The 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris kicked off on July 26, with many of the best athletes in the world gathering to compete for their countries. Some of the world’s best photographers are there, too, capturing all the action. Here’s a look at some of the most dazzling images so far.
Jeffrey Epstein poses for a portrait during a party at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, Feb. 12, 2000.
For decades, Jeffrey Epstein was considered an enigma. Often casually sporting blue jeans and mussed-up hair, the ultra-wealthy Manhattan financier held himself with an air of smugness that transcended still-frame snapshots of him.
He was notoriously well-connected, keeping an expansive and eclectic circle of royals, world leaders, titans of business, renowned scientists, and thought leaders in his pocket. Epstein positioned himself as a cultural savant, holding court with director Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi Previn and discussing their thoughts on Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. When he regretfully declined an invitation to attend a symposium on improvising classical music, the organizer lamented they’d miss his “musical thinking.” His Amazon account paints him as a prolific and well-rounded reader, according to Bloomberg, which went through the dozens of titles he ordered, including books on philosophy, mathematics, investment, historical figures, and “middlebrow erotica.”
But Epstein was not what he seemed. In July 2019, he was arrested and charged with running a sex-trafficking ring so vast and shrouded in secrecy that years after his death that August, the world is still trying to piece together how he was able to operate the illicit network so brazenly for so long. Last month, following a bipartisan bill pushed through by Congress in November, the Department of Justice finally released more than 3 million investigatory files on a man who is now considered one of history’s most prolific sex traffickers with hundreds of victims.
While the documents help reveal the extent of his crimes — and the web of powerful people around him — they also shed light on the personality of a mysterious criminal. The overwhelming amount of emails, texts, business records, flight logs, and credit card statements has slowly begun to unravel the myths that have enshrouded Epstein. They reveal a man who might not have been the all-encompassing cultural aesthete that he wanted the influential people he surrounded himself with to believe. His emails are dry, choppy and curt, riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Once considered an investment wizard with a brilliant mathematical mind, those lofty bona fides have since been called into question. And inexplicably, he had a habit of pestering people to send him playlists of modern-leaning, upbeat songs, including David Guetta and Tiësto. (Two years before his death, he told a woman he was a fan of deep house music.)
Rolling Stone combed through thousands of these files to better understand some of Epstein’s more mundane, day-to-day habits, particularly when it came to his musical tastes. One of his girlfriends told a staffer that she believed his favorite songs were Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Misérables. In 2013, he asked one female student to stop by his Upper East Side townhouse to talk about French composer Claude Debussy and teach him music theory. However, Epstein’s daily listening preferences seemed to be on par with many men born in 1953. According to his Spotify Wrapped for 2016, Epstein’s top genres were “soft rock” and “mellow gold,” and his top songs for the year were “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” by Marion Williams, and “Hold On I’m Comin’” by Sam & Dave.
Epstein wanted constant access to his music, even at the dentist’s office. His staffers sent frequent reminders to ensure that his iPod was fully charged and that he brought along headphones to the appointments. An early champion of Spotify, he encouraged acquaintances and young women to download the app soon after it launched in the United States in 2011. (Epstein briefly held a $1 million investment in the company.) Epstein routinely lodged complaints with his staffers when his devices and audio systems across his many homes and vehicles didn’t automatically sync with his Spotify and iTunes accounts. He even had a “personal genius” on speed dial whenever he forgot a password or needed troubleshooting help. (The IT specialist did not respond to Rolling Stone’s attempts to reach them.)
Emails show that Epstein repeatedly badgered people to make and send him playlists, wanting USB thumb drives of songs that he could play in the car and on his private jet, telling one woman to compile tracks of “just what you like” in May 2017. That same month, French pianist Simon Ghraichy sent Epstein the Air France playlist for that month and offered “if you need a playlist for your plane, I could take care of it,” noting he would “avoid Hispanic.” (Ghraichy did not return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.)
Beginning in 2011, Epstein curated several Spotify playlists, adding “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel in 2012, and “Little Drummer Boy” by Whitney Houston featuring Bobbi Kristina Brown in 2013 to a playlist titled “random.” Another Spotify account that Business Insider previously linked to Epstein showed he had playlists devoted to Elton John, Broadway show tunes, the Beatles, Beethoven, jazz, classical and “gosapel” music. In a departure from Epstein’s professed musical tastes, there were also a handful of noticeably more youthful playlists, which included pop and dance-based tracks, named after Pitbull and exercising.
