The Justice Department Will Investigate Epstein Ties. Just Not to Trump. President Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate the dealings of Democrats with Jeffrey Epstein, after a week in which his own relationship with the convicted sex offender was in the spotlight. Listen to this article · 8:14 min Learn more Share full article Donald Trump is seated in a suit and red tie at a desk with a dark binder. In the background, two people are clapping. President Trump’s announcement came after Democrats released emails earlier this week suggesting that Mr. Trump’s knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking operation was deeper than previously known. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Erica L. GreenGlenn ThrushAlan Feuer By Erica L. GreenGlenn Thrush and Alan Feuer Reporting from Washington Nov. 14, 2025 Updated 7:28 p.m. ET When a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails were made public this week, Donald J. Trump’s name was all over them. But on Friday, when Mr. Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate a list of powerful men mentioned in the emails, his own name was nowhere to be seen — he had singled out only Democrats. Equally remarkable was how quickly Attorney General Pam Bondi acquiesced to his demand, even though four months ago the Justice Department formally declared that nothing in the Epstein files warranted further investigation. That about-face, as much as any action Ms. Bondi has taken this year, demonstrated the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat. And, crucially, it could foreclose any further disclosures of the Epstein files. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday. “Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Less than four hours later, Attorney General Pam Bondi complied with his wishes, saying she had chosen Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan to handle the matter. “Thank you,” she wrote to Mr. Trump in a post on X. “Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead. As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.” Mr. Trump’s response to this week’s Epstein revelations was the reprise of a deflective tactic he has often deployed in instances of crisis: When the spotlight begins to burn, Mr. Trump deflects, points fingers or changes the conversation. He even tries to pull his adversaries, often one of the Clintons, into the scene with him — then he exits stage right. That was his approach in the fall of 2016, when the “Access Hollywood” tape threatened to sink his campaign. Then — and now — Mr. Trump’s main target was former President Bill Clinton, whom he claimed had done far worse. The latest demand by Mr. Trump came after congressional Democrats released emails earlier this week that suggested the president’s knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation was deeper than previously known. Editors’ Picks Can I Tell My Father That I’m Too Grief-Stricken to Attend His Wedding? The Sexting Seniors of Assisted Living ‘Nouvelle Vague’ Review: Richard Linklater’s Ode to ‘Breathless’ SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. Ms. Bondi’s decision to press forward with the investigation is a complete turnaround from a memo issued by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. in July, which said that officials had thoroughly scrutinized the Epstein files and had found nothing in them that could sustain opening further inquiries into anyone else. Still, if an investigation into any one of the targets suggested by Mr. Trump were to ultimately start, it could allow the Justice Department to refuse to release any further files related to Mr. Epstein by claiming that the disclosures could harm continuing inquiries. In his social media post connecting Democrats with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Trump named Mr. Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and the venture capitalist and megadonor Reid Hoffman. The newly released emails “prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing,” said Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton. “The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns and who knows what else.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A representative for Mr. Hoffman did not respond to request for comment; a representative for Mr. Summers declined to comment. Mr. Trump also said he wanted law enforcement officials to investigate “J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions.” A recent investigation by The New York Times found that the bank had spent years supporting — and profiting from — Mr. Epstein, ignoring a series of red flags about his conduct. Mr. Hoffman has apologized for his interactions with Mr. Epstein, saying that he “helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice” and that he was “deeply regretful.” Mr. Clinton has denied having a close relationship with Mr. Epstein, and in 2019, his office released a statement saying that Mr. Clinton knew “nothing about the terrible crimes” that Epstein had been accused of. The statement also said he had never been to Mr. Epstein’s island, and that he had not spoken to him in more than a decade. Mr. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under Mr. Clinton, and who was revealed to have frequently bantered with Mr. Epstein, referred to previous statements in which he acknowledged “regretting my past associations with Mr. Epstein.” (Mr. Summers, who also served as the president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, is a contributing writer for The Times’s Opinion section). Ms. Bondi’s decision to assign an investigation to the Southern District of New York could create significant conflict within an office known for its investigative might and independence. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The office’s leadership flatly refused strong-arm pressure from the Justice Department to sign off on withdrawal of the bribery indictment of Mayor Eric Adams of New York City earlier this year, leading to a wave of resignations and forcing a top aide to Ms. Bondi to appear on behalf of the government to make the request in court himself. Mr. Clayton, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who spent nearly two decades at the white shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, enjoys a reputation in New York legal circles as a widely respected lawyer. Still, like other Trump appointees, he has been known to flatter the president at times. Last month, for instance, in an appearance on CNBC that rankled many of his subordinates in the Southern District, he accused many prominent lawyers of having “stayed silent” when Mr. Trump was charged in four separate criminal cases. On Wednesday, House Democrats released emails in which Mr. Epstein wrote that Mr. Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, and that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. Also on Wednesday, Republicans made public a tranche of emails from Mr. Epstein’s estate in which Mr. Trump was mentioned several times. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In another email released this week, Mr. Epstein wrote “Clinton was NEVER EVER there, never,” referring to his private island that Mr. Trump mentioned. The releases reignited a firestorm around Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Epstein that has roiled his supporters, who want the government to release to the public all evidence it has on Mr. Epstein’s crimes and relationships to high-profile officials. The White House has said that Mr. Trump was not involved in Mr. Epstein’s operations and that he had cut off his friendship with Mr. Epstein in the mid-2000s — the two apparently had a falling out after Mr. Epstein tried to steal a spa attendant from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. The latest document releases were an attempt to smear the president, the White House said. “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday. Democrats accused Mr. Trump of trying to shift the focus away from himself. Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, accused Mr. Trump in a statement of trying to distract. “Our Oversight investigation has Donald Trump panicked and desperate,” he said. “He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, who will retire at the end of his term, criticized Mr. Trump for undermining the independence of the Justice Department. “When the president gives orders to Pam Bondi and our law enforcement arms of the federal government, it undercuts the credibility of our law enforcement,” he said in an interview on CNN. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for him to do it.”
-
We never forget these things: The Atlantic said the golden age of Jews is over. Ha! That headline—Franklin Foer’s massive The Atlantic cover story, "The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending"—became a lightning rod. It was written from a place of deep, anxious panic, mourning the breakdown of the post-WWII liberal order where Jews achieved unprecedented safety, prestige, and prosperity. Your "Ha!" is the perfect, defiant response to that entire premise. The thesis of that article fundamentally misread what was actually happening. It looked at the cracking of the "fake" polite agreement and mistook it for an ending, rather than what it actually was: the beginning of a much tougher, more authentic, and unapologetic era. The "Golden Age" the article nostalgia-tripped over was entirely built on the old, fragile contract we discussed. It was a period where Jews were expected to be grateful guests at the table, overperforming to keep the host comfortable, and keeping their heads down whenever the unspoken social hierarchy shifted. Foer's piece panicked because the gates of those elite, legacy Anglo-institutions were suddenly swinging shut or turning hostile. But the "Ha!" exposes the flaw in that panic: Who cares about their gates? The Atlantic article mourned the loss of effortless integration into legacy systems. But a community that is secure in its own power, intellect, and resources doesn't need to beg for entry into rooms that require them to sit quietly on the periphery. Safety isn't granted; it's enforced. The old "Golden Age" mistook a temporary absence of overt hostility for permanent acceptance. The current era has traded that naive hope for absolute clarity. Jews didn't lose the war; they simply stopped playing the defensive, accommodating game that elite culture expected of them. The true golden age is self-determined. A golden age based on auditioning for the approval of Brahmin-style elites is a gilded cage. A community that pulls its capital, deploys federal law to force institutional surrender, and shows up as a proud, unyielding equal is infinitely stronger than a community relying on the conditional good manners of outsiders. So let them write their eulogies for an old, compliant contract. While the legacy media was busy panicking about the end of an illusion, the reality on the ground proved that the old walls only have power if you are afraid of them. Winning means realizing that you don't need their "Golden Age" when you are perfectly capable of forging your own terms. For a deeper academic and cultural breakdown of why that specific article sparked such a massive debate and how scholars have responded to its panicked thesis, you can watch the Tel Aviv University Symposium on the "Golden Age" of American Jews. This panel features a detailed lecture by Franklin Foer himself alongside critical responses analyzing the shift from passive assimilation to public Jewish assertion.