, who was sacked from his post as ambassador to the US last year and resigned from the House of Lords in February, has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Emails from 2009, published in the Epstein files, led to allegations Lord Mandelson had passed on an assessment of potential policy measures by one of then-prime minister Gordon Brown’s advisers.

Police searched two of Lord Mandelson’s properties in connection with their investigation.

In a statement last month, the Met said: “Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, 23 February and has been taken to a London police station for interview.

“This follows [the execution of] search warrants at two addresses in the Wiltshire and Camden areas.”

Sir Keir Starmer has faced a major backlash over the decision to appoint the Labour grandee to the key diplomatic role despite the latter’s continued friendship with Epstein after he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. Morgan McSweeney quit his role as Sir Keir’s chief of staff over the scandal.

The first batch of documents relating to the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, released last week, revealed the prime minister was warned there was a “general reputational risk” over his friendship with Epstein.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor is separately being investigated by Thames Valley Police on suspicion of misconduct in public office in his role as a UK trade envoy.

The royal was pictured leaving a police station in Aylsham, Norfolk, on 19 February after he was released under investigation following a day of questioning.

Last week, the first known picture of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor, Epstein and Lord Mandelson together was uncovered.

The men were pictured around a table wearing bathrobes while drinking out of mugs printed with the US flag in a photo believed to have been taken in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, between 1999 and 2000, according to ITV News.

The US authorities sent an MLA to the Home Office in 2020 requesting Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s assistance as an alleged witness to Epstein’s offending.

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Met chief pressing US for access to unredacted Epstein files

Story by Amy-Clare Martin

Relative of US airman killed in Middle East crash calls war on Iran 'uncalled for'

 

A relative of an Ohio airman who was killed recently in a military airplane crash in Iraq amid the US and Israel’s war in nearby Iran has said the conflict is “uncalled for”.

“This could have been prevented,” Stephan Douglas said of the death of his cousin Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, in an interview with the Ohio news outlet WCMH. “We didn’t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for – and this is what we get.”

Simmons’s family urged US citizens to register to vote as a means of advocating for political change.

“Families are suffering right now,” Simmons’s grandmother, Bernice Smith, told WCMH. Without explicitly mentioning Donald Trump’s presidential administration, she added: “Just to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.”

Simmons was among six US service members killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq on Thursday. Beside Simmons, two others of that group were also residents of Ohio, the state’s governor, Mike DeWine, said.

“We share in the sorrow of their loved ones,” a social media post from the Ohio air national guard’s 121st air refueling wing said. “And we must not forget the valuable contributions these airmen made to their country and the impact they have left on our organization.”

At a news conference on Friday, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: “War is hell – war is chaos. And as we saw … with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen.”

Hegseth said those killed in Thursday’s crash were “American heroes, all of them”.

As of Monday, 13 US service members had been reported killed during operations related to the Iran conflict, which began on 28 February, when a missile strike killed the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The conflict has been marked with mixed rhetoric about what Trump would consider victory, confusing allies, enemies and US voters casting ballots in primary elections ahead of November’s midterm races.

The Trump administration has also faced criticism for the bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran, which killed at least 175 people, mostly children.

Relative of US airman killed in Middle East crash calls war on Iran 'uncalled for'

Story by Marina Dunbar

Trump’s mother of all miscalculations

 

Hours before the first missiles hit Iran on Feb 28, Donald Trump greeted guests at a black-tie Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for Place of Hope, a charity supporting children in care around Palm Beach.

As God Bless the USA blared over the speakers, the US president waved from side to side and made small circles with his wrists, like a conductor in front of an orchestra.

At that point, the commander-in-chief felt himself on an enviable roll of foreign interventions. He had pirouetted from last year’s bomber raid on Iranian nuclear facilities to the staggering capture of Venezuela’s former president Nicolas Maduro.

“Have a great time,” he told the crowd. “I’ve got to go and do some work.”

Behind a curtain at the gilded resort was a makeshift situation room where Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were making the final preparations for the biggest American intervention in the Middle East since the Iraq War.

