Multiple young men were drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s remote New Mexico ranch, it has been claimed, as local authorities continue to investigate historic allegations of abuse.

Democrat congresswoman for New Mexico Melanie Stansbury, fighting for justice for survivors, says one alleged victim claimed he had been invited to a party at the late pedophile’s 7,500-acre Zorro Ranch, where he said he was plied with drugs and raped.

In the recently released 60 Minutes Australia episode, Stansbury says the unnamed man described “multiple young men… raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged”.

“Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were serial abusers; they really were super predators, and it was just how they lived their lives,” she added.

Harrowing testimonies heard in Sunday’s documentary aired as state authorities pressed on with their reopened probe into allegations of abuse at the compound.

Authorities in New Mexico are now trying to determine how many local women and girls were abused at the ranch, after a number of residents came forward with fresh allegations. To date, only one resident was known to be from the state.

But state representative Marianna Anaya, who co-sponsored the state’s Truth Commission probe into Epstein, said Monday that the group has been in contact with a number of locals who now say they were also abused at the ranch.

“I can confirm that we have been reached out to by local alleged victims,” she told Reuters. It marked the first time the commission has acknowledged contact with locals who say they were abused at the ranch during the quarter-century Epstein owned the property.

The Truth Commission is working with the New Mexico Department of Justice to help survivors who may have viable criminal cases bring charges against Epstein’s co-conspirators, Anaya added.

Horrific claims of abuse have come into focus since New Mexico reopened its investigation into allegations of child sex trafficking at the ranch in February, citing the U.S. Justice Department’s release of millions of files on Epstein, including allegations that he buried the bodies of two girls in hills outside the property.

That tip off, claimed to have been written by a former ranch staffer, alleged that “two foreign girls” had been buried near the ranch, having died “by strangulation during rough fetish sex”.

The note sent to the FBI was seemingly never investigated, and the state of New Mexico shelved its probe into the ranch in 2019, following a request from federal prosecutors in New York.

Chauntae Davies, who has previously spoken out about her alleged abuse at the ranch, detailed her experiences to 60 Minutes Australia.

“Zorro Ranch was probably the most eerie, just giant and quiet, and literally in the middle of nowhere, and miles and miles of just mountains and dirt for miles,” she said.

She went on to describe hearing of other victims “waking up in a dark room with a female doctor standing over them, feeling like maybe there is some kind of procedure that had happened.”

Davies, who says she was abused by Epstein between 2001 and 2005, remained haunted by her time at the isolated ranch, where she said no matter how loudly you screamed, nobody could hear you.

The sprawling property includes a 21,000 sq-ft mansion, a log cabin, a guest house, a pool and an airstrip on part-private, part-public land. State officials told CBS in 2019 that Epstein was so secretive about it that they had very little access or knowledge about what was happening there.

Davies said she spent a lot of time in her room “like a mouse in a trap, waiting for a knock on the door and for someone to say, ‘Jeffrey is ready for his massage now’”. She said that would mean rape.

She said she remembered overhearing conversations about “trying to create the perfect baby” and “a ‘hunt’, if you will, for the perfect gene pool”.

She told CBS News in 2019 that she often saw “random young women, some models, other women” at the ranch, but was unsure whether they were sexually abused.

Maria Jose Rodriguez Cadiz, who heads Solace Sexual Assault Services in Santa Fe, the only such support centre in the region, said in 2019 that around 45 people had approached the centre to seek information, therapy and other services in relation to alleged sexual abuse at the ranch.

She estimated that between a quarter and a half of those contacts were from women who said they had been abused at the ranch, although she added that the centre did not keep detailed records.

A manhunt has been launched for an 89-year-old man accused of opening fire on people in government buildings with a shotgun in central Athens, wounding at least four people.

The attacker opened fire at a social security agency in Petralona this morning before travelling to a nearby courthouse and injuring several more people, police said.