In multiple email exchanges, Epstein’s seemingly lighthearted requests for new music were followed by light scoldings when he failed to receive the playlists promptly, resulting in light scoldings. In October 2011, a redacted sender, who saved Epstein’s contact information as “Uncle F,” sent the financier over a list of clubby songs after he indicated he’d be more willing to help her secure a guest speaker for an upcoming event at her school if “Uncle F had the playlist he was promised.”
The student, who previously explained to him that she hadn’t had time to compile songs because she was “so so so stressed with school,” sent over a dance-heavy track list, including EDM remixes of Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger,” Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain,” and Florence & the Machine’s “Shake It Out.” Many of the songs the student suggested wound up on his public playlist called “Celina.” It’s the same name as the daughter of billionaire couple Glenn and Eva Dubin, who were friends with Epstein. A former Swedish model, Eva was one of Epstein’s early girlfriends in the Eighties and described by Epstein’s circle as the love of his life. Epstein became close with their daughter Celina, whom he allegedly referred to as his goddaughter. (The Dubins have denied Epstein was Celina’s godfather. A family spokesperson recently told the New York Post that the release of Celina’s emails with Epstein wasn’t properly handled by the DOJ. The Dubin Family Foundation did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.)
Epstein chided another young woman for forgetting to send him music in February 2012. “I scheduled my day around you,” he wrote in a typo-filled email. “You have not been nice with me, no playlist. afer one month, you tell me you do nothing all day but chill in the apt i give you, and then you tell me sorry i have no time to make playlist. you are wonderful„ but i am very dissparointed how you treat me as a friend.” In another email exchange from that October, an acquaintance asks, “what new music would make you happy while swimming or shall I just select myself?” while a fourth sender seemed to have created a personalized playlist for Epstein to listen to during his workouts in 2013.
Epstein would also receive unsolicited song recommendations from his circle of friends, with emails showing redacted senders sharing songs like “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” by Elvis Presley, “California Girls” by the German electronic artist NoMBe, and his last known girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, sending him a handful of Banks songs to check out in 2015. Years earlier, Mette-Marit, the Crown Princess of Norway, recommended that Epstein listen to jazz singer Solveig Slettahjell’s album Antologie, saying it reminded her of “autumn and heartbreak in all forms.” By 2017, when a woman asked Epstein what genres of music he listened to, Epstein said he enjoyed “many different types,” including “classical. deep house. r and b, and jazz.”
Before pivoting to Spotify to hold his library of music, Epstein spent thousands of dollars on iTunes purchases, buying songs like “Butterfly Kisses” in 2010, and downloading silly apps like FatBooth, a face-bloating photo tool, and international messaging services, like WhatsApp and Signal. A significant portion of the charges stemmed from a variety of movies that were rented or purchased under Epstein’s account, including the horror-rock musical Repo! The Genetic Opera, Jessica Alba’s Honey, and the unrated version of Hot Tub Time Machine.
It’s not clear if Epstein was binging these movies alone or with others, as some of the email correspondence shows that he allowed guests at his various residences to watch titles on his account. He also shared his login information with his girlfriend, with charges to an American Express card linked to Shuliak’s name showing downloads of seasons of Madam Secretary, Friends, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder. Still, some of the flicks would have appealed to Epstein’s tastes, including downloads of The Buddha – The Story of Siddhartha and Eyes Wide Shut in 2010; and Dangerous Liaisons and The Affair of the Necklace in 2017.
And in late May 2018, Epstein rattled off a list of movie titles to Shuliak over email, then later that day complained to his tech specialist that his iPad was having trouble downloading movies. Among the titles Epstein had named were Airplane, Animal House, Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Rocky, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music.
The millions of released documents help strip away the air of mystery Epstein carefully worked to project, revealing a prolific criminal who used the guise of culture, taste, and access to carry out extraordinary abuse. What now remains is a record of a man largely devoid of the sophistication he claimed to possess.
Hilary Duff responds to Ashley Tisdale's mean girl mom group essay
Hilary Duff didn’t see Ashley Tisdale‘s celebrity mom group essay coming. In a recent appearance on Call Her Daddy, the singer and actress lightly responded to the article published in The Cut earlier this year, in which Tisdale detailed being iced out by other moms in a group presumed to include Duff, Meghan Trainor, Mandy Moore, and more. “I felt really sad. I honestly felt really sad,” Duff said. “I was pretty taken aback.”
