JAV valstybės sekretorius Marco Rubio (Markas Rubijas) ketvirtadienį įspėjo, kad Iranui įvedus mokesčius laivams, plaukiantiems Hormuzo sąsiauriu, tokios rinkliavos būtų įvedamos ir kituose vandens keliuose, o tai sukeltų „visišką chaosą“.

Seimo pirmininkas Juozas Olekas ketvirtadienį Seimui pateikė savo kandidatą į žvalgybos kontrolierius politologą Vytautą Valentinavičių. Šis sulaukė klausimų dėl savo vadovo Kauno technologijos universitete Ainiaus Lašo viešai paskelbtų neigiamų charakteristikų bei kodėl dingo iš socialinių tinklų.

Tens of millions of people are grappling with punishing temperatures, which have led to red heat alerts across the continent.

France is being forced to re-think its longstanding reservations about air-conditioning as temperatures soar.

The chancellor throws her support behind the MP for Makerfield despite reports he could demote her if he becomes PM.

Energy prices have been on a wild ride since Iran responded to US and Israeli attacks by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Members of the House Oversight Committee have discussed issuing subpoenas to people who could testify about secret settlements between some of Jeffrey Epstein’s friends and his accusers. Some of Epstein’s accusers have signed confidential prelitigation settlements with friends of the sex offender whom they have also accused of misconduct, according to three people with direct knowledge of such settlements, including Brad Edwards, an attorney who has represented more than 200 of Epstein’s accusers. These settlements include nondisclosure agreements that prohibit them from speaking publicly about their experiences, Edwards and the other people told Business Insider, part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO. The House Oversight Committee is investigating the Justice Department’s handling of its Epstein investigations and is scheduled to conduct voluntary interviews with associates of Epstein in the coming weeks. Those conversations won’t be under oath, and participants won’t be legally compelled to answer every question. Subpoenas could require witnesses to answer questions even if they have signed a nondisclosure agreement, though the committee would need the majority’s support to issue one. A spokesperson for committee Democrats said that its members have discussed issuing the subpoenas. A spokesperson for committee Republicans, which holds the majority, said they are aware of the settlements between Epstein’s accusers and his associates and declined to comment further. It’s unclear how many Epstein accusers signed prelitigation settlements and with how many of his associates. No public records for them exist. One person told Business Insider they had direct knowledge of settlements with four of Epstein’s friends who were accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women between them. The person said the women accused those men of coercing them into nonconsensual and abusive sexual encounters. A settlement isn’t necessarily an indication of wrongdoing, and it isn’t uncommon for people to agree to them for expediency. While parties can use settlements to resolve civil legal claims, they do not have the power to block criminal proceedings. The House Oversight Committee raised the issue of secret settlements in an interview with Bill Gates earlier this month. A Republican staffer asked the former Microsoft CEO if he had secured a settlement “in connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, or any of their victims,” according to a transcript made public Tuesday. Gates said he had not. The existence of these settlements came into the spotlight because of a court filing by Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in grooming and recruiting girls for Epstein to sexually abuse. In December, Maxwell filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus — a last-ditch attempt to get out of prison after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected her criminal appeal. Her filing cited a 2024 podcast interview in which Edwards said that his clients could have brought lawsuits against between 10 and 15 of Epstein’s friends. Some of those men signed confidential settlements with his clients over allegations of mistreatment, Edwards said. “There are still people that I personally think should have been exposed, but not at the expense of your client’s wishes,” Edwards said on the “Interesting Lawyers” podcast episode, an interview that had largely flown under the radar. Edwards said that in those cases, his clients wanted to move on rather than file a public lawsuit. “I’m not a big fan of confidentiality, but it serves a purpose in a certain circumstance, and this was the right circumstance,” he said on the podcast. Maxwell argued in her court filing that these men “could equally be considered as co-conspirators” and that she was denied a fair trial because she would have called those men as witnesses had she known about the settlements. In an interview with Business Insider, Edwards declined to answer questions about confidential settlements between his clients and Epstein’s friends. He said that, in general, Epstein had “lent out” about 50 girls and women to about 30 men from the 1990s until his second arrest in 2019. “Some of the men were with multiple of Epstein’s victims, and some were only with one,” he told Business Insider. Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death made more urgent the question of who else could be held accountable for his crimes. Seven years later, Maxwell is the only other person in Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation charged by the Justice Department. After Epstein’s death, the Justice Department examined who else in his orbit may have participated in his sex-trafficking operation. The Epstein files show that the FBI identified several potential co-conspirators. Aside from Maxwell, most of the other people identified in internal FBI documents as potential co-conspirators were also victims — girls or young women who brought others to Epstein. Except for model recruiting agent Jean-Luc Brunel, whom French authorities charged with rape and who killed himself in jail before trial, no other men in Epstein’s vast network have faced criminal charges for sex crimes. When the Justice Department reexamined the Epstein investigation last year, it concluded there wasn’t sufficient evidence to investigate “uncharged third parties.” Epstein frequently kept women and girls around him, hiring them as assistants and masseuses. He offered them financial benefits, job opportunities, and other ways to advance their education as part of a grooming process, according to records released by the Justice Department and testimony from his accusers. He sometimes introduced them to his friends, and those friends sometimes sexually abused them, women have alleged in lawsuits, depositions, and interviews with prosecutors, according to court filings and records released by the Justice Department. Edwards and another