An employee of the agency wounded during the rampage was hospitalised after being treated at the scene by police as the suspect made his escape.

At least three female court employees were slightly wounded by ricocheting shotgun pellets at the courthouse, while media reports said a fourth employee was taken to hospital without physical injuries.

Television footage showed ambulance crews transporting at least three people from the courthouse to waiting ambulances.

A motive for the attack remained unclear as police established a heavy presence at the scene. State broadcaster ERT reported that the gunman had reportedly left envelopes with documents at the courthouse after the shooting, claiming the motive was linked.

The outlet identified the suspect as an 89-year-old, saying he disappeared after abandoning his firearm in a photocopier. Authorities later found the gun, police said.

Alexandros Varveris, head of the National Social Security Fund, known by its Greek acronym EFKA, said the gunman had gone to the fourth floor of the social security fund’s offices in the Kerameikos area of central Athens and opened fire after calling out to an employee to duck.

His shot hit another employee, who was wounded in the leg, Varveris said, adding that the gunman had been wearing a trenchcoat under which he had hidden the shotgun.”

“He went in, went up to the fourth floor, raised his shotgun, told an employee to duck, and hit another one,” Varveris told ERT radio. He said the gunman didn’t appear to specifically target the employee he hit.

The wounded employee was transported to hospital after police applied a tourniquet to his leg at the scene. Gun violence is relatively rare in Greece, where firearm ownership is allowed but tightly regulated.

Earlier, Sir Philip Barton, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office at the time, told the committee Downing Street had been “uninterested” in the vetting process and the focus was on making sure Lord Mandelson was able to start his job by the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The first modern mention of the Flemish painter Michaelina Wautier (1614–1689) introduces an artist who defies expectation. Referring to her monumental Triumph of Bacchus (1655–59), Gustav Glück, the first art historian to serve as curator of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, wrote in 1903 that “even in an age of female emancipation, one would hardly wish to ascribe this picture, which shows a highly vigorous, almost coarse conception, to a woman’s hand”.

And thereby hangs the achievement of Wautier: she may have been able to paint “like a man”, but in most of her works, she does not feel the need to do so. Instead, Michaelina Wautier emerges as an artist with a distinctive style of her own.

The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London is currently host to the most complete representation of her work to date. It is a landmark exhibition that reintroduces an artist who in her day was highly successful and championed by the court and elite in Brussels; but, who subsequently almost disappeared from public and scholarly notice for close on 300 years.

Restoring Wautier to a place in the artistic canon through an exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts seems especially apt for an artist who defies expectation. The RA was the first institution to provide professional training for artists in Britain. Wautier’s work and the RA’s presentation of it shows clear evidence of the sort of training that was at the time the exclusive prerogative of male artists.

The point on her training is made straight away through the image that opens the show, a graceful and confident Study of the Medici Ganymede Bust (1654). The drawing depicts the famous ancient Roman sculpture, which was at the time in Rome. Drawing competently was a much valued skill and the Ganymede suggests not only a meticulously trained artist, but one whose work is up-to-date and reflects contemporary trends.

Many will be questioning where she sits in relation to the titan of Baroque painting and her contemporary, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1654) – the favourite subject of feminist art history. Both women disappear from view after the 1650s, both worked with close relatives (Wautier with her brother, Gentileschi with her father), both were championed by high-ranking patrons. But this is where the similarities end.

Gentileschi’s violent personal history has often overshadowed the discussion of her consummate skill and mastery of her craft. For instance, works like the Beheading of Holofernes (1612) are frequently interpreted as responses to her experience of sexual violence.

In Wautier’s case, however, there just isn’t much known about her life beyond bare facts such as who her parents were, that she shared a studio with her brother in Brussels and that she never married. This lack of information is partially due to the artist’s will going up in the flames of the French bombardment of Brussels in 1695.

So where for Gentileschi it feels as if we can’t separate the art from the biography; in Wautier’s case, there is nothing but the art. And, what wonderful art it is too.