Duff has a son from her previous marriage and shares three children with her husband, songwriter Matthew Koma. “I have my core group of friends who have been my ride or dies for 20 years, 10 to 20 years, and I have tons of different groups of mom friends because I have four kids,” she said. “So I think I just was like, whoa, it sucks to read something that’s not true, and it sucks on behalf of six women in all of their lives.”
Tisdale’s essay, titled “Breaking Up With My Toxic Mom Group,” was published on Jan. 1. She wrote about finding community among other mothers with similar backgrounds and responsibilities, only to then feel left out of group hangouts and sit in unfavorable positions at their dinner parties. “This is too high school for me, and I don’t want to take part in it anymore,” Tisdale said she texted the group after a while.
Duff didn’t want to take part in the conversation about it at all, really. “I think it came at the craziest time where I was like, the timing felt not great, and I felt used,” she said on Call Her Daddy. Duff just made her return to music with her sixth album, Luck… or Something, which marked her first in over a decade. The single “Roommates” arrived in the aftermath of the mom group drama. While she didn’t speak on the discourse and speculation directly, her husband did.
On Instagram, Koma published a mock photo of his own makeshift The Cut essay. “A Mom Group Tell All Through a Father’s Eyes,” it read. “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers.” Duff claimed she didn’t know Koma was going to chime in, but noted that she wouldn’t have stopped him even if he’d given her a heads up.
“Honestly, everything he does makes me laugh,” Duff said. “So I was like, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ But I also don’t censor him, and I don’t tell him what he can and can’t post. He is so fierce for me, and I love him for that.”
Koma and Duff recorded Luck… or Something together. “Everyone has a way to tell you how they feel about what you make, and that felt scary,” Duff recently told Rolling Stone about her return to music. “I was like, ‘Why would I subject myself to this? We have a happy life and amazing kids.’ But obviously, I miss performing, and I desperately miss having that person be in the forefront.”
President Donald Trump during a news conference on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026 at the White House in Washington, D.C.
Exhausted, sweaty athletes, beer, champagne, and a congratulatory call from the president of the United States. All standard fare during the celebration of a gold-medal winning game at the Olympics. But some of the commotion around the U.S. men’s hockey team — who won their first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” — has taken a political turn, with beleaguered FBI Director Kash Patel celebrating in the locker room before patching in President Donald Trump, who complained to the players that he would also “have to bring” the gold-medal winning U.S. women’s team to festivities at the White House or “be impeached.”
In videos of the celebration Patel — whose office spent days insisting he was in Milan on official business and not to party at the Olympics — chugged beers, banged on tables, and tried on players’ gold medals. At one point, he held out his phone so the president could deliver a message to the team. Trump congratulated them, and offered to coordinate military aircraft to transport the team from Miami (where they will be flying to in order to avoid winter storms battering the northeast) to Washington, D.C., for his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“We’ll do the White House,” Trump told players. “We’ll just have some fun, we have medals for you guys. And we have to — I must tell you — we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” the president said, chuckling. The players laughed. “I do believe I probably would be impeached [if I didn’t],” Trump continued.
Neither the White House or USA Hockey — which manages both the men’s and women’s teams — immediately responded to requests for comment from Rolling Stone.
The women’s team on Monday said it is declining Trump’s invitation to attend the State of the Union. “We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal–winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” a USA Hockey spokesperson said, citing timing and previously scheduled commitments. “They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment,” the spokesperson added.
The United States won 12 gold medals at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, half of which were won by female athletes, and another two by mixed-gender teams. The final match of the women’s hockey event between the United States and Canada broke the record for the most-watched women’s hockey game ever. So far, the White House has not extended an invitation to the U.S. women’s hockey team, and there is no record of the president giving them a congratulatory locker room phone call. Instead, the president — who claims he wants to “protect” and uphold women’s sports by demonizing transgender athletes — painted the women’s team as unwanted hangers-on to the men’s celebration. It isn’t surprising from a president who has a long history of reflexive misogyny and alleged abuse against women.
Team USA was already in a difficult position going into these Olympics. The team arrived in Italy amid international attention to Trump’s deadly immigration crackdown, the continued fallout of the Epstein saga, and the perpetual tension Trump has wrought between the United States and its international allies. Any athlete who spoke candidly about their concerns regarding the political climate within the U.S.A., or god forbid outright criticized the president and Republicans, became the subject of threats and pile-ons by conservatives.