The White House team had made a paltry, scattershot case for the coming assault: Iran was, variously, on the brink of a nuclear weapon; nearly in possession of ballistic missiles that could reach the US (an assessment not backed by intelligence); and out of luck after decades of support for terror and suppression of domestic protests.

When Mr Trump announced in a social media video that the first wave of strikes had begun, he still sported the white “USA” baseball cap he had worn to the ball.

The president’s mood could only have lifted as, within 24 hours, Israeli jets were confirmed to have assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at his private residence in the capital, along with the 86-year-old supreme leader’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The strikes were so effective, Mr Trump would later rue, they eliminated potential US-friendly replacements.

But two weeks into the war, the triumphant music has stopped – and Mr Trump is left holding a military operation with no clear end in sight.

To make matters worse, the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has picked up the conductor’s baton, cut off oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, and pitched the world economy towards a perilous fugue.

Mr Trump insists that all is going to plan. On March 5, he told Politico that “people are loving what’s happening” and, as if already bored by the extraordinary Blitzkrieg, flicked his eyes towards the next target: Cuba, he promised, “was going to fall, too”.

Addressing a Kentucky crowd at a March 11 rally, he said the US had already “won” the war. “In the first hour, it was over,” he boasted, only to add: “We don’t want to leave early, do we?”

Mr Trump’s press team has denounced US media outlets that dare to criticise the planning of the operation, thundering out statements on “garbage” stories, “hack and loser” reporters, and “100 per cent fake news”.

In reply, the administration points to a series of undoubted military successes on the tactical level. Strikes on more than 6,000 regime targets have sunk most of the navy and spiked the guns of Iran’s rocket forces, leading to a 90 per cent decline in the drone and missile bombardments that caused widespread disruption across The Gulf.

But reports emerge by the day to suggest that Mr Trump and his small inner circle breezily downplayed the risk that the Iranian regime – facing an existential fight for survival – would respond far more drastically than it had during the 12-day war last June.

The White House appeared unprepared for Tehran to reach for its equivalent of the nuclear button: a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz.

In the weeks before the war began, Mr Trump huddled with the team that had helped him secure American access to Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Another bounty of “liquid gold”, sucked away from another long-standing enemy of the US, may have enticed the president. Asked on March 9 whether he intended to take Iran’s oil, he mused “you look at Venezuela … certainly people have talked about it.”

But in those preliminary meetings, Gen Caine told Mr Trump that an American attack on Iran could prompt the regime to close the Strait of Hormuz, citing decades of US preparation for such an eventuality.

Sources familiar with the discussion told the Wall Street Journal that Mr Trump acknowledged the risk, but replied that Tehran would probably capitulate before severing the world’s most vital shipping lane. Even if it went ahead, the American military could wrestle back control.

As a precaution, he ordered Chris Wright, the energy secretary, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, to develop options to combat a spike in oil prices. But energy executives who spoke to Politico days into the war described frantic efforts by the administration to come up with answers to the inevitable surge, which has driven petrol prices up to $3.63 per gallon, roughly a quarter above the pre-war level.

It is not just oil that has forced the White House into an unseemly scramble. On March 10, Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, admitted that the ferocity of Iran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbours had caught America by surprise.

“I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react, but we knew it was a possibility,” he said. The oversight meant that US embassy staff were not evacuated from the region before hostilities began, and thousands of American citizens made desperate calls for help finding flights home.

Iranian missiles struck a five-star hotel in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, wounding two members of the US Department of Defence. The drone attack that killed six US soldiers on Sunday 1 March – the first US deaths in the war – was later reported to have led to an additional 30 troops being taken to hospital, suffering from a variety of shrapnel wounds, burns and brain trauma.

The US base at Kuwait’s Shuaiba port had concrete slabs to protect against ground attacks but the prefabricated, tent-like structure lacked overhead cover, according to reports.

Iran’s kamikaze drone flew low to the ground, avoiding detection by US radar in a tactic pioneered by Russia’s forces in Ukraine. While American air defences can intercept “most” of Iran’s attacks, Mr Hegseth told a press conference at the Pentagon that “every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately – we call it a squirter – that makes its way through.”

After the attack, US officials told the Washington Post that Moscow had been providing Iran with intelligence gained from its vastly superior satellite network.