Wautier excelled in portraiture, with her elegant palette and her mastery of textures – be it hair or textiles. In her portraits, especially in the depiction of children, she is vivacious and lively and so observant of quirks and foibles. You can see this in her Five Senses (1650) series. For instance, Smell features a little blond boy clutching a rotten egg in one hand and pinching his nose shut with the other, recoiling from the egg’s stench.

Despite their brilliance, however, she never signed her portraits. She did, however, sign two large-scale religious paintings, a Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and an intriguing and unusual panel depicting the Education of the Virgin. Both panels centre around educated, confident, elegant female protagonists, defined by their actions.

These paintings defy contemporary ideas that women artists excelled at imitation but lacked the capacity to imagine and create a subject from scratch. Wautier signs these paintings “invenit et fecit”, which translates as “invented and executed”. Here she is staking her claim to possessing the imagination to execute significant work at large scale. She attests to be a master of her craft, and this is nowhere more apparent than in the centrepiece of the Royal Academy’s exhibition, her immense Triumph of Bacchus.

Here, Wautier tackles the epitome of artistic mastery: a large-scale mythological subject that featured in the work of her most significant contemporaries, such as Andrea Mantegna, Titian and of course the artist who dominated the market in Flanders and the Netherlands, Peter Paul Rubens.

Wautier’s Triumph of Bacchus is larger than that of her male competitors, and she combines in her image the fleshiness of the central male nude with the grace and the elegance of Titian. She presents the viewer with a powerful image of a flabby Bacchus reclining in a wheelbarrow, surrounded by his followers. Wautier’s skill in painting a variety of male nudes in a range of poses looks effortlessly competent, with the Bacchus becoming the work that firmly places her within art history, a masterpiece designed to defy the challenge that a woman can not paint like a man.

This one can, but she takes the challenge up a notch with the intriguing inclusion of a self portrait. Wautier depicts herself as an elegant, bare-breasted Bacchante, a female follower of Bacchus, clad in a striking robe of salmon-pink, looking out at the viewer, the only person to do so in the array of figures depicted. Wautier’s Bacchante stands tall and proud, inviting the viewer to look at her. But it’s Wautier who controls this gaze; in the painting, a sallow-skinned faun attempts to grab the Amazonian, composed woman. She shrugs off his leering, and ignores him grabbing her hair. She is in charge.

Michaelina Wautier is on at The Royal Academy in London until June 21, 2026

Manchester City are locked in a thrilling title race with Arsenal and Erling Haaland, on course to again be the Premier League’s top goalscorer, insists they’ll be even better next season

Erling Haaland has warned his Premier League rivals Manchester City will be even better next season – with or without Pep Guardiola.

City are locked in a thrilling title race with Arsenal as the season reaches a dramatic climax. Guardiola’s men trail Arsenal by three points, but still have a game in hand as City look to win a domestic Treble.

Haaland appreciates Guardiola has had to integrate several new signings into his team in the last 18 months. It remains to be seen of Guardiola extends his stay at the Etihad beyond this season, when he will have completed a decade in charge.

But whatever happens, Haaland has told the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United that City will be stronger next season, having got used to playing with each other.

READ MORE: Man City 115 charges latest: Two ‘high probability’ reasons given for delayREAD MORE: FA Cup final tickets for Man City vs Chelsea have gone on sale early for Wembley

Click here to find out the latest Manchester City news in our daily newsletter

Haaland said: “It’s been a lot of change now the last couple of years, I would say in the last year. There’s been lots of players that have been here for a long time. So with new players, it takes time.

“It’s not easy to come into a new league for someone, new country, all of this. It takes time to adapt. I think exciting times (are ahead) and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.”

Haaland has been linked with a move to long-time admirers Real Madrid and Barcelona, despite signing a record 10-year-deal with City in 2025. But Haaland insists he is going nowhere.

