By Helen Regan, CNN

(CNN) — A newly released email appears to confirm the authenticity of a photograph of Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with his arm around the waist of Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.

The disgraced former prince has long denied allegations he sexually assaulted Giuffre while she was a teenager and had previously questioned whether the now-infamous photo had been doctored.

But in the trove of new documents released by the US Justice Department last week is a 2015 email to Epstein purportedly from his former girlfriend and longtime accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell that suggests the image of Andrew and Giuffre is real.

The message was headed “draft statement” and sent by a “G Maxwell” to the late convicted sex offender in January 2015.

“It was in London when (redacted) met a number of friends of mine including Prince Andrew. A photograph was taken as I imagine she wanted to show it to friends and family,” the email reads.

Details in the statement and subsequent emails from Epstein the same day indicate the redacted name was Giuffre.

Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and other crimes, also appears in the photograph.

The message adds that “G Maxwell” did not see “anything improper that took place at my home.”

In a separate email to Epstein, “G Maxwell” said, “I have to distance myself from you in statement too. And they need me to say I was not aware of massage (with) andrew in my house.”

CNN has approached Maxwell’s representatives and has attempted to contact Mountbatten-Windsor’s representatives for comment.

The Epstein scandal has dogged Mountbatten-Windsor for years, culminating in him being stripped of his royal titles and ordered to leave the Royal Lodge on the Crown’s Windsor Estate by his brother, King Charles III, last year.

Giuffre’s family told British public broadcaster BBC that the release of the email was a “vindicating moment.”

“It shows that not only was she not lying this entire time … she was telling the truth,” Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts said.

“It’s a moment where we’re really proud of our sister. I think that it is a vindicating moment, but we also want to use this as a moment to remind people to believe survivors,” Roberts added.

Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025, repeatedly claimed that she was forced to have sex with the then-prince while underage on three occasions – in London, New York and at Little St. James, colloquially known as Epstein Island. She claimed that Mountbatten-Windsor was aware she was underage in the US when they were introduced.

Mountbatten-Windsor has denied all of Giuffre’s accusations and says he does not recall ever meeting her. In 2022, he reached a settlement with Giuffre, settling a sex abuse lawsuit. While he didn’t admit wrongdoing, Andrew did acknowledge Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking.

“I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever,” Mountbatten-Windsor told the BBC in a bombshell television interview in 2019.

He said in the same sit-down that he had “no recollection of the photograph ever being taken,” and added that while it was him in the photo, “we can’t be certain” as to whether it’s his hand on her.

When pressed to clarify whether he believed the ph

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN

Rome, Italy (CNN) — Now you see her, now you don’t.

The face of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni that was painted on a cherub in a church in Rome has been removed following outrage and an investigation by the country’s cultural ministry.

Meloni’s likeness appeared on the body of an angel following restoration works at the Chapel of the Holy Souls of Purgatory in the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Lucina, in central Rome.

Although completed late last year, the issue came to light at the weekend when before and after photos posted on social media showed that the original angel’s face had been replaced with an image that looked like the prime minister.

At first the volunteer restorer, Bruno Valentinetti, denied the claims, saying that he’d copied the original images from drawings.

But on Wednesday, he told La Repubblica newspaper that it was indeed the prime minister. However, he insisted that it was similar to the original artwork, the paper reported.

Valentinetti was tasked with smudging out his work, which has left a ghost-like white blob on the angel’s body.

“I covered it up because the Vatican told me to,” he told La Repubblica.

The Vatican has not weighed in publicly on the controversy.

The culture ministry, which ordered an investigation earlier this week, put out a statement on Wednesday about the removal of the image, saying that works in churches in Rome had to be preapproved with drawings for proposed changes.

“In light of the removal of the face from the decoration in the chapel of the crucifix of San Lorenzo in Lucina, in agreement with the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, the Special Superintendent of Rome, Daniela Porro, has informed the rector of the Basilica that any restoration work requires a request for authorization from the Ministry of the Interior’s Fund for Places of Worship, which owns the property, the Vicariate, and the Special Superintendency of Rome, attaching a sketch of the image,” the ministry wrote in a statement posted on its website.

Hundreds of visitors have visited the chapel in recent days to take photos of the image, the parish priest Father Daniele Micheletti said.

“I’ve always said that if it had created divisions, I would have had it removed,” he told Sky Italia.

“From a regulatory standpoint, the painting could have remained there for a hundred years, but it has created too many divisions in the church.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Angelic face of Italian prime minister wiped from fresco appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

The heat holds Thursday with an increase in mid to high level clouds. Although it may feel slightly muggy, it'll still be a picture perfect afternoon. A small system to the south will add clouds and humidity along with high waves. Another round of High Surf Advisories will go into effect at midnight, this time for the entire Central Coast, into early Saturday. Waves can reach 10-15Ft and rip currents are strong. Santa Ana winds develop in Ventura once again but below advisory levels.

We begin a drastic cooling trend Friday. A cut off low pressure system brings temperatures down 10 degrees or more. Onshore flow creates marine clouds and cooler moist air. We hold overcast through the evening. Highs rise into the 60s and mid 70s, still above average. Waves will be intense and high tides will impact beach plans. A slight breeze is projected by the evening.

Super Bowl Sunday looks perfect. Sunny skies and mid 70s are in the forecast. Weather whiplash occurs Monday as a system cools temperatures to low 60s and brings rain chances. There is the possibility that rain will influence your Valentine's Day plans. A detailed forecast will be provided next week.

