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A key development in the ongoing congressional investigation into the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has emerged, with lawmakers confirming that Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates will appear before the U.S. House Oversight Committee to answer questions about his past interactions with Epstein. The hearing has been formally scheduled for June 10, marking Gates as the latest high-profile public figure to commit to testifying in the probe.

A spokesperson for Gates confirmed to the BBC that Gates “is looking forward to answering all the committee’s questions to support their important work.” To date, no accusations of misconduct related to Epstein’s crimes have been leveled against Gates by any of Epstein’s victims, and his inclusion in the investigation’s documentary record does not carry any implication of criminal wrongdoing on his part.

Details of Gates’ communications and professional and social connections to Epstein were made public earlier this year as part of a massive document dump ordered by federal law. The U.S. Department of Justice has already released more than three million pages of records from the Epstein investigation, but millions more documents are still being held back from public disclosure. The 2024 legislation requiring the full release of Epstein investigation files was signed into law by former President Donald Trump last November, which is what paved the way for the exposure of previously undisclosed details of Gates’ relationship with the disgraced financier.

Gates has already addressed his ties to Epstein privately and publicly on multiple occasions. During an internal meeting with staff of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates spoke openly about the relationship and took personal responsibility for his decision to meet with Epstein. A foundation statement following the meeting noted that “Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail.”

According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Gates apologized to foundation staff for the association, and confirmed he had two extramarital affairs with Russian women that Epstein later discovered. When discussing his connection to Epstein, Gates told staff: “I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit.”

In a public interview with Australia’s 9News earlier this year, Gates expanded on his explanation of the relationship, saying his interactions with Epstein were limited to informal dinners and that he never traveled to Epstein’s private island where many of the financier’s abuses took place. “Every minute I spent with him I regret and I apologise that I did that,” Gates told the outlet.

A subsequent statement from Gates’ spokesperson to the BBC further clarified Gates’ position, emphasizing that the Microsoft co-founder never attended social gatherings with Epstein and had no involvement whatsoever in any illegal activities linked to the late financier. “While Mr. Gates acknowledges that meeting with Epstein was a serious error in judgment, he unequivocally denies any improper conduct related to Epstein and the horrible activities in which Epstein was involved,” the spokesperson said.

The request for Gates’ testimony, which was sent in a formal letter dated March 3, comes as the House Oversight Committee continues to gather testimony from a string of high-profile figures connected to Epstein. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, already appeared before the committee for questioning in February. Upcoming testimony is expected from U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in the coming weeks.

Long before Pete Hegseth sat for his 2025 Senate confirmation hearings to become U.S. Secretary of Defense, his deep conservative evangelical religious commitments had already sparked public scrutiny and debate. Hegseth holds membership in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), a global denomination whose core theology is shaped by the 20th-century Christian Reconstructionism movement.

Many senior CREC leaders openly advocate for replacing secular governance with biblical law, building a theocratic state structured around Christian patriarchy. For the CREC, this theocratic model would be governed by a strict conservative evangelical reading of Christian doctrine. The denomination’s official website lists more than 160 member congregations distributed across North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

Hegseth’s consistent use of explicitly religious language and public prayer in his official capacity has amplified questions about how his personal theological beliefs intersect with his leadership of the U.S. military, the world’s largest fighting force. Most notably, during a March 25, 2026 prayer gathering held amid the ongoing war in Iran, Hegseth delivered a public invocation that read: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.” He continued: “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

As a scholar specializing in the study of American Christian right movements, I have closely researched the CREC, and unpacking the denomination’s history, doctrine, and controversial leadership is critical to understanding Hegseth’s public rhetoric and decision-making.

The CREC is a transnational network of evangelical congregations most closely linked to Doug Wilson, the influential pastor who founded Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Christ Church functions as the CREC’s flagship congregation and de facto denominational headquarters, after Wilson co-founded the network in 1993. A third-generation evangelical who grew up in Moscow, Wilson has built an interconnected religious and educational ecosystem around the church: he founded Logos Schools (a network of private K-12 institutions and homeschool curriculum), Canon Press (a religious publishing and media company), and New Saint Andrews College, all based in the small Idaho town. Every arm of this ecosystem shares the core belief that faithful Christians exist in fundamental conflict with secular modern society.

While Wilson is not Hegseth’s personal pastor, he is the undisputed most influential voice within the CREC, and the two men have repeatedly expressed public approval of one another’s work. In February 2026, Hegseth invited Wilson to lead a prayer service for Pentagon personnel, where Wilson told assembled service members: “If you bear the name of Jesus Christ, there is no armor greater than that. Not only so, but all the devil’s R&D teams have not come up with armor-piercing anything.” In framing the conflict this way, Wilson tied U.S. military personnel’s safety and mission success to personal Christian faith, framing the nation’s enemies as literal agents of Satan.