He added: “I’m super happy and I’m looking forward to what’s next, because I think it’s exciting times for City as a club and also me as a player. I’m looking forward to continuing with City.”

FA Cup final VIP tickets for Man City vs Chelsea

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

Various Prices

Seat Unique

Book tickets here

Seat Unique offers hospitality packages for Manchester City’s FA Cup final clash with Chelsea, including ‘premium’ seats at Wembley and complimentary food and drink.

Advertisement

John Stones will leave Manchester City in the summer after a glittering 10-year career at the Eithad

Unlike some of his more celebrated team-mates, John Stones might not get cast in bronze outside the Etihad. But during his illustrious decade-long spell at Manchester City, for long periods Stones was pure gold.

He arrived from Everton at the same time as Pep Guardiola in the summer of 2016. In the previous months, even though he hadn’t officially taken charge, Guardiola had been instrumental in the signing of Stones. He wanted Stones for a reason. Quite simply, he rated him as the best footballing centre half in English football.

Over the next 10 years, Stones proved Guardiola right.

Click here to find out the latest Manchester City news in our daily newsletter

He has suffered some cruel luck with injuries, but Stones has stood shoulder to shoulder with Guardiola in the process of turning City into the greatest club side of a generation. Perhaps the best of all time in English football.

Stones was part of the side which claimed a historic Treble in 2023, crying on the pitch in Istanbul when attempting to sum up the achievement and has won 16 major trophies during his stint at the Etihad.

Guardiola once said: “Since I arrived, he arrived. The many good things and the sad things, we lived together. We share it. He’s an incredible human being.”

There was a reason he earned the nickname the Barnsley Beckenbauer. Because he is as comfortable on the ball as the German legend used to be. So much so that during the Treble success, Guardiola deployed Stones in a hybrid midfield role, operating in front of the back four alongside Rodri. Not a role your average defender would be trusted with.

At his best, Stones was a classy combination of composure, speed, vision and calmness under pressure.

“You don’t quite appreciate him until tore playing alongside him,” said Kyle Walker, who shared countless moments with Stones for both club and country. “He rarely gets beat, is great on the ball and very calm and level headed.”

Stones, who also appeared in two European Championship finals with England and a World Cup semi final, will leave City in June when his contract expires. Due to long standing fitness issues, he has not been handed an extension.

Given City’s need to keep evolving and with Stones turning 32 next month, it’s an understandable decision. His best times are now behind him. But my how good they were. They should never be forgotten.

Barry McLeod’s victim needed 24 staples in a head wound on one occasion, Airdrie Sheriff Court was told.

A Cumbernauld brute is behind bars after repeated attacks on his partner who finally reported him because she feared for her life.

Barry McLeod’s victim needed 24 staples in a head wound on one occasion, Airdrie Sheriff Court was told.

McLeod, 26, was jailed for 22 months after he admitted a course of abusive behaviour towards the woman.

Annette Ward, prosecuting, outlined a number of assaults, the first being in March 2024.

She told the court: “They had an argument in a close. McLeod hit her with such force that she fell and struck her head on a wall.

“She sustained a large wound to the back of her head that required 24 staples.

“She didn’t report this to the police and told family members she had fallen.”

Two months later the couple were in Millcroft Road, Cumbernauld, and McLeod asked his partner for a vape. She refused and he punched her on the face, leaving her covered in blood.

She again went to hospital for treatment. There was “significant” bruising around her eye.

READ MORE: Vietnamese dad of two jailed after police found £400k cannabis farm

Then, on May 12 last year, McLeod and his partner were in a house in Cuilmuir Terrace, Croy, when he punched and choked her, leaving her struggling to breathe. He then pushed her down a set of stairs.

The final straw for the victim came on August 19 last year when another argument started, this time at an address in Beechwood Court, Cumbernauld.

She punched McLeod and he responded by throttling her, restricting her breathing.

Ms Ward said: “She pleaded with him to stop and he released his grip.