The post Muggy Thursday, cooler Super Bowl weekend appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN

(CNN) — Kamala Harris is relaunching — one of her accounts on X.

The former vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee on Thursday rebooted the KamalaHQ account, which has over 1 million followers on X and more than 5 million on TikTok, as just Headquarters, which in a partnership with the left-leaning People for the American Way she’s calling “an online organizing project for next generation campaigning.”

“Conservatives build permanent organizing infrastructure. Progressives have historically built machines that dismantle after Election Day. Headquarters is the end of that cycle,” reads a press release from the new group, which also now plans to post on Substack, YouTube and other platforms.

“It’s where you can go online to get the latest of what’s going on, and also to meet and revisit with some of our great and courageous leaders — be they elected leaders, community leaders, civic leaders, faith leaders, young leaders. I’m really excited about it. Stay engaged, and I’ll see you out there,” Harris says in a video recorded for the launch.

Harris recently began a second leg of touring around her best-selling campaign memoir that is less about recounting the stories in “107 Days” and more geared to her interest in talking about what she thinks needs to happen next. Though Harris says she has stepped out of politics for the moment, she has left the door open to another presidential run.

So far, Harris has been talking regularly about how both Democrats and Republicans failed people, so that, as she put it in a speech to the Democratic National Committee meeting in Los Angeles in December, “The American dream has become more of a myth than reality.”

“Government is viewed as fundamentally unable to meet the needs of its people. In these and so many other ways, the people feel that the very institutions that were designed to support them have failed them,” Harris said then. “They are not wrong.”

Harris will have an honorary role in Headquarters as chair emerita, with a group of advisers and operatives drawn from both her campaign alumni and People for the American Way, including her top senior adviser Kirsten Allen and Rob Flaherty, who served as deputy campaign manager for Joe Biden and then Harris in 2024. Parker Butler and Lauren Kapp, who led the KamalaHQ team in 2024, will remain involved.

Harris will not have editorial oversight of the posts, according to the new group, leaving those to the advisers and People for the American Way. She will, though, continue on her book tour through the spring.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Harris relaunches her old ‘Kamala HQ’ account as an online organizing project appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

Por MJ Lee, Nicky Robertson y Jeremy Herb, CNN

El Departamento de Justicia no ocultó información que identificaba a muchas de las víctimas de Jeffrey Epstein y redactó los detalles de individuos que podrían haber ayudado al delincuente sexual convicto, lo que provocó una protesta de los sobrevivientes que acusan al Departamento de Justicia de arruinar la publicación de más de 3 millones de documentos la semana pasada.

Una revisión de CNN de los documentos de Epstein identificó varios ejemplos de personas cuyas identidades fueron ocultadas, posiblemente ayudando a conectarlo con mujeres, incluidos co-conspiradores redactados en un borrador de acusación muy esperado contra Epstein de la década de 2000.

En un correo electrónico de 2015, una persona censurada escribió a Epstein: “Y ésta es (creo) totalmente tu chica”.

En otro correo electrónico de 2014 , incluido en los archivos, una persona le escribió a Epstein: “Gracias por una noche divertida… Tu hija pequeña se portó un poco mal”. Sin embargo, el nombre de quien escribió ese mensaje está censurado.

El Departamento de Justicia publicó el viernes lo que dijo era el último de los archivos de Epstein que estaba obligado a revelar por ley, pero los documentos han provocado una protesta generalizada por la continua falta de transparencia y justicia para las numerosas sobrevivientes de Epstein.

Las sobrevivientes de Epstein están indignadas por las redacciones mal manejadas, incluidas las declaraciones tachadas que las víctimas hicieron al FBI.

Un funcionario del Departamento de Justicia declaró que los nombres completamente censurados corresponden a víctimas. “En muchos casos, como se ha documentado públicamente, quienes fueron víctimas se convirtieron en participantes y cómplices”, declaró. “No censuramos los nombres de hombres, solo de mujeres”.

Los nombres del FBI y de las fuerzas del orden también fueron redactados, dijo el funcionario del Departamento de Justicia.

Mientras tanto, el Departamento de Justicia ha estado trabajando para solucionar la divulgación indebida de información de las víctimas.

El Departamento de Justicia evitó por poco una audiencia en un tribunal federal el miércoles al llegar a un acuerdo el martes por la noche con los abogados de algunos de los sobrevivientes de Epstein, quienes habían acusado al Departamento de Justicia de divulgar información sobre casi 100 víctimas de Epstein en los archivos.

El vicesecretario de Justicia Todd Blanche reconoció el lunes que “se cometieron errores”, pero argumentó que el Departamento de Justicia actuó con rapidez para corregir cualquier información divulgada involuntariamente.

Para las sobrevivientes de Epstein, la respuesta del Departamento de Justicia es inaceptable.

“Tener partes de mi vida expuestas de esa manera fue realmente problemático”, dijo Dani Bensky, quien le dijo a CNN en una mesa redonda con sobrevivientes de Epstein que su nombre, dirección y número de teléfono estaban inicialmente en los archivos.

“Y sé que ahora soy pública, sí, me duele, pero realmente duele aún más a nuestras hermanas sobrevivientes que todavía son ‘Jane Doe’”, agregó.

El furor sobre lo que está y no está incluido en los documentos de Epstein resalta cómo la publicación de más de 3 millones de documentos por parte del departamento el viernes no es el final de l