As Wilson grew Christ Church into the CREC’s hub, he and his congregation have worked to transform Moscow into a model conservative Christian community, with the long-term goal of expanding the movement across the United States and beyond. “Our desire is to make Moscow a Christian town,” Wilson has stated publicly.

CREC doctrine explicitly rejects religious pluralism and political perspectives that diverge from its strict theology. The denomination’s official mission statement commits it to “maintaining its Reformed faith, avoiding the pitfalls of cultural relevance and political compromise that destroys our doctrinal integrity.” CREC congregations adhere to a highly patriarchal reading of Christian scripture: Wilson has publicly argued that in heterosexual sexual relationships, “A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

Politically, CREC theology rejects the dominant interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which requires a separation of church and state to protect religious freedom and bar state sponsorship of religion. As religion scholar Julie Ingersoll explains, within the CREC community, “there is no distinction between religious issues and political ones.” The denomination broadly holds that all government officials must be practicing Christians, and Wilson has gone so far as to argue that “Christians and only Christians are qualified to hold political office” in the United States.

To expand its reach, the CREC uses a “church planting” model that lowers barriers for new congregations to join the network. Religion scholar Matthew Taylor describes the movement’s core mission: “They believe the church is supposed to be militant in the world, is supposed to be reforming the world, and in some ways conquering the world.” While the CREC lacks the mainstream name recognition of large evangelical denominations or high-profile megachurches, it has built a significant footprint across the U.S. and around the globe through this planting strategy. Unlike traditional denominations that require centralized ordination and oversight for new congregations, the CREC provides core theological materials and guidance to independent groups seeking to join the network, allowing for rapid expansion.

As the movement has grown, it has faced growing national scrutiny and controversy. In 1996, Wilson published a book that offered a positive portrayal of chattel slavery in the American South, claiming the system cultivated “affection among the races.” The denomination has also faced national backlash over its handling of widespread sexual abuse allegations. Reporting from Vox’s Sarah Stankorb documented a pervasive culture of normalized sexual abuse and assault, particularly within marriages in CREC communities, leading to a popular podcast centered on survivors’ accounts. Wilson has denied any personal wrongdoing and has stated that abuse claims are referred to law enforcement.

Hegseth’s high-profile policy decisions shortly after taking office in 2025 have further drawn attention to his CREC affiliation. His order banning transgender people from serving openly in the U.S. military, and his decision to strip the name of gay rights activist and former Navy service member Harvey Milk from a U.S. Navy warship, aligned with the CREC’s conservative social views, prompting critics to question the influence of his religious beliefs on military policy.

Amid the Trump administration’s multiple ongoing military conflicts across the globe, Hegseth regularly invokes religious framing to justify U.S. military action. In a March 2026 speech to leaders from Central and South America, he defended U.S. intervention in Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba, and regional military strikes by appealing to a shared transnational Christian identity. He told the gathered leaders: “We share the same interests, and, because of this, we face an essential test – whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics, Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage with strong borders and prosperous people, ruled not by violence and chaos but by law, order, and common sense.”

Hegseth has also leaned heavily on religious language to frame the 2026 war in Iran, with many of his references echoing the medieval Crusades, the series of holy wars waged between Christian and Muslim forces centuries ago. Hegseth bears three tattoos tied to Christian nationalist and Crusader symbolism: one reads “Deus Vult” (Latin for “God wills it,” the original rallying cry of the First Crusade), another is the Arabic word for “infidel,” and the third is the Jerusalem cross, a widely recognized symbol of Christian nationalism. He has also published a book titled *American Crusade* that lays out his ideological framework. Framing the U.S. military campaign in Iran, Hegseth argued: “We’re fighting religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon.”

As long as Hegseth leads the Defense Department, his affiliation with the CREC and consistent use of religious framing will remain a key lens through which to analyze U.S. military policy and conflict management at home and abroad. This analysis is written by Samuel Perry, associate professor of rhetoric at Baylor University.

A high-stakes special runoff election is set to unfold Tuesday in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, where two candidates are vying to fill the unexpected vacancy left by former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The outcome carries national ramifications, as Republicans cling to an extraordinarily narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that could be upended by even a single seat flip.

Greene’s abrupt resignation from Congress in January came after a public and bitter split with former President Donald Trump, leaving thousands of the district’s constituents disgruntled and the seat empty months before the regular November general election. A first round of special voting was held on March 10, but no candidate managed to secure the required outright majority, thanks to a crowded field of contenders. In that initial vote, Democratic candidate Shawn Harris outperformed Republican Clay Fuller by a narrow margin, a shift partially attributed to the lack of other high-profile Democratic candidates in the race. That result cleared the path for Tuesday’s head-to-head runoff, and the winner will immediately face a new challenge: they will serve out the remaining portion of Greene’s original term, which ends in January 2027, and must launch a re-election campaign just months later for the November 2026 midterm elections. Political analysts say it is highly likely that Harris and Fuller will face off again on the general election ballot in the fall.