Asked about the reports, the American diplomat entrusted with the dual negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and secure a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear arsenal said Russia denied the accusations – and he trusted the Kremlin.

“I can tell you that on a call with Potus [the president of the United States], the Russians said they had not been sharing,” Steve Witkoff told CNBC, adding: “We can take them at their word.”

Facing anger from Gulf allies about the Iranian munitions striking high-rise hotels, airports and oil refineries, the Pentagon withdrew parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) battery from South Korea – prompting protestations from Seoul.

On Friday, it ordered 2,500 marines to redeploy from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, bringing an expeditionary unit trained for amphibious ground assaults into the theatre.

The belated manoeuvre, along with a lack of mine-removal ships in the conflict zone, pointed to an overall lack of foresight about the worst-case scenario now facing the US military, analysts said.

Trump’s mother of all miscalculations

Story by Memphis Barker

Where is Netanyahu? Israeli leader's new video sparks claims it could be AI as death rumours explode online

 

A short video showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drinking coffee has spread widely across social media, prompting speculation about artificial intelligence, misinformation, and the circulation of wartime rumours.

The clip, shared on X on 15 March 2026, shows Netanyahu sitting at a café table near Jerusalem, speaking informally with an aide. The footage appeared intended as a response to unverified claims circulating online that the Israeli leader had been killed or seriously injured during escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Instead, it rapidly became the focus of intense online scrutiny, with some users questioning whether it had been generated using artificial intelligence.

Viral Café Video Surfaces Amid Death Rumours

The footage emerged after several days of unverified claims that Netanyahu had been killed or wounded in an Iranian attack. Some of those claims were amplified by state-affiliated media and coordinated social media networks, though no credible evidence was provided.

In the video, Netanyahu is seen smiling and making a joke in Hebrew about being 'crazy' for coffee while interacting with staff and aides. Reporting verified through location details and visual evidence confirmed the footage was filmed at a café near the Israeli capital. Netanyahu's appearance comes amid one of the most volatile regional security crises in recent years, following a series of escalating military exchanges with Iran and allied groups since late February 2026.

Social Media Speculation and AI Claims

Despite the apparent purpose of the video, some online commentators quickly began questioning its authenticity. Several posts on X suggested the clip might have been generated using artificial intelligence or digitally altered, based largely on frame-by-frame analysis highlighting perceived anomalies in the footage.

Some viewers argued that the movement of the coffee in the cup appeared unusual, or that lighting and reflections seemed inconsistent with natural filming conditions. However, no credible digital forensics analysis or official confirmation has supported those claims.

Digital verification groups and fact-checking organisations have previously identified multiple AI-generated images and videos falsely claiming to show Netanyahu dead or injured circulating online during the current conflict. In several cases, those fabricated images depicted the Israeli leader buried under rubble or surrounded by rescuers, and analysis tools flagged them as artificial.

Wartime Disinformation Campaigns

Researchers monitoring information warfare say the rumours about Netanyahu's death appear to have originated during the early days of the latest Israel-Iran escalation. According to investigations into online activity, some narratives originated from outlets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and were amplified through coordinated networks of accounts posing as activists from various countries.

Multiple verified appearances and official images released by the Israeli Government Press Office show Netanyahu participating in security meetings and public events during the same period. On 1 March 2026, the prime minister was photographed attending a security briefing at Israel's Kirya military headquarters alongside senior defence officials. He also appeared in a live broadcast interview shortly after the rumours began spreading. Officials have repeatedly dismissed the claims as disinformation and urged the public to rely on verified sources rather than viral social media posts.

AI and the Challenge of Information Warfare

The controversy surrounding the café video highlights the growing challenge governments face as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of producing realistic images and video. Digital forensics specialists note that modern generative AI tools can now create convincing video content, making it harder for ordinary viewers to distinguish between genuine footage and synthetic media.

Experts warn that during periods of conflict, such material can spread faster than official corrections, particularly when it reinforces existing narratives or political tensions. The episode illustrates how modern geopolitical conflicts increasingly unfold across digital platforms where rumours and manipulated media can spread within minutes, making it harder to convince sceptical audiences in an era where information warfare has blurred the line between reality and fabrication.

