Politics
Melissa kills at least 30 as this year’s most powerful hurricane batters Caribbean
- Melissa strikes Jamaica as strongest-ever hurricane.
- Hurricane batters Jamaica with sustained winds of 185 mph.
- 10 children among 25 deaths reported in Haiti alone.
HAVANA/KINGSTON: Hurricane Melissa barreled through the Caribbean on Wednesday after thrashing Cuba’s second-biggest city, isolating hundreds of rural communities, unleashing devastation in Jamaica and drenching Haiti, where at least 25 were killed.
Melissa struck Jamaica on Tuesday as the strongest-ever hurricane to directly hit its shores, with sustained winds of 185 mph (298 kph), well above the minimum strength for a Category 5, the strongest classification for hurricanes.
As of 2100 GMT on Wednesday, Melissa was a Category 1 hurricane moving north-east through the Bahamas archipelago, which completed the air evacuation of nearly 1,500 people early.
The storm did not directly hit Haiti, the Caribbean’s most populous nation, but it hurled days of rain over the island nation. Authorities reported at least 25 deaths, largely due to floods in Petit-Goave, a coastal town 64 km (40 miles) west of the capital where a river burst its banks.
At least 10 children were killed there and 12 people remain missing there, Haiti’s disaster management agency said.
In Haiti, where a gang conflict has displaced over 1.3 million people, authorities said more than 1,000 homes were flooded. People living in makeshift camps said the flooding made it impossible to sit or sleep, and said the government and aid groups were slow to bring supplies.
Fortune Vital, a displaced man in Les Cayes, said he was separated from his family which already lacked sufficient food. “If the hurricane comes on top of all the problems we already have, we’ll simply die,” he said.
‘Like missiles blowing through the glass’
On Tuesday, Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica, devastating areas already battered by last year’s Hurricane Beryl. US forecaster AccuWeather estimated Melissa cost $22 billion in damages and economic loss in Jamaica alone, and that rebuilding could take a decade or more.
Local authorities said flood waters had washed up four bodies in the southwestern agricultural hub of St. Elizabeth. About 77% of Jamaica was without electricity, authorities said on Wednesday morning. The capital Kingston was spared the worst damage and its main airport was set to reopen Thursday.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness visited Black River Hospital, the only public hospital in St. Elizabeth, where aerial footage showed the wrecks of buildings, roofs blown off, power cables knocked down and fields strewn with rubble.
Hospital workers there said the building showed some significant damage, and staff told the prime minister they spent the night fearing for their own families while working by flashlight to care for patients.
“It was the most terrifying experience in all my life,” a hospital worker said. “It is beyond imagining. At one point it was as if missiles were blowing through the glass.”
Jamaica’s government gave an “all clear” to begin recovery efforts, but said it would keep emergency shelters open through the week as people kept coming in from devastated homes.
Local government minister Desmond McKenzie said over 25,000 people had been admitted. “No one must be turned back from the shelters,” he said.
Mass evacuations in Cuba
Melissa was a still major Category 3 when it hit Cubaovernight with winds of 120 mph, landing in Guama, a rural, mountainous area some 25 miles (40 km) west of Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-most populous city.
At least 241 communities remained isolated and without communications on Wednesday following the storm’s passage across Santiago province, according to preliminary media reports, affecting as many as 140,000 residents.
Across eastern Cuba, authorities evacuated around 735,000 people as the storm approached. Most remained in emergency centers.
No deaths were reported on Wednesday but President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the island had suffered extensive damage and warned of vigilance as rains continue to lash the region.
“A major hurricane landfall in the dark is incredibly dangerous,” AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva said.
“The storm lost wind intensity as it interacted with the mountains of southeast Cuba, but the forced upward motion of the air over the mountainous terrain is squeezing out tremendous amounts of rainfall.”
Cuban officials also warned of severe impact on crops ahead of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter growing season.
Cuba was already suffering from food, fuel, electricity and medicine shortages that have complicated life, prompting record-breaking emigration since 2021.
On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly again voted overwhelmingly for the US to end its Cold War-era economic embargo on the communist-run country.
Loss and damage
Meteorologists at AccuWeather said Melissa ranked as the third-most intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean, after Wilma in 2005 and Gilbert in 1988 – the last major storm to directly hit Jamaica.
But scientists say hurricanes are intensifying faster with greater frequency as a result of warming ocean waters caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Many Caribbean leaders have called on wealthy, heavy-polluting nations to provide reparations in the form of aid or debt relief to tropical island countries.
The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, a branch of regional bloc CARICOM, issued a statement in solidarity of those affected by Hurricane Melissa and called for stronger efforts to curb climate change.
It said Melissa’s rapid intensification, fueled by record-breaking Caribbean sea temperatures, underscored need for the U.N.’s “loss and damage” fund to be scaled up.
The fund was established in 2023 as a mechanism for developing nations to quickly and reliably access financing to recover from more frequent extreme weather events. However, donations from wealthy, polluting nations have fallen short of targets and the US withdrew from its board in March.
The devastation caused by Melissa drew an outpouring of support from across the world, with some countries pledging support in the form of cash, food aid and rescue teams.
In Montego Bay, a popular Jamaican tourist destination, a resident told Reuters the water reached her waist and rescuers had to break into her home to save her and her child.
“All the trees that my dad planted, all of them are gone,” she said.
The US Department of Justice on Friday released a new cache of documents from its investigations into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Epstein files have been a significant political problem for President Donald Trump, with many of his supporters and Republicans in Congress demanding their release. It remains to be seen if this partial release will satisfy Trump’s critics on the issue.
Here are some initial takeaways from the documents:
Not much Trump
The big question before the document release was: How prominently would Trump feature in them? He and Epstein were friends and socialised frequently in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump says they had a falling out in the mid-2000s, before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008.
Friday’s document dump of government files containing hundreds of thousands of pages was therefore notable for the lack of mentions of Trump. The Justice Department said more documents will be released over the next two weeks.
An initial examination of the cache by Reuters found scant photos of Trump or any mentions of him in documents. There was a single photo of Epstein appearing to hold a check with Trump’s name on it, and a separate photo taken inside Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse where a copy of Trump’s 1997 book, ‘Trump: The Art of the Comeback’, was tucked inside a bookshelf.
Trump’s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein’s private plane that were included in a first batch of material the Justice Department released in February.
Trump and several of his family members were also listed in an Epstein contact book, which was made public during the 2021 trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former associate who was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with Epstein’s crimes.
Trump has often denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or that he had any knowledge of his crimes when the two socialised in Florida.
Quite a lot of Bill Clinton
The documents contained a number of mentions and photos of former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
There were several photos of Clinton, including one of him in a swimming pool with Maxwell and an unidentified person. Others showed Clinton in a hot tub, and another with a young woman sitting on the armrest of his seat with her arm draped around his shoulders, her face redacted. A fourth was a photo of a painting of Clinton in a blue dress hanging in Epstein’s New York home.
The release of the Clinton photos could conflict with Justice Department policy not to release material related to ongoing investigations. Trump, a Republican, has ordered the Justice Department to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, in what critics said was an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.
Clinton has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes when the two socialised and traveled together and has said he wishes he had never met Epstein.
Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, responded on the social media platform X, calling the images of Clinton “grainy, 20-plus-year-old photos”, and said Clinton knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes when the two socialised. “This isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Urena said.
1,200 victims and relatives, and 254 masseuses
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress in a letter that the department had identified more than 1,200 victims of Epstein and their relatives during an “exhaustive review” of the documents.
One document was Epstein’s masseuse list, which contained 254 names. All the names were redacted.
Blanche said the documents released on Friday included FBI files from its 2018 and 2006 investigations of Epstein and its investigation of his 2019 death, among other materials.
Heavy redactions, democrats cry foul
Many of the documents released by the Justice Department were heavily redacted. One of the redacted files, a 119-page document that appeared to contain grand jury testimony, was entirely blacked out. Three more documents of 100 pages each were totally redacted.
Some Democrats decried the Justice Department’s failure to release all of the Epstein files by the deadline set by a law passed by Congress in November and signed by President Trump.
Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to appear before Congress and explain why all the files had not been released.
Chuck Schumer, the senior Senate Democrat, said in a statement, “this set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence.”
Thomas Massie, a House Republican who was a leading sponsor of the Epstein document release law, said on X that Friday’s partial release “fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” that Trump signed.
Trump and his Justice Department likely will face more criticism in the coming days for the paucity of Friday’s release and the fact that Trump is barely mentioned, while Clinton is. Ultimately, it is likely that Trump has not yet put the Epstein controversy behind him.
- US has 1,000 troops in Syria.
- Retaliatory strikes come after attack on US troops.
- Trump says Syrian president backs US military action against Daesh.
The US military launched large-scale strikes against dozens of Daesh targets in Syria on Friday in retaliation for an attack on US personnel, US officials said.
A US-led coalition had already been carrying out airstrikes and ground operations in Syria targeting Daesh suspects in recent months, often with the involvement of Syria’s security forces.
President Donald Trump had vowed to retaliate after a suspected Daesh attack killed US personnel last weekend in Syria.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strikes targeted “Daesh fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” and said the operation was “OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE.”
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue,” he added.
Trump said on social media that the Syrian government fully supported the strikes and that the US was inflicting “very serious retaliation.”
One US official said the strikes hit more than 70 targets across central Syria and were carried out by F-15 and A-10 jets, along with Apache helicopters and HIMARS rocket systems.
