One million possible Epstein files found

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Speaker 7 This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 7 I'm Danny Cox, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 25th of December, these are our main stories. U.S.
officials discover another million documents potentially related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 7 Californians evacuate their homes as an intense storm approaches. And Midnight Mass takes place at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem for the first time since the war in Gaza began.

Speaker 7 Also in this podcast, a look back at the year in AI and...

Speaker 8 The nature of the gift can be great for telling stories. And I think also very importantly, it can anchor memory.

Speaker 7 With Christmas in mind, we learn about the art of gift giving.

Speaker 7 First, for the victims of the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his business associates, former friends, among them Andrew, the brother of Britain's King Charles, and the U.S.

Speaker 7 Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the sheer volume of documents related to him has been overwhelming.

Speaker 7 These were in the tens of thousands, but add to this one million more, which the authorities in the United States have uncovered.

Speaker 7 The Department of Justice has said that because there are so many, releasing them may take some weeks. I heard more from our correspondent in Washington, Sean Dilley.

Speaker 1 Can you even picture what a million documents look like?

Speaker 1 We don't know whether they're on some hard drive somewhere, whether there's a filing cabinet full of papers fluttering about under a desk that have only just been discovered.

Speaker 1 But these are questions that survivors are now going to want to ask because the Department of Justice, the investigative branch of the federal government, didn't publish because the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a federal prosecutor, the Attorney General for the Southern District of New York, say, hang on a minute, we found a million files.

Speaker 1 Now, the Department of Justice says, well, now they're aware of them. They are going to do the right thing.
They are going to be transparent. But the questions are, why did we not know about them?

Speaker 1 And if we did not know about these one million documents, have we checked under the drawers everywhere else?

Speaker 7 Do we know what's in these documents? Are these photographs?

Speaker 1 We haven't got a clue, no chance at all of knowing that. Now, it could well be that some of these files are duplicate files.
It could be that they're completely new.

Speaker 1 To speculate would be absolutely futile because we do not know. But one thing that is certain is the lawyers that the Department of Justice say will be working around the clock.

Speaker 1 We'll be comparing them and putting each one through the same test. Does this identify any victim of Jeffrey Epstein? If it does, then it's exempt.
Does it relate to an ongoing investigation?

Speaker 1 If it does, then it's exempt. And does it depict any act of sexual abuse? And again, in that case, it would be exempt.

Speaker 1 And all of this leads us straight back to the starting point well before the Epstein Files Transparency Act was published: is if there are documents that are not being published, what have we not been shown?

Speaker 1 And the biggest question, and it's an important question, is this: if a million files, essentially in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a federal prosecutor, can be found from wherever they have, are there any other documents that we've not seen?

Speaker 1 And more questions about transparency?

Speaker 7 A million documents, it's a phenomenal number.

Speaker 1 Why do authorities hold documents like this in the first place Jeffrey Epstein is a very high profile individual and the people who are mentioned within it are very high profile individuals what happens in these cases invariably is that when people phone up authorities that could be a police department somewhere then the files are passed on or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and they either say they've got information or they provide what is presented as evidence a log gets created files gets created each and every time in the United States that somebody phones up a police department for example and says oh I'd like to talk about Jeffrey Epstein they create a record on a system known as the computer aided dispatch system at police departments and sheriff's departments all around the country and there could literally be thousands of calls because there might be something as innocent as Jeffrey Epstein being mentioned in the news or there's a photograph that's been mentioned so each time somebody makes a call to authorities it could be that law enforcement officers are taking statements, they're taking affidavits in some jurisdictions.

Speaker 1 It is every recorded bit of information across so many years.

Speaker 1 The first major allegations we're aware of from 1996, but some of the data, some of the material they could have could stretch way back beyond that.

Speaker 1 There could be multiple copies of the same documents, and of course, for each and every allegation received, not only do they have to collect the evidence, but there could be investigative findings too.

Speaker 7 Sean Dilley in Washington.

Speaker 7 More than two years after the Hamas-led October the 7th attack, moves have been made to officially investigate the biggest security failure in Israel in 50 years, but rather than an independent investigation, the inquiry will be politically controlled.

Speaker 7 As Sebastian Usher reports, Israel's parliament has approved the first reading of legislation for the inquiry.

Speaker 9 The issue of who will be empowered to investigate the attacks on October the 7th remains highly contested in Israel.

Speaker 9 The schism was clear in the Knesset with the governing coalition voting to approve the bill, while members of the opposition ripped it up in protest.