READ MORE: Knife-wielding yob frightened fellow train passenger on station platform in Coatbridge

“At this point she believed McLeod wanted to seriously harm her. She was in fear for her life.

“The following day she disclosed the assault to her mother and sister.

“She was distressed and had red marks on the side of her neck.

“She and McLeod had been in a relationship since 2019 and had two children.

“The woman told police he had been aggressive towards her on a regular basis. He would kick and punch her, especially after drinking or taking drugs.”

READ MORE: ‘Incredible’ musician avoids jail after defying driving ban

Defence lawyer Ross Brown said McLeod wanted to plead guilty after seeing photographs of the woman’s injuries.

Mr Brown stated: “His partner is in court today. She was not overly supportive of this prosecution and it appears she is still supportive of him.

“When sober he is respectful, a decent individual, but that changes when he is under the influence.”

*Don’t miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.

And did you know Lanarkshire Live had its own app? Download yours for free here.

READ MORE: ‘My dog was stabbed 29 times for protecting me and I was forced to watch footage in court’

The Department for Work and Pensions has paved the way for free frequent PIP health assessments after charities called the current application process as “long, complicated, and emotionally distressing”

Nearly four million people who get Personal Independence Payments will benefit from less frequent health assessments under new changes.

The Department for Work and Pensions has set out regulations which allow it to move all existing PIP award reviews to a minimum of three years for a new claim, rising to five years at their next review if they remain entitled. The new longer time frame has already started to apply to many brand new PIP claims.

According to the government, the changes to new and existing PIP claims will deliver savings of around £300million overall, with the changes to existing customers making up around £230million of this. The DWP said the measure aims to free up health professionals to carry out more face-to-face assessments and deliver more reassessments.

PIP is the main disability benefit for people of working age in the UK. People may be able to qualify for PIP if they need extra help with everyday tasks due to an illness, disability or mental health condition. Eligibility to PIP isn’t based on people’s conditions, but rather how it affects their life.

Advertisement

Under changes that came into effect from April 6, health reviews have been extended to a minimum of three years for the majority of new PIP claimants aged 25 and over, rising to five years at their next review if they remain entitled.

Since 2016 in England and Wales, almost 60% of award reviews resulted in no change.

The changes are separate to a review being conducted by disability minister Sir Stephen Timms, which will look at the role of PIP, eligibility for the daily living and mobility components and assessment process.

Commenting on the new changes, Sir Stephen said: “Reforming the welfare system so that it better meets the needs of disabled people is a priority for the government. A major part of this is ensuring that Pip is fit and fair for the future – and we are taking an important step to improve the system through new legislation, which will reduce the frequency of reviews for many existing Pip customers.

“This will make the system more efficient by freeing up the capacity of health professionals to tackle our inherited assessment backlog, while removing unnecessary pressure from disabled claimants whose conditions rarely change at each review.”

He added: “We are also increasing face-to-face assessments for Pip from 6% in 2024 to 30% of all assessments. Additionally, my review is looking into how we can bolster Pip for the future, and we have opened a call for evidence for people to share their views on how Pip should be reformed.”

Harriet Edwards, director of influencing at the national disability charity Sense, said: “The process of applying for disability benefits is long, complicated, and emotionally distressing, and so we welcome these plans to help disabled people go through fewer assessments in the future.

“Sense research found over half of disabled PIP claimants with complex needs felt humiliated during their assessment; clearly this process needs to urgently change.

“It’s vital that the Timms Review continues to work with disabled people to make the application process for PIP fairer and less distressing. But most importantly, what disabled people with complex needs require is reassurance that the government won’t make further cuts to benefits that provide a lifeline for them.”

Fazilet Hadi, Disability Rights UK’s head of policy, said: “Reducing the frequency of PIP reviews makes sense, both for disabled people and DWP. So often our needs remain the same, and reviews just cause anxiety. It is of concern that face-to-face reviews will increase, as these can be physically and emotionally challenging.”

