Batch includes more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to disgraced financier, Todd Blanche says

• Elon Musk had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously known, emails show

The US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said on Friday that the justice department had released more than 3m pages of documents related to its investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a long-awaited announcement that appears to represent the bulk of the so-called Epstein files that have dogged Donald Trump politically.

In a testy news conference, Blanche said that the release would include more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, which will have “extensive redactions”. He added that the Trump administration had produced roughly 3.5m pages in an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He said that they include large quantities of commercial pornography and images “that were seized from Epstein’s devices”.

Capital punishment taken off table but Mangione will still face federal charges over killing of Brian Thompson

The death penalty is off the table for Luigi Mangione after a New York federal judge dismissed the charges that were eligible for capital punishment in the case accusing him of killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York in December 2024.

In a written court order on Friday, US district judge Margaret Garnett dismissed counts three and four against Mangione, including murder through use of a firearm, which carried a potential death sentence, and a weapons charge.

Deng Chol Majek stabbed Rhiannon Whyte 23 times in ‘sadistic’ attack at railway station

A Sudanese asylum seeker has been jailed for at least 29 years for the “sadistic” murder of a woman who was working at the hotel where he lived.

Deng Chol Majek is believed to have entered the UK by small boat less than three months before stabbing Rhiannon Whyte, 27, with a screwdriver 23 times at Bescot Stadium station in Walsall in October 2024.

Lemon’s lawyer said he was taken into custody after attending protest in which demonstrators disrupted a church service earlier in January

• Who is Don Lemon, the ex-CNN anchor arrested over a Minnesota church protest?

• US politics live – latest updates

Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested late on Thursday on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said that Lemon was “taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards”.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif sparked a manhunt last November after he was accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth

Rhiannon Whyte died three days later in hospital after being stabbed 23 times

The site is thought to contain around 20,000 tonnes of waste