Syria reiterated its steadfast commitment to fighting Islamic State and ensuring that it has “no safe havens on Syrian territory,” according to a statement by the foreign ministry.
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, according to the US military. Three other US soldiers were also wounded in the attack.
About 1,000 US troops remain in Syria.
The Syrian Interior Ministry has described the attacker as a member of the Syrian security forces suspected of sympathising with Daesh.
Syria’s government is now led by former rebels who toppled leader Bashar al-Assad last year after a 13-year civil war, and includes members of Syria’s former Al Qaeda branch who broke with the group and clashed with Daesh.
Syria has been cooperating with a US-led coalition against Daesh, reaching an agreement last month when President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited the White House.
- Govt to release more Epstein docs, Trump may feature later.
- Trump orders probe into Clinton’s Epstein ties amid pressure.
- Epstein’s ties to high-profile figures were previously disclosed.
The US Justice Department released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday that made scant reference to President Donald Trump but extensively featured Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
The release was intended to comply with a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress in November that mandated the disclosure of all Epstein files, despite the Republican president’s months-long effort to keep them sealed. Trump for years had promoted conspiracy theories about Epstein, but the case has turned into a political liability for him since his return to the White House in January.
It was not immediately clear how substantive the new materials were, given that many Epstein-related documents have previously been made public since his 2019 death in jail, which was ruled a suicide. Reuters is in the process of reviewing them.
The material included evidence from several law enforcement investigations into Epstein, along with photos of Clinton, long scorned by Trump’s Republicans. But they appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The absence of references to Trump was notable, given that pictures and documents related to him have trickled out of previous Epstein releases for years. Trump’s name appeared in flight manifests listing passengers on Epstein’s private plane that were part of a first batch of Epstein material the Justice Department released in February.
Trump and several of his family members were also listed in an Epstein contact book, which was made public during the trial of Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Not all documents released
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the initial batch of documents would be followed by additional releases, leaving open the possibility that Trump could feature more prominently in later disclosures.
Trump ordered the Justice Department last month to investigate Clinton’s ties to Epstein, in what critics viewed as an effort to shift the focus away from his own relationship with Epstein.
In one image released on Friday, Clinton can be seen in a swimming pool with Maxwell and another person whose face is blocked out. Clinton, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has previously expressed regret for socialising with Epstein and has said he was not aware of any criminal activity.
The Justice Department added a note to the webpage where it posted links to the documents that said “all reasonable efforts have been made” to redact victims’ personal information, but warned that some could be disclosed inadvertently.
In a letter to Congress, Blanche estimated it would take an additional two weeks for the Justice Department to review other documents for potential release.
There are more than 1,200 names identified as victims or their relatives in the files, he added.
In a statement on Friday, the White House claimed the release demonstrated its transparency and commitment to justice for Epstein’s victims, criticising previous Democratic administrations for not doing the same.
Bipartisan vote pressed for release
But the statement ignored that the disclosures occurred only because Congress forced the administration’s hand, after Trump officials declared earlier this year that no more Epstein files would be made public.
Democrats immediately criticised the administration for failing to release all of the files.
“This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, who is the subject of a criminal mortgage-fraud investigation by the Justice Department that he says is motivated by politics, said: “They could have been completely ready for this moment, and they’re not, or they’re just simply withholding the materials.”
But many Trump voters accused his administration of covering up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscuring details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail, where he was awaiting trial on charges of trafficking and abusing underage girls.
Just 44% of American adults who identify as Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein issue, compared to his 82% overall approval rating among the group, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The issue has damaged Trump’s political standing ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake.
Two days after those disclosures, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s connections to Clinton and JPMorgan bank JPM.N. The following week, despite White House pressure to delay the vote, U.S. lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill forcing the release of the Justice Department records, which Trump then signed into law.
Trump denies knowledge of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking
Trump was once friendly with Epstein until they had a falling out in the mid-2000s, before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing and has denied knowing about Epstein’s sex trafficking.
The law ordering the files’ release allowed the Justice Department to withhold personal information about Epstein’s victims as well as material that would jeopardise an active investigation.
Previous disclosures of Epstein records have revealed that even after his 2008 conviction, he continued corresponding with high-profile figures, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal title over revelations about his links to Epstein.
Spokespeople and lawyers for Bannon, Thiel and Mountbatten-Windsor have not responded to Reuters’ requests for comment about their interactions with Epstein.
Summers stepped back from positions at Harvard University, OpenAI and other institutions and said he was deeply ashamed of his actions after documents released by House Democrats in November showed that Summers corresponded with Epstein up through 2019, even seeking relationship advice from him.
JPMorgan paid some of Epstein’s victims $290 million in 2023 to settle claims that it had overlooked his sex trafficking. The bank kept Epstein on as a client for five years after he was convicted of soliciting a minor in 2008.
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