Fuller, a former district attorney, earned Trump’s early endorsement that pushed him to the top of the crowded Republican primary field. Running in a solidly conservative district that has long leaned Republican, Fuller enters the runoff with a structural advantage. His policy platform aligns almost entirely with Trump’s America First agenda, prioritizing sharp cuts to illegal immigration and the implementation of mass deportation policies. Following his advancement to the runoff, Fuller emphasized that the district’s Republican base is unified behind Trump’s policy goals. “They support President Trump,” he told reporters in March. “They know they want an America first fighter on Capitol Hill, fighting for his policies that are going to make a difference.”

Spanning Georgia’s far northwest corner, stretching from the outer Atlanta suburbs north to the Tennessee state line, the 14th District is mostly rural and has long been a Republican stronghold. Still, it holds small but organized pockets of Democratic support in the communities closer to Atlanta and around the city of Rome. That demographic split is what Harris, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, is counting on to pull off an unexpected upset.

Harris has campaigned aggressively across the district, raised millions in campaign funds, and earned the backing of national Democratic figures including former presidential candidate and Cabinet secretary Pete Buttigieg, who held a public town hall with the candidate in March. Harris is betting that low off-cycle voter turnout, a common dynamic in special runoffs outside regular election years, will let him consolidate enough Democratic and independent voter support to narrowly eke out a win. After advancing to the head-to-head contest, Harris reached across the aisle to voters who backed other candidates in the first round, saying, “Everybody who voted for any other candidate […] I want to talk to every last one of them, and say: ‘Give me a chance.’”

Trump has made repeated public interventions in the race, pushing hard to keep the seat in Republican hands. The stakes are extraordinarily high for GOP House leadership: Republicans currently hold just 217 seats to Democrats’ 214, with one independent who caucuses with the GOP and three vacancies currently being filled. The party’s current majority is so slim that just a handful of defections can derail planned legislation, making the loss of this open seat a worrying prospect for House Republican leadership.

After Fuller secured his spot in the runoff, Trump released a public statement on his Truth Social platform throwing his full weight behind the candidate. “Clay Fuller is going to be a fantastic Congressman in representing the Great State of Georgia,” Trump wrote. “Now we have to be careful and finish it off. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

A newly released city-owned surveillance video from Minneapolis has thrown into question the official account provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding the January shooting of Venezuelan migrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, opening a new rift between local officials and federal immigration authorities amid an ongoing national crackdown on unauthorized migration.

In the immediate aftermath of the January 14 incident, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed that an ICE officer had shot Sosa-Celis in the leg in self-defense, stating the agent had been ambushed by three people and attacked with a snow shovel and broom handle. The confrontation was framed as the conclusion of a high-speed car chase involving Sosa-Celis, who was residing in the U.S. without legal authorization. Based on the officers’ initial statements, federal prosecutors filed charges of assaulting federal officers against both Sosa-Celis and a second migrant, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna.

However, those charges were abruptly dropped in February, after ICE officials acknowledged that the two involved agents appeared to have submitted false statements about the encounter. On Monday, Minneapolis city officials released the full CCTV footage of the lead-up to the shooting, a recording that further undermines the federal government’s original narrative.

The grainy, low-light distant footage does not capture the shooting itself, but it contradicts key claims made by DHS. It shows only a brief struggle between agents and two men, not an ambush by three. Most notably, the footage shows one individual tossing a shovel aside before any physical contact with agents occurs, directly contradicting the claim that an agent was struck with the shovel. The video captures Sosa-Celis running up a residential street, chased by an agent, stumbling before continuing toward a nearby house, followed by a short scrum on the ground before the shooting.

This shooting was not an isolated incident. It is one of a string of violent encounters involving ICE agents operating in Minneapolis, a city that has been a key target of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement push. The string of violent incidents, which also include the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good, already sparked large public protests against federal immigration operations in the city.

Crucially, reporting from The New York Times, which first broke the story of the conflicting footage, revealed that federal investigators had full access to the CCTV recording within hours of the shooting. Despite this access, investigators did not review the footage until nearly three weeks after the two men had already been formally charged. The involved officers, who have not been publicly identified, have been placed on administrative leave as the DHS conducts an internal investigation, and a separate criminal investigation into the incident is also ongoing.