person familiar with settlements between Epstein’s friends and accusers both said that Epstein would send his victims to friends after the women had been in his orbit for a long time. He “lent out” these women to people “influential in the world economy and celebrities,” one of the people familiar with the settlements said. Some of those relationships were consensual, Edwards said in the podcast interview. Edwards said that in some cases, clients told him, “Look, I have a relationship with this now very famous or very powerful person, and it’s very good. I could call them on my cellphone right now. He never mistreated me. He didn’t know what was going on.” Some misconduct accusations against Epstein’s associates have played out in public, and several have reached public settlements or resolutions. One Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, filed lawsuits against then-Prince Andrew in 2021 and Alan Dershowitz in 2019, alleging that Epstein directed her to have sex with both men. Both men denied the allegations and later settled the suits. As part of his settlement, the British royal agreed to make “a substantial donation” to Giuffre’s charity and recognized her “as an established victim of abuse” without personally admitting wrongdoing. In Dershowitz’s case, both parties said the resolution didn’t involve any payments and Giuffre said she “may have made a mistake” in identifying him. In court filings, media interviews, and a memoir written before her death last year, Giuffre named other friends of Epstein with whom she said she had sex during the time that Epstein sexually abused her. She did not sue those men. Edwards, who represented Giuffre, said her allegations weren’t unique. “Her experiences, in terms of Epstein sending people out to a select group of his friends, were actually more typical than I think any of us realized in 2009, when Virginia first said it,” Edwards told Business Insider. Edwards also represented a model in a lawsuit against the psychiatrist and investor Henry Jarecki. The woman, who used a “Jane Doe” pseudonym, alleged that she was abused by Epstein, and that Epstein introduced her to Jarecki, who raped her and treated her as “his modern-day sex slave.” Jarecki denied the allegations. The woman withdrew the lawsuit 10 months later. In statements at the time, she said she believed Jarecki “did not mean me any harm,” and Jarecki said he “never engaged in any abusive conduct with the complainant or any other person.” “Dr. Jarecki has for some time been suffering from advanced dementia and is non‑communicative,” a spokesperson for his business office, Falconwood Corporation, told Business Insider. “Prior to the onset of his illness, Dr. Jarecki privately expressed deep regret over any association with Epstein.” Leon Black, the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of a January 2023 settlement to resolve the government’s legal claims “related to Jeffrey Epstein, whether known or unknown.” Records released by the Justice Department show that following Epstein’s death, federal and local prosecutors in Manhattan examined sexual assault allegations against Black, who sent Epstein more than $150 million for what Black has said was tax advice. Neither office brought criminal charges against Black, who has denied wrongdoing related to Epstein. Other allegations against Epstein’s associates have become public through interviews already conducted by the House Oversight Committee. Sarah Kellen, a client of Edwards who said Epstein abused her for years, told the committee in May that Philip Levine, who later became mayor of Miami Beach, sexually assaulted her while she was on a trip with Epstein. And she said Frédéric Fekkai, the celebrity hairstylist, sexually assaulted her before he introduced her to Epstein. Committee Chair Rep. James Comer asked the Justice Department in June to investigate Kellen’s allegations against Levine and Fekkai. Chris Vlasto, a spokesperson for Levine, told Business Insider that his “intimate encounter” with Kellen was consensual and her allegations of misconduct are false. Mark Herr, a spokesperson for Fekkai, previously said her allegations were “categorically false” and that Fekkai wasn’t aware of Epstein’s sex trafficking. A Justice Department spokesperson told Business Insider that prosecutors previously determined “there was no prosecutable case” after interviewing Kellen. The DOJ would reevaluate if the committee sent it a formal criminal referral “with additional evidence of any federal crime,” the spokesperson said. With subpoenas, the House Oversight Committee could force people with NDAs to answer questions, said David Rapallo, a former top lawyer on the committee. Lauren Hersh, the CEO of World Without Exploitation, an organization that has advocated on behalf of Epstein’s victims before Congress, said that the committee should use subpoenas to pierce any confidentiality agreements and ensure “those who caused devastating harm are held accountable.” “Powerful people, including Jeffrey Epstein’s friends, have used NDAs as a tool to silence victims,” she told Business Insider. Epstein acquaintances expected to speak to the committee in coming weeks — including Black, Dershowitz, and former Barclays CEO Jes Staley — would appear for transcribed interviews, not subpoenaed depositions. As a result, they can legally decline to answer questions, said Rapallo. The terms and scope of transcribed interviews are often negotiated between lawyers for the interview subject and the committee’s majority party, Rapallo said. Dershowitz told Business Insider he plans to answer every question and welcomes a subpoena. A representative for Black declined to comment. Attorneys for Staley didn’t respond. The committee could also issue “friendly subpoenas” to Epstein’s accusers, much like Congress routinely uses to protect corporate whistleblowers who have NDAs. In that case, the committee would likely need the cooperation of the victims. A spokesperson for House Oversight Democrats said the committee would let victims decide whether to appear before the committee. Edwards, the attorney representing Epstein accusers, said that the vast majority of victims want to move on with their lives because of the media frenzy around the Epstein story. He pointed to the ongoing British media interest following a BBC interview in January in which Edwards alleged that one of his clients, when she was a young woman, was sent by Epstein to spend a night with then-Prince Andrew at his residence, Royal Lodge, and was given a tour of Buckingham Palace. Representatives for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor didn’t respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment. “The prime example is the Prince Andrew madness,” Edwards said. “There were victims that would have cooperated not only civilly, but criminally, and they want nothing to do with it anymore because the British press calls me, them, everybody.” The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