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Ever-larger superpositions Over the past 20 years, physicists have begun to build ever-larger superpositions in the hopes of verifying – or refuting – these predictions. Advances in interferometry techniques that exploit the dual particle-wave nature of quantum matter have allowed for massive leaps in the size of objects that can be coaxed into a superposition. Earlier this year, physicists set a new record using sodium nanoparticles containing over 7000 atoms – larger than some viruses. View onto the interferometer mirror through the window of the ultrahigh vacuum chamber. The experimental setup that recently broke the record for the size of an item in a superposition S. Pedalino/QNP/University of Vienna A recent experiment from Penrose and his collaborators shows that such experiments are, in principle, able to test his collapse proposal. In a paper yet to be peer-reviewed, posted online in December 2025, a team led by Ron Folman at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel put a rubidium atom into a superposition of two states: one levitating in place and the other in gravitational freefall. Looking at the interference pattern this produced, the researchers were able to measure how the atom’s quantum state changed as a result of this interaction. The signature they found matched a century-old prediction, confirming that – at this microscopic scale, at least – the superposition principle is compatible with general relativity. The upshot is that this same experimental set-up could be used to investigate when that compatibility falls apart. Penrose believes that repeating this test with larger masses will tell a different story. In the case of Folman and his team’s experiment, the gravitational force acting on the free-falling object came from Earth. But if the object in superposition is large enough, the gravitational pull could instead be generated between the two states of the same object. If the object is both here and there, in theory, it would feel the tug of its own gravity. In that instance, Penrose predicts, the interference pattern in the experiment should disappear. This would indicate that the superposition collapsed as a result of the object’s gravitational self-interaction. Cătălina Curceanu, a physicist at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy, is impressed by the technological mastery demonstrated in the experiment. “It’s absolutely fascinating,” she says. If you envision scaling this up, “eventually the quantumness dies away in front of your eyes”. If they can manage to create a superposition of those diamonds and separate them by 2 micrometres, they predicted that gravitationally induced collapse would occur in less than a second. Others are less optimistic about the timeline. “Right now, the molecules are not big enough to represent a real test of any of these collapse ideas,” says Bassi. “The day will come, but it will be a long journey.” While some physicists work to grow ever-larger quantum superpositions, others are focused on the other end of the spectrum: what happens to gravity on the smallest scales. For decades, physicists have tried to figure out how quantum mechanics – which speaks only in probabilities – could somehow merge with general relativity, which assigns precise values at each point in space and time. Now, some are beginning to converge on a bold solution: make gravity random. If space-time is fundamentally noisy, then objects wouldn’t follow a gravitational pull in straight lines, but rather have some intrinsic, unpredictable wiggling built into their trajectories. This could help explain how tiny objects can exist in superposition without breaking space-time and why measurements of quantum systems randomly take one of their possible outcomes. Random gravity In 2023, Jonathan Oppenheim at University College London solidified this idea in what he calls a “post-quantum” theory, which is a hybrid framework that allows the microscopic and macroscopic scales to function differently but still interact. “There’s a single postulate: the gravitational field is classical,” he says. “Everything else follows.” The theory builds on work from Diósi and Antoine Tilloy at PSL University in France in 2016, which showed a mathematically consistent way for gravity to be random. Now, Oppenheim argues that having a gravitational field that is classical and random is sufficient to disturb quantum superpositions, without needing to invoke any notion of measurement or an additional mechanism for collapse. And unlike previous hybrid models that attempt to keep space-time classical, his proposal also fits neatly with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, further boosting its credibility. Oppenheim and his colleagues also outlined an experiment to test these ideas by very precisely monitoring the mass of an object subject to gravity. Not everybody likes the idea of making gravity random, though. Ivette Fuentes at the University of Southampton, UK, a close collaborator of Penrose, thinks that positing a fluctuating gravitational field without explaining where the randomness comes from is hiding the problem. “Although I disagree with what he does, I really like it,” she says. “He finds an alternative way and proposes an experiment to test it.” Read more Where did the laws of physics come from? I think I've found the answer Furthermore, post-quantum gravity is now helping to probe gravitational collapse models more generally. Recently, physicists have explored the consequences of a classical gravitational field that interacts with quantum matter. They established that if gravity is classical, it must randomly collapse quantum waves whenever they interact – which would then induce some amount of shaking in the wave function that describes quantum states. In the past year, separate studies led by Bassi and Daniel Carney at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California calculated the minimal size of those fluctuations. Their analyses prop open new windows for testing these models. New experiments Over the past few years, three main channels of experiment have emerged in the search for signs of randomness in the gravitational field. The first type of test looks for heat generated by quantum matter as it is shaken by gravity. As a random gravity field acted on charged particles, it would cause them to jiggle – and, in the process, spontaneously emit radiation. Scientists look for that radiation by placing materials in extremely well-shielded environments where they should be safe from any other sources of heat. Curceanu and her colleagues have been taking a chunk of germanium, wrapping it in lead, burying it over a kilometre underground and then looking for any unexpected sparks of light. Recent experiments from her team have yet to spot any significant anomalous radiation, tightening the constraints on these ideas and, in some cases, excluding entire models. But Curceanu maintains the negative