Former British government minister Peter Mandelson has resigned as a member of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party after new reports of his ties with disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein, the media reported on Sunday.

Mandelson, who was fired by Starmer as Britain’s ambassador to the United States last year after previous revelations about his connections to Epstein, said he did not wish to cause “further embarrassment” to Labour, the reports said.

“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furore surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” Mandelson said in a letter to the Labour Party reported by the BBC and other news organisations, which Reuters was not immediately able to obtain.

Mandelson said he believed allegations about financial payments to him by Epstein, which appeared in British media based on files released by the US Justice Department, were false, and he would investigate them.

“While doing this, I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party, and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party,” the letter said.

Mandelson was key to the Labour Party’s electoral success when Tony Blair was prime minister, starting in the 1990s.

He came under scrutiny last year after US lawmakers released documents, including a letter in which he called Epstein “my best pal”, leading to his dismissal as Britain’s envoy in Washington.

Mandelson also had a turbulent earlier career in domestic politics. In 1998, he quit as trade minister over a loan he received from a fellow minister to buy a house amid questions over a conflict of interest.

A second stint in the cabinet also ended in a resignation in 2001 when he was forced out over his alleged involvement in a passport scandal involving an Indian billionaire. He was later cleared of acting improperly.

Mandelson, a former European Union trade commissioner, is on leave of absence as a member of the upper house of Britain’s national parliament.

Separately, Starmer said on Saturday that Britain’s former Prince Andrew should testify before a US congressional committee, following new revelations about his links to Epstein.

• Liam Conejo Ramos, father escorted back to Minnesota by lawmaker.
• Federal judge had ordered their release from ICE detention in Texas.
• Democrats demand reforms after ICE operations and shootings.

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have returned to their home in a Minneapolis suburb after being detained by US immigration officers and held at a detention facility in Texas, a lawmaker said on Sunday.

A federal judge on Saturday ordered the release of Adrian Conejo Arias and his son, whom immigration officers detained during a Minnesota raid.

US Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, wrote in a social media post that he picked them up on Saturday night at the detention facility and escorted them back to Minnesota on Sunday.

“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro said. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”

A photo that went viral last month shows Liam wearing a blue bunny hat outside his house with federal agents standing nearby. 

He was one of four students detained by immigration officials in a Minneapolis suburb, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.

The Ecuadorean boy and his father, who entered the United States legally as asylum applicants, had been held in a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

US District Judge Fred Biery wrote in a ruling on Saturday that the case had its genesis in “the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatising children.”

Biery, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, cited the Constitution’s requirement that an arrest warrant must be based on a judge’s finding of probable cause of a crime. 

“The use of ‘administrative warrants’ issued by immigration officials is called the fox guarding the henhouse,” he wrote.

Democrats have called for reforms after large-scale enforcement operations in Minnesota and other states, following two deadly shootings of US citizens in Minneapolis involving ICE agents. 

Those demands by Democratic lawmakers include mandatory body cameras, the end to roving patrols and halting the use of face masks.

Funding for the Homeland Security Department has been held up as Republicans and Democrats continue negotiating over a DHS bill. 

“We’ll be talking about that in the near future,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Some Republican mayors also see a need for reforms. “We’re generally encouraged that the administration seems to be exploring that pivot,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Mayors are “caught in a little bit of an impossible situation” with federal immigration enforcers’ presence in cities, Holt said, adding events in Minneapolis threaten to erode the trust authorities have built over time with residents in cities.

Holt spoke the day after Trump ordered DHS to refrain from dealing with protesters unless federal property is threatened or local officials request help.

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates on Sunday opened the World Laureates Summit, the world’s largest gathering of Nobel Prize winners, bringing leading scientists and thinkers to Abu Dhabi to discuss some of the most pressing global challenges.

The summit brings together more than 150 Nobel laureates, scientists and policymakers from around the world to exchange ideas on issues ranging from climate change and health to technology, education and sustainable development, highlighting the UAE’s growing role as a hub for global scientific dialogue.

The three-day summit runs alongside the World Governments Summit 2026. It was inaugurated by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and UAE Vice-President, Prime Minister and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Discussions focus on artificial intelligence, quantum science, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and energy. 

Experts say fundamental science is key to shaping global policy and sustainable development.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed said scientists were “essential partners in building the future.” Sheikh Mohammed called science “the true wealth of nations.”

The World Laureates Association also announced a new UAE base. Organisers said it will turn the country into a hub for international research collaboration.

The summit aims to link scientific innovation directly to policy decisions. It highlights the UAE’s growing role as a global platform for knowledge and technology.