Trump even directly attacked U.S. skier Hunter Hess after he told reporters that “just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” The president in turn called Hess a “real loser” that “shouldn’t have tried out for the Team,” if he felt that way in a Truth Social post. Figure Skater Amber Glenn — who won a gold medal in the team competition — said she received “a scary amount of hate/threats” after speaking openly about her experience as an LGBTQ athlete. Conservative pundits and influencers went so far as to suggest that athletes who were vocally critical of the president or the state of the country be kicked off the team or outright stripped of citizenship.
Meanwhile, FBI Director Patel celebrated with players in Milan as he and the FBI struggled to fend off accusations of incompetence and abuse of public funds, including for personal travel to sporting events and visits to see his girlfriend, singer Alexis Wilkins. Patel claimed he had been in Milan for “multiple partner and counterpart meetings including the Ambassador, MOU signings, LEGAT meetings, security briefings and more,” and that it was “NOT accurate to say he’s flying out on government funds for a personal trip,” in a social media post featuring an email the FBI sent to MS Now. It bears remembering that in 2023, well before taking the job, Patel publicly declared that the FBI director did not need a “government funded G-5 jet to go [on] vacation,” and suggested grounding the plane. During his 2025 confirmation hearing, Patel promised that the resources of the FBI would be exclusively dedicated to saving American lives. “America deserves a better brand of justice and I’m going to give it to them,” Patel declared.
“For the very concerned media — yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys,” Patel wrote Monday on X. “Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.”
Even if one believes there’s nothing wrong with an administration official joining players in the locker room, Patel behaving like a frat house pledge the day a gunman was shot and killed while attempting to breach Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort suggests that he isn’t as laser-focused on the job as he promised lawmakers he would be.
Jon Stewart took aim at Kash Patel on the latest episode of The Daily Show, mocking the FBI Director for joining the Team USA men’s hockey team after their big Olympics win.
“This country is in such emotional turmoil right now,” Stewart said. “A feeling that we are one nation divided, under siege. That perhaps we have crossed a Rubicon of this great American experiment, and that we, slowly and inexorably, are sliding into the abyss of fallen and broken democracies. But then!”
Stewart recounted Team USA’s win at the Olympics over the weekend. The U.S. hockey team triumphed over Canada in Milan—an event that was attended by Patel. Stewart shared footage of the game’s final moments, cheering as he noted, “I know the powerful elites remain unaccountable, but he put that thing behind that other guy!”
He continued, “This country was sinking into a cesspool we can’t recover from, but the vulcanized rubber disk went past the lord of the net. It was so unifying. There is nothing that can take away from the joyous moment as all Americans celebrate this incredible—wait, what the fuck?”
Stewart then shared a photo of Patel wearing one of the team’s gold medals in the locker room. “Is that FBI Director Kash Patel?” Stewart inquired. “And why are they putting a medal around the neck of FBI Director Kash Patel? Is Kash Patel a Make-a-Wish man? Kid? Is that what this is? And I’m not trying to diminish his condition. Listen, there is currently no cure for crazy eyes.”
The host added that MAGA is “going crazy for the victory,” with one commentator saying the win offsets the current “estrogenic culture.”
“First of all, what a super weird year hockey is having,” Stewart responded. “In four months, to go from, ‘Nobody gives a shit about hockey’ to ‘Well, I like to watch them fuck’ to ‘Only hockey can save us from a dystopian estrogenic future.'”
Stewart explained that the right is also thrilled about being able to take shots at Canada. The host cut to a clip from Fox News, with reporters saying Canadians are “basically communists” and that “hockey is all that they had and we took that away.”
“What is with this sore winning?” Stewart said. “And by the way, don’t we have enough real enemies? Now we got to pretend like Canada’s way of life is incongruous to the west? ‘Yeah! Fuck those completely best neighbors our nation has ever had!’”
He added, “So there you have it folks. We have defeated our new enemy, Canada, on the ice and vanquished them to the penalty box of history. Now America can live in a golden era of peace and prosperity.”
Elsewhere in his monologue, Stewart discussed Donald Trump‘s threats against Iran and how the Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Trump’s “wildly unpopular” tariff strategy.
“Wow. A court composed mostly of his own party’s appointees has struck down the constitutionality of Trump’s go-it-alone tariff regime,” Stewart said. “That’s bound to cause him some introspection.”