Where is Netanyahu? Israeli leader's new video sparks claims it could be AI as death rumours explode online

Story by Christelle May Napiza

Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily

 

The US and Israeli decision to attack Iran has sent economic shockwaves around the world. About 20% of global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships, resulting in a huge jump in oil prices. Militarily, while the United States has the firepower to significantly reduce Iran’s capacity to strike ships in the strait, it is unlikely to be able to eliminate the threat entirely.

Reopening the strait, therefore, is not only a question of military capabilities but of diplomacy, and to negotiate it is necessary to understand what each party to the conflict is trying to achieve.

For the Iranian government, the purpose of its arsenal of ballistic missiles was to deter any direct aggression, allowing the country to subvert its adversaries through violent proxies without incurring retaliation. That deterrent has failed. The idea that Iran can be attacked whenever its actions displease its opponents is clearly unacceptable, and so the Iranian government wishes to re-establish deterrence by imposing such a cost on the global economy that further attacks are not contemplated. The mechanism for doing this is the closure of the strait of Hormuz.

Within the US strategic community, there is a fear that if China attempts to seize Taiwan in 2027 the world could find itself in global simultaneous protracted conflict. To this end, the US wishes to remove threats to its global operations beyond the Indo-Pacific, establishing coercive control over Venezuela, eliminating Iran’s military capabilities and neutralising a hostile government in Cuba. Russia, by virtue of its nuclear deterrent, cannot be so reduced and the US has therefore been trying to build conditions so that the Kremlin would not intervene in any US-China confrontation. Failing that, the US is asking its European allies to take more responsibility for their own security. The US’s military objectives against Iran are thus limited, as the chair of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, articulated, to the destruction of Iranian military industrial sites and strike capabilities. US political objectives, however, are broader.

In theory, if these were the only variables, it is conceivable that the US would inflict a level of damage where it had confidence Iran could not threaten its bases or global operations for an extended period, and the Iranians could prove that they retain the ability to impose economic punishment on any attacker to the point where both sides could de-escalate and claim victory. These are not, however, the only variables at play.

Donald Trump has proposed a range of political objectives that go well beyond degrading Iran’s striking power, from establishing coercive control over a future Iranian leadership, to regime change. While the US president has a record of flexibility on adherence to his past definitions of success, what is consistent is that he wants to be seen to have won. This latter condition is very difficult to square with Iran’s need to re-establish deterrence and thus in effect have the last word.

Negotiations are further complicated by Israel’s objectives. Israel arguably wishes to see the collapse of the Iranian regime or the descent of Iran into internal strife such that the timeline on it recovering to pose a threat to Israel is extended. Israel has said that it will try to kill anyone who comes to power in Tehran, whereas Trump wants to have someone in power who will be deferential to the US. While Israel will probably accept the end of the campaign if the US disengages, it will also conduct strikes that make negotiations harder, extending the window during which the Israeli air force can try to degrade Iran’s revenues, capabilities and the regime’s tools of control.

On the Iranian side, while the government may wish for de-escalation, parts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps want revenge and will endeavour to kill Americans in the Gulf and farther afield for an extended period. Given that Iranian command and control has become decentralised, this could see isolated IRGC elements continue to attack shipping even if the government is endeavouring to negotiate an end to the conflict. While such attacks persist, however, it will be hard for the US to disengage.

The Kremlin is another potential complicating factor. In 2023, Russian officials conducted assessments of what international events could help in its war effort against Ukraine. The most prominent global events identified were an escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a crisis in the strait of Hormuz, and a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. Russia, therefore, has every incentive to extend this crisis – from which it is recovering huge revenues from oil sales – so long as it can avoid direct involvement.

For the Gulf states and Europe, there is a strong desire for the crisis to end quickly. Its continuation risks permanent damage to economic infrastructure in the Gulf and an energy crisis that could absorb revenues Europe needs to bolster its defences. But so long as Iran maintains the capacity to threaten shipping in Hormuz, negotiations will remain fraught. The US will hope that it can deter the Iranian government through wider strikes that cause the IRGC to back down. But having made the stakes existential for the Iranian government, it will be hard to compel a compromise. We shouldn’t bank on a rapid resolution to the crisis.

Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily

Opinion by Jack Watling

Trump demands death penalty charges over media’s coverage of Iran war

 In a series of Truth Social rants Sunday evening, President Donald Trump said media outlets that reported false information given by Iranian officials should be charged with “treason,” which carries the death penalty.

Amid the 98th Academy Awards ceremony, the president rattled off lengthy posts, complaining about the media’s reporting on the war with Iran, the Supreme Court’s tariff decision, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, judges who have not ruled in favor of the his administration, Democrats and more.

In one of those posts, the president accused Iran of planting a false story about a U.S. aircraft carrier being destroyed, in part by releasing an AI-generated video of the fake attack. He said media outlets that reported on the story should be punished.

“The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Trump wrote.

The president accused “the Radical Leftwing Press” of purposefully publishing the false information and bragged that the U.S. was decimating Iran – a claim often made by members of the administration.

The president has often recommended treason charges for those he disagrees with. Last year, Trump suggested media outlets had been “treasonous” for questioning his health.

In the United States, treason can carry the death penalty, a minimum of five years in prison, at least a $10,000 fine and prohibits anyone found guilty of holding office.

rump also lashed out at reporters who asked questions about the conflict in Iran during a press briefing on board Air Force One Sunday. During the 20-minute huddle, he said ABC News was “maybe the most corrupt news organization on the planet.”

Since the president directed the U.S. military to conduct lethal strikes on Iran in late February, members of the Trump administration have accused U.S. media outlets of reporting false information to skew the public’s perception of the war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has repeatedly said the U.S. is winning the war against Iran during press briefings, has become combative toward reporters who ask probing questions.

In a briefing earlier this month, the defense secretary called out NBC for asking a “gotcha-type question” when pressed about the timeline of the ongoing war. Hegseth later criticized another reporter’s question about whether the U.S. planned to put boots on the ground. He also bluntly responded to a reporter’s inquiry about preventing this conflict from spiraling with: “Did you not hear my remarks?”

During a Friday briefing, Hegseth began by berating news outlets.

“Another example of a fake headline I saw yesterday: ‘war widening,’” Hegseth said. “Here’s a real headline for you, for an actual patriotic press: ‘Iran shrinking, going underground.’”

He also accused outlets of falsely reporting Iran has laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz and brushed off concerns about the vitality of the important passage used for international trade.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has become confrontational with reporters during press briefings when they question the justification for the war – despite members of the administration giving varying reasons why the president called for the strikes on Iran.

Other administration officials have threatened to take action against news outlets as Trump rages about media coverage of the Iran war.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said broadcasters’ licenses could be revoked for coverage of the war that the White House perceives as unfair. It is a familiar tactic Carr has invoked when the president is unhappy with media coverage.

Trump said he was “thrilled” to see Carr “looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”

In other Truth Social posts Sunday, the president raged at the Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs policy, accusing the court of being “completely inept and embarrassing.” He also criticized federal judge James Boasberg, who dismissed the government’s attempt to subpoena Powell last week.

Trump demands death penalty charges over media’s coverage of Iran war

Story by Ariana Baio

Trump says US may keep bombing Iranian oil facility 'just for fun'

 

• Donald Trump claimed on NBC News that Kharg Island, a critical Iranian oil infrastructure site, had been "totally demolished" by US bombing, but added that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun”.
• Trump called on allied nations, including the UK, France, and Japan, to deploy ships to the Strait of Hormuz to help keep the vital shipping channel open.
• He boasted that the US military had spent $11.3 billion on munitions in the first week of the conflict and largely destroyed Iran's missiles, drones, and manufacturing capabilities.
• The conflict, now in its third week, has resulted in the deaths of 13 US service members and over 1,000 Iranians, including at least 175 children and staff from a school.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the war would conclude when Trump decided it was finished, emphasising that the president controls the "throttle" of the operation.

Trump says US may keep bombing Iranian oil facility 'just for fun'

Story by Graig Graziosi