“It has been a rollercoaster in many ways. I came as a kid and now leaving as a man – becoming a father, a husband and, on the pitch, a very fulfilled player.

“I lived all my dreams out and lifted all the things that I came here to achieve.

“At the start of my career here I never would thought I would be in this position. Firstly, to achieve everything but to have the love, the bond with everyone. Every dream has been smashed out of the park.”

Stones was Pep Guardiola’s second signing at City, becoming the world’s second most expensive defender at the time.

“I don’t think it would have been anywhere near as successful without him,” said Stones.

“I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to spend so long with him, win everything with him. I feel lucky and grateful for what he’s done for me.”

West Lothian agreed to join the majority of 32 local authorities in not declaring a bank holiday for the Monday after the opening game against Haiti.

There will be no public holiday in West Lothian for Scotland’s return to the World Cup on 15 June, West Lothian Council’s Executive has decided.

A bank Holiday was declared in the wake of Scotland qualifying for its first World Cup since 1998. Announced by John Swinney the then First Minister and given Royal Assent in the first week of February.

West Lothian agreed to join the majority of 32 local authorities in not declaring a bank holiday for the Monday after the opening game against Haiti kicks off at 2am in Boston.

Linlithgow’s Lib Dem councillor Sally Pattle slated the holiday as a political stunt by the SNP in the run-up to the Scottish Parliamentary elections.

READ MORE: West Lothian business partners with industry expert in bid to accelerate growth

She said SNP candidates had made an issue of the holiday “a bribe” at every hustings event she had attended.

Councillor Pattle pointed out that: “We didn’t get a public holiday when Andy Murray won Wimbledon or when Chris Hoy won the Olympics.”

Councillor Damian Doran-Timson, Conservative group leader pointed out that the match could be recorded.

He added that the SNP group leader Councillor Janet Campbell made “a nonsense statement to say thousands of fans will be prohibited,” he added.

Councillor Campbell had said the decision denied “thousands” of football fans the chance to see the match, and she branded the decision “classist”.

READ MORE: POLICE COLUMN: Chief Inspector Dougie Grieve

Lesley Henderson, Head of Corporate Services told the meeting that only five of Scotland’s local authorities had opted for the holiday.

In her report to the Executive she pointed out that adopting 15 June as a public holiday would contractually oblige the council to pay public holiday enhancement rates and close schools- with associated increased costs for families.

Following the Scottish Government’s plans would incur extra costs when: “it is considered that an additional public holiday would place unnecessary strain on already limited public funding.”

Councillor Pattle asked how much more the adoption would cost the council. Ms Henderson replied: “£30,000 to £40,000.”

The SNP group suggested that refusing the holiday would mean fans would miss the match.

However, the game kicks off at 9pm in the United States on Saturday, June 13, – or 2am on Sunday, June 14, in Scotland.

READ MORE: Exhibition charting career of West Lothian film director opens in his hometown

Councillor Doran-Timson pointed out that the match could be recorded. “It’s a nonsense statement to say thousands of fans will be prohibited,” he added.

Answering a question Ms Henderson agreed that council employees could ask for 15 June as a day’s leave which would be granted depending on staff cover.

Labour councillor Danny Logue suggested a public holiday would have been a better idea if the team had progressed through the competition to the knock out stages rather than the initial stages.

Councillor Campbell told the meeting she wanted three abstentions, those of herself and two SNP colleagues, Councillors Pauline Stafford and Pauline Orr recorded.

Councillor Lawrence Fitzpatrick, the council leader chairing the meeting, said as there had been no vote abstentions could not be recorded.

The Governance Manager Lesley Montague said that dissent could not be noted under the Standing Orders.

READ MORE: Girls at West Lothian school establish clothing bank with touch of class

Don’t miss the latest news from the West Lothian Courier. Sign up to our free newsletter here.