When releasing the video this week, Minneapolis city officials declined to add any further context or comment, stating they had no additional information to share at this time. But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a sharp rebuke of the federal government’s account, saying the video makes clear that the official federal narrative is inconsistent with the facts. Frey noted the discrepancy mirrors other problematic incidents that occurred during Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement sweep targeting the Minneapolis region.

As the deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump for Iran to reach a negotiated deal ticks down, military and legal experts are raising sharp questions about both the practicality and legitimacy of his sweeping threats to destroy massive swathes of Iran’s civilian infrastructure. In a series of escalating statements beginning Monday, Trump promised to wipe out “every bridge” and power station across Iran within just four hours if no agreement was reached by 20:00 EST Tuesday, going so far as to warn that “a whole civilization will die” should Iran fail to meet his demands.

Legal and military analysts interviewed by the BBC universally frame these threats as an unprecedented step for a sitting U.S. president, with international law experts noting that deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure qualifies as a war crime under established international conventions. Trump dismissed these concerns outright during a Monday press briefing, brushing off questions about the humanitarian and legal implications of his proposed action.

Beyond legal concerns, former senior U.S. defense officials and military analysts agree that Trump’s promise to eliminate all of Iran’s bridges and key civilian sites in a single four-hour window is logistically impossible. Spanning a territory roughly one-third the size of the continental United States, Iran hosts a vast network of infrastructure spread across thousands of locations across the country. While U.S. intelligence has solid data on the location of major nuclear sites and key energy facilities, experts say it cannot map and destroy every relevant civilian target across such a large nation in such a compressed time frame.

“To meet this threat literally would be an absolute herculean task. And would it have the desired strategic effect?” a former senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters. “Trump is almost struggling to come up with a new level of threat that he can say with words that will move the strategic needle more in favour of the U.S. here.”

While a widespread attack on Iran’s power sector is more logistically feasible than eliminating every bridge in the country, analysts say even that would fail to deliver the outcome Trump seeks. Most of Iran’s power plants and oil refineries are concentrated in three coastal provinces along the Persian Gulf: Bushehr, Khuzestan, and Hormozgan. Striking these sites would certainly deal a major blow to Iran’s economy and oil export capacity, Miad Maleki, a former senior U.S. Treasury official who led Iran sanctions programs and now serves as a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained, noting that any disruption in these three provinces would cut Iran’s regime off from critical oil revenue and access to the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance confirmed Tuesday during a press briefing in Budapest that the U.S. has already carried out airstrikes on military targets on Kharg Island, which handles roughly 90% of Iran’s total oil exports. Vance emphasized that the strikes did not represent a shift in U.S. strategy, adding that negotiations would continue through Trump’s deadline but warning that the U.S. is prepared to inflict “much greater pain” on Iran’s economy if no deal is reached. “So they’ve got to know, we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them, if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct,” Vance said. The White House later moved to quash speculation that Vance’s comments referenced a potential nuclear strike on Iran.

Limited strikes on civilian infrastructure have already occurred: Iran’s state media reported Tuesday that a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike targeted a bridge in the holy city of Qom, marking the second such attack on a major Iranian bridge after Trump confirmed an airstrike on Iran’s largest bridge last week. Joint U.S.-Israeli operations have continued to hit multiple targets across Iran as of Tuesday, with video and images showing plumes of smoke rising over the capital Tehran.

As of Tuesday, direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials have commenced after weeks of indirect negotiations failed to narrow gaps between the two sides. Despite the resumption of direct dialogue, the parties remain far apart on core sticking points, including the future of Iran’s oil sector, the status of its nuclear program, and governance of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has named special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Vice President Vance as lead negotiators, but a senior anonymous U.S. official clarified that Witkoff and Kushner are leading daily negotiations, with Vance only set to join directly if a final deal appears imminent.

Trump appears to be betting that widespread attacks that disable Iran’s power grid will stoke public pressure on Iran’s regime to accept a deal, but analysts say that calculation is flawed. Even before the current conflict began in late February, Iranians were already grappling with chronic, widespread power outages, and the regime is unlikely to view additional blackouts as motivation to concede to U.S. demands, Maleki argued. “This is not a wartime issue. The Iranian people are already dealing with a completely dysfunctional energy and power sector,” he said.

Furthermore, attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure could undermine Trump’s own core goal of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed to most oil tanker traffic. The closure has already roiled global energy markets and sent oil prices soaring. Jason Campbell, a former Department of Defense official who served under both Trump and former President Joe Biden and now is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, noted that Trump has failed to make a convincing case that escalation will deliver the U.S. its desired outcomes. After nearly six weeks of conflict, Iran’s regime has already demonstrated a high tolerance for disruption and is unlikely to cave to U.S. demands, Campbell said, noting that for Iran’s leadership, the conflict is “an existential fight not just for the country but for the regime.”