BBC News Briefing

3 February, 2026

Alex has short blonde hair and blue eyes. She is smiling and wearing a black turtleneck

Alex Binley

Hello. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken down thousands of documents related to late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein that were released on Friday, because they identified victims. In Latvia, reporter Max Easterman goes searching for clues about his family's forgotten past. And watch as defiant Ukrainians party on a frozen river.

TOP OF THE AGENDA

Thousands of Epstein documents taken down after victims identified

An image shows a man and a woman sitting in what appears to be a plane. The man has grey hair and is wearing a white T-shirt and pointing to something out of the window. The woman has long brown hair and is wearing a white shirt. Her face is obscured by a black square.

Two lawyers representing victims called it 'the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history'. Credit: Reuters

The lives of nearly 100 Epstein victims have been "turned upside down" after they were left identifiable by flawed redactions, which included nude images and email addresses, their lawyers have said. The DOJ said the mistakes were due to "technical or human error". Also included were emails from the UK's ex-business secretary, Peter Mandelson, who appeared to have sent government information to Epstein in 2009. London's Metropolitan Police confirmed it has launched a criminal investigation into alleged misconduct in public office. Separately, another force said it is assessing information after the BBC reported a second woman claimed she was sent to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. BBC News has asked him for comment, but so far he has not responded to the accusation. He has previously strongly denied any wrongdoing.

GET UP TO SPEED

A large, grey aircraft carrier is seen in the sea. Planes are parked on it.

US 'shot down Iranian drone flying towards ship'

The aircraft carrier was 500 miles from the Iranian coast when the drone approached it with "unclear intent", an official said.

What happened >

People wearing coats, hats and blankets sit on camping chairs. Some are looking at their phones

'Record number of missiles' hit Ukraine

The strikes were launched as temperatures dropped to -20C (-4F) and left more than 1,000 tower blocks in Kyiv without heating.

Read more >

Austin Applebee, who has blonde curly hair and is wearing a navy top with green stripes down the arm, sits next to his mother Joanne, who wears glasses and has brown hair, in a living room

Boy, 13, on 'superhuman' swim to save family

The teen swam for hours to get help for his family after they were swept out to sea, but said he doesn't see himself as a hero.

Watch the video >

A split image shows a woman with long blonde hair, wearing a tweed jacket on the left, and on the right is a grey painting of an angel that looks like her

Probe as restored angel fresco resembles Italy PM

The artist said he had simply restored the fresco he painted in 2000 and denied modelling the angel after Giorgia Meloni.

More on this >

NEWS FROM THE UK

Sarah Ferguson: In emails from the ex-duchess of York to Epstein, "she comes across as a needy figure, chasing money", writes our royal correspondent.

Anya Taylor-Joy: An armed robber who tried to prise open the star's bedroom door while she was staying at a London mansion has been jailed.

Watch: A herd of runaway horses was caught on CCTV galloping through the streets of a Nottinghamshire village before they were caught.

AT THE SCENE

Skuodas District Municipality, Lithuania

Journey to find family's lost past

A man in a black jacket and black backpack, with beige trousers stands amongst trees which are turning orange in the autumn. A number of small headstones are seen in the grass.

The cemetery was so overgrown that Max was unable to find any plots belonging to his family. Credit: Audra Čepkauskaitė

Today, Lithuania's Jewish community numbers just a few thousand. Prior to World War II it was around 200,000 - the vast majority of whom were murdered during the Holocaust. Max Easterman recently visited the Baltic nation to trace the lives of his recently discovered ancestors.

Max has short grey hair and wears glasses. He is wearing a high-neck black jumper

Max Easterman, journalist

We’d travelled north-west from Vilnius, almost to the Latvian border and finally by rowboat across a wide lake, to an island, most of it a graveyard of tilting or fallen gravestones. This was the Jewish cemetery for Mosėdis – the shtetl – or little town - from which my grandfather had emigrated to Scotland nearly 150 years ago. It was where I hoped to find the graves of his ancestors…

‌

We were rowed over by Stasys Laimikis who told me he’d been to the island 30 times last year. He's not Jewish, he explained - so why, I asked him? "I go there to pray for the souls of the Jewish dead," he said. "There’s no-one else to do that."