Stewart cut to a clip of Trump calling the Supreme Court a “disgrace to our nation” and suggesting the justices are an “embarrassment” to their families. “When a guy who had sex with a porn star right after his wife had given birth tells you you’re an embarrassment to your family, I think you have to take that seriously,” he said.
If the internet had eyes, all of them would currently be trained on the Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba, Japan, where a rejected baby monkey has become an unlikely international star. While animal videos are common fodder online, there’s something about this tiny little monkey that I just can’t stop thinking about. And I’m not the only one.
Punch, or Punch-kun as he’s called in Japanese, is a seven-month old macaque monkey. He was born in July, but after a difficult and long labor, his mother rejected him, according to zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo. Punch was raised by staff, who nursed him until he was able to fend for himself. But when it was time for Punch to be reintroduced to the rest of the monkeys, things didn’t go so smoothly. Many of the other monkeys on “monkey mountain,” as the enclosure is referred to, refuse to allow Punch into the social circle. There’s nothing wrong with him, but as a baby reared with staff instead of inside the group of monkeys, the others just really hate Punch’s vibe. He’s awkward! It’s not his fault!
As if Punch’s story couldn’t get sadder, zookeepers gifted the lonely little monkey a stuffed orangutan toy from Ikea for comfort. As if a sad tiny monkey who’s lonely and doesn’t have any friends wasn’t enough, now I’ve got to watch him drag around a toy that’s practically the same size as him? Are you fucking kidding me?
In the weeks since Punch reached viral status, internet users have been absolutely obsessed with tracking his social progress and integration with the rest of his fellow monkeys. Photos and videos of Punch in the enclosure have racked up millions of views and comments as people dedicate their time and emotional wellbeing to the small downturned face. That means obsessively watching clips as Punch drags his stuffed animal around in the dust, fails to approach another group of monkeys, or eats alone in a corner with his only friend, a $19.99-plus-shipping-and-handling stuffed animal. But it also means people — including me — are absolutely bursting with outrage every time something appears to go even the slightest bit wrong for him.
On Feb. 19, cameras trained on Punch captured another monkey grabbing him by his neck and dragging him across the ground, following as Punch escaped shrieking and sought refuge in the arms of his fuzzy plushy. The response was immediate. Users on X and TikTok begged zookeepers to take Punch to safety. (Zookeepers have maintained he is safe and being watched carefully.) Others threatened the monkeys that wouldn’t let Punch join their posses. There was a common refrain about buying Punch a gun. PETA is even getting in on the action — using Punch’s virality to decry zoos.
The psychological appeal of Punch is readily apparent for even the least inquisitive of people. Small animal? Check. Cute and easy-to-anthropomorphise face? Check. Heartbreaking circumstances? Check. A single friendship that rivals the plot of a Disney short? Check. Add in a name that calls to mind the potential for physical violence on monkey mountain and it’s like Punch was always meant to become the focus of millions. The immediate nature of social media also means that it feels like minute-to-minute updates of Punch’s wellbeing are almost inescapable online. If he tries to approach a group or runs from a fight, people know almost immediately. But acknowledging that I am being emotionally manipulated by my amygdala doesn’t keep me from feeling every emotion when I see that tiny little monkey drag his stuffed toy around the yard.
While content about Punch has centered around his worst moments, he is, in fact, making progress. Through the zoo’s account on X, zookeepers update Punch’s fans on his journey of integrating back into the group. Even the Feb. 19 dragging incident wasn’t an instance of unprovoked bullying, zookeepers said, but a chastisement from an adult monkey who most likely felt that her baby was annoyed by Punch’s efforts to hang out. According to zookeepers, it was the monkey equivalent of telling him “don’t be mean.” Punch has a ways to go before he’s fully an accepted member of the troupe, a process that will continue to be tracked by hordes of people. But zookeepers are positive that Punch is slowly ingratiating himself in the group, and are encouraging his fans to keep their spirits up.
“While Punch is scolded he shows resilience and mental strength,” zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo said in a statement Friday. “When you observe these disciplinary behaviors from other troop members toward Punch when he tries to communicate with them, we would like you to support Punch’s effort rather than feel sorry for him.”
In recent days, Punch has been seen climbing on at least one adult and had his fur groomed by another, indications that he’s slowly capturing hearts of his fellow primates. Punch might be down for the moment. But he’s certainly not out.