BRUXELLES — La plupart des gouvernements de l’UE affirment soutenir l’abandon des combustibles fossiles. Mais lorsqu’il s’agit d’investir dans les grandes compagnies pétrolières, ils ne se montrent pas aussi soucieux de l’environnement. Les pays membres de l’UE ont conclu mercredi un accord qui faciliterait l’afflux d’investissements verts privés vers des entreprises développant de nouveaux projets liés aux énergies fossiles. Cela signifierait que les géants du secteur pétrolier et gazier, qui investissent plusieurs milliards dans de nouveaux puits de pétrole et gisements de gaz, pourraient tout de même figurer dans des fonds d’investissement durables, à condition qu’ils investissent également dans des projets bas-carbone tels que les énergies renouvelables, l’hydrogène ou le captage et le stockage du carbone. Une initiative qui assouplirait considérablement la proposition de la Commission européenne de refonte de la législation de l’Union en matière d’investissements verts, selon plusieurs associations écologistes. La Commission souhaite encourager les flux de financement durable vers les entreprises en pleine transition écologique, plutôt que de se concentrer uniquement sur celles qui le sont déjà. Mais l’exécutif européen veut surtout établir une distinction claire entre les fonds les plus verts, et les fonds dits “de transition”, afin que les consommateurs sachent exactement dans quoi ils investissent et de lutter contre le greenwashing dans le secteur financier. Si l’argument avancé par la Commission — selon lequel les entreprises ont besoin d’accéder à des capitaux pour pouvoir décarboner leurs activités — est largement admis, les associations écologistes estiment que les amendements proposés par les Etats membres vont trop loin. “Cela ouvre clairement la voie au greenwashing et trahit la confiance des investisseurs et des consommateurs qui pensent investir leur argent dans des activités durables”, a déclaré Isabella Ritter, conseillère politique senior chez ShareAction, une association à but non lucratif qui milite en faveur du développement durable des entreprises. La réunion des pays membres, qui s’est tenue mercredi, a eu lieu alors que le continent subit une vague de chaleur sans précédent — un phénomène devenu plus fréquent et intense en raison du réchauffement climatique provoqué par la combustion de combustibles fossiles. S’aligner sur l’accord de Paris Au cœur de la question se trouvent les critères selon lesquels les entreprises peuvent être incluses dans les fonds d’investissement vert — dans le cadre d’une révision en cours du règlement de l’Union européenne sur la publication d’informations en matière de finance durable (SFDR). La Commission souhaite exclure de ces fonds les entreprises qui mènent des projets d’exploration liés aux combustibles fossiles, car celle-ci n’est pas compatible avec les objectifs de l’Accord de Paris visant à limiter le réchauffement climatique à 1,5 degré par rapport aux niveaux préindustriels. Les gouvernements de l’UE souhaitent toutefois que ces entreprises puissent être incluses si elles dépensent également au moins 20 pour cent de leurs investissements nets annuels, appelés “dépenses d’investissement”, à des projets verts. Ils suivent ainsi les arguments avancés par le secteur des énergies fossiles, notamment sur l’importance de nouveaux projets pétro-gaziers malgré le souhait de l’Europe de réduire sa dépendance vis-à-vis des énergies fossiles. Mais selon les experts en finance durable, cet assouplissement des conditions pourrait compliquer la tâche des investisseurs souhaitant financer des entreprises disposant d’un plan crédible pour devenir plus respectueuses de l’environnement. Des drapeaux de l’UE flottent devant le siège de la Commission européenne, dans le bâtiment Berlaymont à Bruxelles, le 17 février 2025. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images “On peut débattre de la définition précise de l’expansion des énergies fossiles. Cependant, un géant pétrolier qui continue à développer de nouveaux gisements ne peut pas prétendre de manière crédible être en pleine transition, même si une fraction de ses investissements… est consacrée aux énergies renouvelables”, a déclaré Pierre Garrault, conseiller politique au Forum européen pour l’investissement durable. Cette idée pourrait “semer la confusion” chez les personnes qui cherchent à investir leur épargne, a-t-il ajouté. Le Conseil de l’UE, qui représente les gouvernements des États membres à Bruxelles, doit encore convaincre le Parlement européen et la Commission de son projet