Speaker 9 Many in Israel believe that the proposed legislation will result in the government having the power to set the mandate of the inquiry.

Speaker 9 The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly refused the alternative, championed by relatives of the victims, among others, which would be to establish a state commission to undertake the probe.

Speaker 9 In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu's critics say he's going against legal precedent, which would see the head of the Supreme Court appoint an independent panel to investigate major state failures.

Speaker 7 Sebastian Usher. Meanwhile, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Bethlehem held Christmas celebrations for the first time since the war in Gaza began.

Speaker 7 Thousands of worshipers and tourists gathered for midnight mass in the city, where the Bible says Jesus Christ was born.

Speaker 7 Our correspondent Sharma Khalil says it's a contrast to the somber and restrained mood of the past two years, but the war is still casting a long shadow.

Speaker 11 There was just such a buzz about Manger Square, full of people, families dressed in their best, children running around, and a Santa that was standing in front of the all-famous Christmas tree that was missing for two years and that was lit again for the first time this season.

Speaker 11 And I'm looking at it now with its beautiful red star and its twinkling lights just opposite the Nativity Church. And the bells were tolling just now.

Speaker 11 It's been quite emotional for people in Bethlehem because they felt that they've got their city back almost in this very, very special time of year.

Speaker 11 Because Bethlehem has always been the heart of Christmas, of course, and it was very sad to see it. People were very sad to see it be a shadow of itself for the past couple of years.

Speaker 11 But there was also this thing about Gaza and the suffering in Gaza not being far from people's minds. The fact that the suffering continues even after the ceasefire.
But I spoke to to the Reverend Dr.

Speaker 11 Jack Sarah.

Speaker 12 He is the head of the Bible College here.

Speaker 11 And he told me why it was so important to mark Christmas this season.

Speaker 13 I think this is more about hope, it's more about resilience, and more about telling we exist, we are here.

Speaker 13 Christians and Muslims and everyone who lives here wants to declare that we are people who love life. And every tree lighting, Gaza was present, whether it is in the prayers or the mentioning.

Speaker 11 And I've been speaking to a Christian Palestinian family that has been sheltering in the Catholic Church in Gaza. I spoke to Hilda Joseph, a 20-year-old Christian Palestinian.

Speaker 11 She's been sheltering there with her parents and two siblings. And she used to be able to come to Bethlehem, she tells me, and she describes what Christmas was like before the war.

Speaker 14 We used to decorate the tree inside our home, attribute an activity sense under the tree.

Speaker 4 Also, what do you miss most about Christmas before the war?

Speaker 14 My home.

Speaker 14 To be honest, my home, my memory is with my family inside our home.

Speaker 4 Do you miss Bethlehem?

Speaker 14 For sure, that's right. We used to go to Bethlehem and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ there on the Mahd church, but now we can't go anywhere.

Speaker 4 If you have one wish this Christmas, what would that be?

Speaker 14 We asked them to

Speaker 14 keep us and their prayers.

Speaker 4 What do you wish for yourself?

Speaker 14 There's no personal thing. The only thing we need is the love and peace in Gaza and all the world.

Speaker 11 Love and peace is what people here, worshipers here in the Nativity Church, have also been praying for.

Speaker 11 One quick thing to tell you that Hilda told me is that despite her hearing bombings near the church, even after the ceasefire, she says, at least we're inside the church, referring to other Palestinians who might be marking this season, marking Christmas from tense, especially with heavy rains and downpours and really, really heavy ones that have hit the Gaza Strip last week.

Speaker 11 Many don't even have that shelter, and this has also been heavy on people's minds here here in Bethlehem as they mark this Christmas season.

Speaker 7 Shama Khalil in Bethlehem.

Speaker 7 Still to come.

Speaker 15 NORAD satellites confirm Santa's sleigh is gliding over Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine and one of Eastern Europe's most historic cities.

Speaker 7 We track Santa's journey across the globe.

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Speaker 7 This is the Global News Podcast. In the U.S., it's been a period of intense and unstable weather in California.

Speaker 7 A powerful winter storm has struck the southern part of the state, bringing torrential rains and strong winds. The rain is being driven by a weather phenomenon known as an atmospheric river.

Speaker 7 The governor has declared a state of emergency in several counties, including LA, with evacuation centers open for residents told to relocate.

Speaker 7 Andres Gutierrez from our partner station CBS sent this update.

Speaker 3 Throughout the day, Southern California has been getting walloped by this powerful atmospheric river.

Speaker 3 At some points, there have been rainfall coming down an inch an an hour, and that is fast enough to end up clogging streets and swell as some storm drains.

Speaker 3 The biggest concern out here are the burn scars that were created by those wildfires that burned earlier this year in the Altadena area where I'm at.

Speaker 3 The community is still recovering from those devastating fires. And with all this rain, officials have said that it ends up creating all this debris that they've worked to try to remove.

Speaker 3 They have put evacuation warnings and orders in in place here in the Altadena area as well as across the metro over at the Pacific Palisades.

Speaker 3 And the California governor, Gavin Newsom, has issued a state of emergency in six counties, and this ends up implementing, allowing crews to pre-position rescue teams and equipment.

Speaker 3 The timing couldn't be any worse. It has put a kink into many plans for families during this Christmas holiday.

Speaker 3 Communities up in the mountainous region seeing heavy snow as well as strong winds and there have been numerous crashes.

Speaker 3 There is one that is circulating on social media of a FedEx truck that ended up jackknifing, sending packages all over the road. So, some folks may not be getting those Christmas gifts on time.

Speaker 3 The heaviest rain is expected through Christmas Day, and it is expected to be all wrapped up by Friday.

Speaker 7 Andres Gutierrez. From a Google search to a post on social media, artificial intelligence is increasingly embedding into our daily lives, but not everyone is convinced it's all it's cracked up to be.

Speaker 7 The newsroom's Will Chalk has covered this issue many times for us over the past 12 months, and he's been looking back at the year in AI.

Speaker 10 2025 started with a bang for the AI industry.

Speaker 18 Has the AI bubble burst? The world's biggest listed company, Nvidia, slumps nearly $600 billion with a cheapest.

Speaker 10 In January, the emergence of a cheaper Chinese rival to chat GPT, DeepSeek, caused chaos on the stock markets as US companies realized they weren't the only players in the game.

Speaker 10 But DeepSeek's dominance was short-lived, partly because of its ties to China and censorship.

Speaker 18 We asked it a couple of questions earlier on.

Speaker 19 One was, what happened in Tiananmen Square? It gave us this answer.

Speaker 16 I'm sorry, I can't answer that question.

Speaker 10 The biggest search engine in the world, Google, also showed off its new AI mode this year.

Speaker 20 I'm planning a trip to a strawberry farm with my two kids, and we want to find a cafe nearby for one of my kids, who's a picky eater but I also want free car parking.

Speaker 20 That's a lot of things to do in a search but you can ask all that of AI mode.

Speaker 10 Again, trust seemed to be the main concern. Here is Ian Leslie, an author on human behavior, speaking to us at the time.

Speaker 21 AI chatbots in general are amazing and it speaks, if that's the word, with complete confidence. But in some cases, it's giving you completely mistaken information and presenting it as the truth.

Speaker 10 Then there's the thorny issue of artificial intelligence and the arts, which has been in the spotlight more than ever, not least because of this.

Speaker 15 It's the most powerful imagination engine ever built.

Speaker 10 Sora 2, which can create eerily realistic looking videos of pretty much anything you can imagine at the click of a button and put you and your friends in them too, was released in September.

Speaker 10 It made so-called AI slop easier to make than ever, but there were big concerns about copyright. Dr.

Speaker 10 Gary Marcus from New York University writes on AI, he told me it marked a fundamental shift for society.

Speaker 22 It leaves us in a society that's going to have trust issues because I think people are going to learn that you can't really trust video anymore, but we don't really have a replacement.

Speaker 22 We don't have a source of ground truth that people share. And I think that's going to be disruptive for society.

Speaker 10 The big AI firms are are still facing lawsuits from all around the world, largely from the people who own the copyright to the material their models are trained on.

Speaker 10 And it's playing out in a big way in the world of music.

Speaker 10 Because if you ask an AI generator to make you a song that sounds, say, like Ed Sheeran, some would argue that Ed Sheeran deserves some compensation.

Speaker 10 It's an issue that came to a head when big record labels, including Warner Bros., sued the AI music app Suno. That is, until Warner Bros.
changed their mind and decided to work with them instead.

Speaker 10 Many in the music world were outraged.

Speaker 10 But some see it differently. Grammy-nominated producer Jamie Roddigan told me there are others who see the app not as a threat, but as an opportunity.

Speaker 23 I enjoy using AI in the creative process.

Speaker 23 If I start writing a piece of music and need an idea idea or maybe some harmonies, I may upload a track to AI and AI throws me back some different variations or different examples of how the track could develop.

Speaker 10 So it's polarizing, it's problematic, and it's fraught with risks. But if 2025 proved anything, it's that AI isn't going away.

Speaker 7 Will the chalk with that report? Now, gifts will be on a lot of people's minds today. Unlike most of us, world leaders receive them all year round, not just for birthdays and Christmas.

Speaker 7 Some can be a cure, others a curse. So, what do you give to make a good impression? Keith Lippert owns a corporate gift company in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 8 There are really big differences around the globe when it comes to gifting. And I think that in Anglo-Saxon cultures, we've come rather transactional.

Speaker 8 Whereas in many parts of the world, we find relationship building is most important. What is going on with the gift exchange? Did you take any effort?

Speaker 8 One in particular is when President Roosevelt met King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, and Roosevelt gifted two gifts. One, he had a spare wheelchair, which he gifted Abdulaziz.

Speaker 8 But perhaps more importantly, Roosevelt gifted Abdulaziz two DC-3 planes, and they became the bases of the Saudi Air Force. So after that, the Saudis more or less allied with the Americans.

Speaker 8 Interestingly, Churchill went and visited Abdulaziz afterwards, and he gifted a Rolls-Royce, which seemingly was a very generous gift, except because we drive on the right, the passenger sits on the left, and Abdulaziz never actually used that car.

Speaker 8 Another gift that I think is worth hearing about is a gift that President Carter gifted Prime Minister Begin of Israel during the Camp David Accords because it wasn't actually going particularly well.

Speaker 8 And after a number of days, the Israelis communicated to the Americans that, in fact, they were going to leave. So, as was the practice, there was a gift that was presented to Begin.

Speaker 8 Now, Carter took over a silver picture frame with the photo of the three. So, it was Sadat, Carter, and Begin.

Speaker 8 But interestingly, Carter wrote on the photograph to his grandchildren: May you see peace in your time.

Speaker 8 When Carter gifted Bacon this gift in front of people, he visibly trembled.

Speaker 8 He went back to his cabin, and in the morning, the Israelis notified the Americans that they would stay, and the accords found a successful conclusion.

Speaker 8 You know, when I think about these gifts, there are sort of three really great components. One is, are you conveying respect?

Speaker 8 Two, the nature of the gift can be great for telling stories. And I think also very importantly, it can anchor memory.

Speaker 7 Keith Lippard.

Speaker 7 Now, let's end with perhaps the best gift giver in the world.

Speaker 7 T'was the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St.

Speaker 7 Nicholas soon would be there.

Speaker 24 NORAD radars have sensed movement near the North Pole. It appears that the elves have finished loading Santa's sleigh and Santa has lifted off.

Speaker 7 Yep, for most of the year, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, tracks potential threats. But on Christmas Eve, it does something very different.

Speaker 7 As it has for the past 70 years, it monitors the skies for Santa's sleigh and reassures children calling in that he's on schedule and on his way. On duty is Colonel Kelly Frushauer.

Speaker 12 NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955 when a young child accidentally dialed the unlisted phone number of the Continental Air Defense Command, which was a predecessor of NORAD.

Speaker 12 So believing they were calling Santa Claus after seeing a promotion in the local newspaper, and Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup, the commander on duty that night, was quick to realize a mistake had been made and assured the youngster that NORAD would track Santa, although Santa was not present in the Con Ad Operations Center and available to chat.

Speaker 12 And that's how our tradition was born. So if I went out to the floor right now, there's tons of Canadians and U.S.

Speaker 12 military personnel, civilians, and then members of the local Colorado Springs community. The last time I looked at the numbers, we were over 100,000 calls.

Speaker 12 So we've definitely gotten a lot of calls today.

Speaker 7 Well, I'm looking at the NORAD tracker right now, and Santa Claus has almost completed his journey. He's delivered 6 billion presents to houses where children are asleep.

Speaker 7 His sleigh was last spotted over the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador and is now flying up to the International Space Station.

Speaker 7 And that's about it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

Speaker 7 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service use the hashtag Global Newspod.
This edition was mixed by Darcy O'Bri, and the producer was Mazafa Shakir.

Speaker 7 The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Danny Cox.
Until next time, goodbye.

Speaker 17 As a founder, you're moving fast toward product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal.

Speaker 17 But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are higher earlier than ever.

Speaker 17 Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long.

Speaker 17 With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast-moving teams, Vanta gets you audit-ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models, infra, and customers evolve.

Speaker 17 Fast-growing startups like Langchain, Writer, and Cursor trust Advanta to build a scalable foundation from the start.

Speaker 17 Go to Vanta.com to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000 ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta. That's vanta.com to save $1,000 for a limited time.