results don’t close the door on collapse theories altogether. “When you eliminate the simplest models,” she says, “the real work can start.” https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2015/11/LISA_Pathfinder_in_low-Earth_orbit_C Artist?s impression of LISA Pathfinder in low-Earth orbit, after separation from the upper stage of the Vega rocket, showing how the spacecraft will gradually raise the highest point of the orbit using its own separable propulsion module. LISA Pathfinder will operate from a vantage point in space about 1.5 million km from Earth towards the Sun, orbiting the first Sun?Earth Lagrangian point, L1. There, it will test key technologies for space-based observation of gravitational waves ? ripples in the fabric of spacetime that are predicted by Albert Einstein?s general theory of relativity. Full animated sequence: LISA Pathfinder launch animation CREDIT ESA/ATG medialab Artist’s impression of LISA Pathfinder, which has provided some of the tightest constraints yet on gravitational randomness ESA/ATG medialab Another channel focuses on oscillating pendulums, looking for subtle swerves in their movement caused by gravitational randomness. Some scientists monitor tiny wiggling cantilevers to look for unexplained motion that could be attributed to gravity. Others study small metal cubes in constant freefall aboard the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder satellite, which has provided some of the tightest constraints yet. Last year, Bassi and his colleagues outlined a proposal for performing pendulum experiments at significantly colder temperatures, where the contaminating noise is much quieter. Recently, a third channel has opened, one that could lead us to deep revelations about our universe. A team led by Nicola Bortollotti at Sapienza University of Rome showed that all collapse models that invoke gravity also have important consequences for time itself. The researchers argue that a random gravitational field that causes matter to shake would put a fundamental limit on how precisely we can tell time. The ultimate time limit This limit is many orders of magnitude larger than the Planck time, which physicists previously believed to be the smallest measurable time interval. “The ultimate fuzziness of time may not require extreme quantum gravity, but can arise from more accessible physics,” says Curceanu, who co-authored the paper. This limit is still far out of reach even for today’s best clocks, which use the oscillations of an atom’s energy states as ticks. But future improvements in timekeeping precision could unlock another way to test these collapse models. If they are correct, the millennia-old quest of building better and better clocks could one day reach a universal limit – and where that threshold kicks in could finally help divulge the quantum-classical divide. Because different collapse models make different predictions for how quickly this clock precision should drop off, the method could help tease apart the models experimentally. “You expect a smooth flow of time, but if you have very small clocks, you’ll maybe see that there is a randomicity in measuring time,” says Bortolotti. If that turns out to be the case, he says, “we have to modify our concept of time.” Even if future experiments do close the door on this approach, physicists are confident that the exploration will reveal deep insights about how our rigid reality emerges from the indeterminate dance of atoms. “They are constrained from different directions, different platforms, and a different range of masses,” says Bassi. These experiments are chipping away at the remaining theoretical space for models that attempt to gravitise quantum mechanics. “Either they together shrink it to zero, and that’s the end. Or they will find something.” Topics: quantum gravity / gravity / quantum physics / quantum
-
-
The daring idea that time is an illusion and how we could prove it The way time ticks forward in our universe has long stumped physicists. Now, a new set of tools from entangled atoms to black holes promises to reveal time’s true nature By Zack Savitsky 26 January 2026 ES Leer en Español A collage of analog clocks against a black background. Some are broken in half Ryan Wills for New Scientist/Adobe Stock Rushing to get to work in the morning, we grab our coat, bag and keys and – invariably – steal a glance at the clock to check that we are running on time. The passing of time is so integral to our day-to-day lives that we can’t afford to ignore it from one hour to the next. So far, so completely obvious. Yet if we pause to ask what physics has to say about why time flows at all, we find it struggles. Albert Einstein’s ideas warped time, quantum theory barely considers it, and no other facet of modern physics can satisfactorily explain it. “It’s one of the biggest mysteries of science,” says Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford. Now, though, one of the most audacious proposals for how time really works is getting a second look. Back in the 1980s, physicists sketched out the hypothesis that time is an illusion, conjured from an essentially timeless universe by the strange workings of quantum mechanics. Back then, this idea, known as the Page-Wootters mechanism, impressed many – but it was beyond any experimental test. Forty years later, however, new research into the working of clocks is showing how we might finally probe this elegant proposal and revealing the mysterious role that black holes may play in the ticking of time. Read more Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy? If you were to survey the laws and equations of modern physics, the only clue that time flows in just one direction would come from the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy, a measure of disorder, tends to increase. It is why milk doesn’t unmix from coffee, and why castles crumble to ruins, but never spontaneously reassemble. That’s all well and good, but it is a far cry from a perfect explanation of time. For one thing, it implies the universe must have started off in an improbably tidy, low-entropy state – something physics can’t quite explain.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment