The release last week of a tranche of Jeffrey Epstein’s private emails raised more questions about Donald Trump’s links to the disgraced financier.
The US president had spent much of this year trying to bat away questions about Epstein while rejecting pressure to release the bulk of the files. But in an abrupt reversal on Sunday – widely seen as an admission that he cannot control his Maga base on the issue – Trump urged House Republicans to back the release of the files after all.
That was duly passed this week and if the Senate also votes the same way, the justice department will be compelled to release all unclassified materials on Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
So we may soon find out what Trump has tried for so long to keep buried. As David Smith writes for our big story, last week’s email release pointed less to a grand conspiracy and more to an elite world in which wealthy, powerful and privileged individuals operate above the law.
One thing’s for sure: despite Trump’s wishes, the Epstein scandal isn’t going away just yet.
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Five essential reads in this week’s edition
Spotlight | Can methane cuts avert climate disaster?
With temperatures breaching limits set out in the Paris Agreement, designed to mitigate climate change, experts say tackling the powerful gas could buy crucial time as the clean-energy shift stalls. Fiona Harvey reports
Spotlight | The US military’s plans for a divided Gaza
A ‘green zone’ will be secured by international and Israeli troops, while almost all Palestinians have been displaced to a ‘red zone’ where no reconstruction is planned, reports Emma Graham-Harrison
Feature | What chance did one boy have to survive on Britain’s streets?
When documentary film-maker Pamela Gordon first met Craig in Nottingham, he was 13 and homeless. She still thought his life might turn around, but she was tragically wrong
Opinion | Labour’s asylum plans are cruel, overspun and unachievable
There is mounting disquiet among Labour MPs, while the vulnerable refugees at the heart of this story are living with a renewed sense of panic, writes Diane Taylor
Culture | Stranger Things reaches its upside down finale
After a decade, the Netflix hit is bowing out. Ahead of its last episodes, the show’s creators and cast talk to Rebecca Nicholson about big 80s hair, recruiting a Terminator killer – and the birds Kate Bush sent them
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What else we’ve been reading
• Writing an obituary for a friend is both a tremendous privilege and possibly one of the hardest things to do. After the death last week of the Observer writer Rachel Cooke, Susanna Rustin captured our mutual friend with the same grace, warmth and pointed choice of phrase that also made Rachel’s work a pleasure to include in the Guardian Weekly. Isobel Montgomery, deputy editor
• This week sees the return of the men’s Ashes, the biannual series designed to underscore Australia’s cricketing supremacy over England. Guardian Sport’s countdown of the 100 greatest Ashes players of all time is the perfect armchair accompaniment to Thursday’s first Test in Perth. Unsurprisingly, an Aussie takes top spot – but which one? Graham Snowdon, editor
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Other highlights from the Guardian website
• Audio | Science Weekly – The complicated legacy of James Watson
• Video | How the US is still removing Indigenous children from their families at alarming rates
• Gallery | The Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait prize – tenderness, traditions and a table of hair
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