avant que la réglementation puisse être mise à jour. “C’est le point le plus politique du SFDR, un dossier qui, dans l’ensemble, est assez technique et bénéficie d’un large consensus”, a déclaré un responsable du Parlement travaillant aux côtés du député européen de Renew, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, qui dirige les négociations sur ce dossier. “Mais c’est désormais la source de tensions politiques, tant au sein du Conseil qu’au Parlement, où nous nous attendons à la même chose”, a-t-il ajouté. Des fonds “sales” aux fonds “propres” L’année dernière, la Commission a proposé de revoir la loi sur la finance verte, estimant que les règles en vigueur semaient la confusion quant aux types d’entreprises pouvant être incluses dans les fonds d’investissement qualifiés de “durables”. Dans sa proposition, la Commission a défini trois catégories de fonds : les investissements dans des entreprises véritablement durables ; les investissements dans des entreprises en cours de transition ; et les investissements qui tiennent compte des principes fondamentaux en matière de responsabilité sociale des entreprises, sans aller au-delà. Les investisseurs devront rendre compte de la manière dont leurs fonds répondent aux critères de chacune de ces catégories. La Commission a déclaré que les entreprises qui développent de nouveaux projets liés aux énergies fossiles devraient être exclues tant des fonds véritablement durables que des fonds de transition, afin d’éviter d’induire en erreur les personnes qui souhaitent investir leur épargne dans des entreprises plus respectueuses de l’environnement. Mais les entreprises pétrogazières se sont opposées à cette idée. Le géant pétrolier français TotalEnergies, par exemple, a fait valoir que “le fait d’exclure des entreprises au seul motif qu’elles investissent dans de nouveaux projets pétroliers et gaziers, tout en négligeant leur contribution significative et croissante aux énergies à faible émission de carbone, affaiblit les objectifs clés que l’Union européenne vise à atteindre”. L’association professionnelle Eurogas a qualifié cette exclusion de “disproportionnée et inadaptée”. En 2024, TotalEnergies a consacré plus d’un tiers de ses dépenses d’investissement, qui s’élevaient à 17,8 milliards de dollars, à de nouveaux projets pétroliers et gaziers (un peu moins de 6 milliards de dollars), contre 27 % (soit 4,8 milliards de dollars) aux “énergies à faible émission de carbone”. Si les pays de l’UE parviennent à imposer leur volonté, l’entreprise pourrait être incluse dans des fonds relevant de la catégorie “transition”. “Visiblement, certains Etats membres semblent avoir quelque chose à gagner en permettant aux géants du secteur pétrogazier de se glisser dans le plus de catégories de fonds possible dans le cadre SFDR”, constate Isabella Ritter, chez ShareAction. Cet article a d’abord été publié par POLITICO en anglais et a été édité en français par Alexandre Léchenet.

Communities in northern Venezuela struggle after deadly quakes as rescuers race against time to find survivors.

Global leaders express solidarity with Venezuela as dual earthquakes kill at least 32 and leave widespread devastation.

Abbas Sajwani, son of the ‘Donald of Dubai’, set to make one of the UK’s most expensive purchases

Also in this newsletter: Czech court says president and prime minister can both attend Nato summit

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, June 25: UK papers discuss the Nottingham maternity care scandal. Next: is there going to be another heatwave in Europe this summer? Also: the Euclid telescope took extraordinary photos of the Milky Way. Finally, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's upcoming wedding is getting both Swifties and gamblers excited.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised Gulf allies on Wednesday that Washington would protect their interests as it seeks to hammer out a final settlement of the Middle East war in talks with Iran. Rubio is on a regional tour to reassure the Gulf states, which were targeted by Tehran's missiles and drones during the conflict and saw their crucial oil and gas shipments effectively cut off by an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

South Africa advanced to the knockout phase of the World Cup for the first time with a 1-0 victory over South Korea on Wednesday night

A powerful heatwave swept across Europe, stretching from France to Spain and Belgium and pushing temperatures towards 39C, raising concerns about public safety and pressure on infrastructure.