Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, refused to answer questions from House lawmakers during a scheduled deposition at a federal prison facility in Texas, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights and declining to provide testimony in a congressional investigation into Epstein’s trafficking network. Behind closed doors, Maxwell’s legal team delivered a message to lawmakers: she would be willing to testify “fully and honestly”, but only if President Donald Trump were to grant her clemency or commute her prison sentence. Her attorney claimed that Maxwell could confirm that neither Trump nor former President Bill Clinton committed criminal wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, framing her testimony as contingent on presidential intervention. WATCH 

Before she was a star, Bhumi Pednekkar was a star-maker—a casting agent at Yash Raj Films who helped discover the likes of Ranveer Singh and Vicky Kaushal. In this deep-dive interview with Mayank Shekhar, Bhumi looks back at her life on the other side of the camera and the harsh reality of delivering one of Hindi cinema’s biggest washouts.