Epstein files lead to resignation in Slovakia and calls in Britain for former prince to cooperate

NEW YORK (AP) — Newly disclosed U.S. government files on Jeffrey Epstein have prompted the resignation of a top official in Slovakia and revived calls in Britain for a former prince to share what he knows with authorities about Epstein's links to powerful individuals around the world.

The fallout comes just a day after the Justice Department began releasing a massive trove of files that offers more details about Epstein's interactions with the rich and famous after he served time for sex crimes in Florida.

The prime minister of Slovakia accepted the resignation on Saturday of an official, Miroslav Lajcak, who once had a yearlong term as president of the U.N. General Assembly. Lajcak wasn't accused of wrongdoing but left his position after photos and emails revealed he had met with Epstein in the years after Epstein was released from jail.

The disclosures also have revived questions about whether long-time Epstein friend Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, should cooperate with U.S. authorities investigating Epstein.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday suggested Mountbatten-Windsor should tell American investigators whatever he knows about Epstein’s activities. The former prince has so far ignored a request from members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee for a “transcribed interview” about his “long-standing friendship” with Epstein.

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Former Prince Andrew can't escape Epstein's shadow as new documents reveal details about friendship

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s royal family is facing a fresh round of embarrassment after the latest release of documents from the U.S. investigation into Jeffrey Epstein revealed unsavory details about the relationship between the convicted sex offender and a correspondent who appears to be the man formerly known as Prince Andrew.

Emails released by the U.S. Justice Department include an invitation for Epstein to dine at Buckingham Palace, Epstein’s offer to introduce his correspondent to a 26-year-old Russian woman, and photos that appear to show Andrew kneeling over an unidentified person who is lying on the floor.

The revelations come three months after King Charles III stripped Andrew of his royal titles, including the right to be called a prince, as he tried to insulate the monarchy from a steady stream of stories about his younger brother’s relationship with Epstein that has tarnished the royal family for more than a decade. The former prince is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

As a result of that move, the damage from the latest emails is likely to be limited to Mountbatten-Windsor, said Craig Prescott, an expert on constitutional law and the monarchy at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The documents show that “they had to do something to separate Andrew from the rest of the family, and the nuclear option was the clearest way of doing it,” Prescott said. “And as more comes out, then you do feel that they have been justified.”

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Judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota as a lawsuit proceeds

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.

Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

It argues that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. State and local officials sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”

The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.

The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.”

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Trump says feds won't intervene during protests in Democratic-led cities unless asked to do so

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not to intervene in protests occurring in cities led by Democrats unless local authorities ask for federal help amid mounting criticism of his administration's immigration crackdown.

On his social media site, Trump posted that “under no circumstances are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help.”

He provided no further details on how his order would affect operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DHS personnel, or other federal agencies, but added: “We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”

Trump said that in addition to his instructions to Noem he had directed “ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property.”

Later Saturday night, Trump said to reporters as he flew to Florida for the weekend that he felt Democratic cities are “always complaining.”

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Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his dad released from ICE detention

A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement.

Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sparked even more outcry about the administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who sits in San Antonio and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador, were detained in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights on Jan. 20. They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

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New Epstein files include emails between LA Olympics leader Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The latest collection of government files released on Jeffrey Epstein include emails from 2003 between Casey Wasserman, the head of the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, and Epstein's one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Among the exchanges included Wasserman telling Maxwell “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”

There is also an email exchange about massages and one in which Maxwell asks whether it will be foggy enough during an upcoming visit "so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up?”

Wasserman responds, “or something like that."

In a statement released Saturday, Wasserman said “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell,” which he said occurred “long before her horrific crimes came to light.”

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Israeli strikes kill 30 Palestinians, including children, as Gaza ceasefire inches forward

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians including several children on Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire, a day after Israel accused Hamas of new truce violations.

The strikes hit locations throughout Gaza, including an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent camp in Khan Younis, said officials at hospitals that received the bodies. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. Another airstrike hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 14 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

The strikes came a day before the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is set to open in Gaza’s southernmost city. All of the territory’s border crossings — the rest are with Israel — have been closed throughout almost the entire war. Palestinians see Rafah as a lifeline for tens of thousands needing treatment outside the territory, where the majority of medical infrastructure has been destroyed.

The crossing's opening, limited at first, will occur as the U.S.-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire plan moves into its second phase. Other challenging issues include demilitarizing the strip after nearly two decades of Hamas rule and installing a new government to oversee reconstruction.

Egypt, one of the ceasefire mediators, in a statement condemned the Israeli strikes in the “strongest terms” and warned that they represent “a direct threat to the political course” of the truce. Qatar, another mediator, in a statement called Israel's strikes a “dangerous escalation” and said continuing them poses a “direct threat” to the political process.

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What to know about the partial government shutdown and its impact

WASHINGTON (AP) — The partial government shutdown that started Saturday is vastly different from the record closure in the fall.

That is mostly because the shutdown may not last long.

The House will try to pass funding legislation quickly when lawmakers return Monday, and that would end the shutdown. Congress already has passed half this year’s funding bills, ensuring that several important federal agencies and programs continue to operate through September. Nutrition assistance programs, for example, should be unaffected.

Funding will lapse, at least temporarily, for the Pentagon and agencies such as the departments of Homeland Security and Transportation. Essential functions will continue, but workers could go without pay if the impasse drags on. Some could be furloughed.

The government funding process had been going smoothly, with key lawmakers in the House and Senate finding bipartisan agreement. But the shooting deaths this month of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renée Good, by federal agents in Minneapolis, changed the dynamic.

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Power outages hit Ukraine and Moldova as Kyiv struggles against the winter cold

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities as well as neighboring Moldova on Saturday, officials said, amid a commitment from the Kremlin to U.S. President Donald Trump to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine battles one of its bleakest winters in years.

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting power lines linking Ukraine and Moldova.

The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid,” triggering automatic protection systems, he said.

Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, in the center and northeast of the country respectively. The outage cut water supplies to the Ukrainian capital, officials said, while the city’s subway system was temporarily suspended because of low voltage on the network.

Moldova also experienced major power outages, including in the capital Chisinau, officials said.

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Snow hits the Carolinas as low temps compound power outage woes elsewhere from last weekend's ice

Blizzardlike conditions stemming from a “ bomb cyclone ” hammered parts of the Carolinas on Saturday and ushered in frigid temperatures to much of the East Coast, and tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Tennessee and Mississippi remained without power after being hit by a different icy storm last week.

Charlotte, North Carolina, saw one of its heaviest snowfalls in years, with roughly a foot (30 centimeters) or more in parts of the region.

That caused an hourslong mess on Interstate 85 northeast of the city, after a noninjury crash left dozens of semis and other vehicles backed up into the evening, according to the State Highway Patrol. The agency said it counted at least 750 traffic collisions, but no fatalities.

As snow came down steadily throughout the day, some people went out sledding with their families and dogs. Others stayed cozy at home to avoid treacherous traveling conditions.

Temperatures were expected to dip into the teens and single digits late Saturday and overnight.

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