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JPMorgan Chase will pay $75 million to settle claims brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands relating to the bank’s dealings with deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The settlement caps a months-long legal saga in which JPMorgan faced claims of facilitating Epstein’s trafficking of underage women. Bank CEO Jamie Dimon was deposed, as were other executives, and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) started a probe. The bank had already agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action suit brought by Epstein’s victims. Deutsche Bank has paid $75 million to resolve similar claims involving Epstein, who died in jail...

For two decades, the U.S. Virgin Islands’ most prominent government and elected officials - as well as their pet charities, educational institutions and causes - were paid millions of dollars by Jeffrey Epstein in the form of salaries, campaign contributions and consultant fees. His most trusted employee was the U.S. territory’s first lady. At the same time, USVI authorities paid little mind to the young women and girls he shuttled through the St. Thomas airport following his 2008 Palm Beach conviction for soliciting a minor for sex. Epstein’s abuse of underage girls became so well publicized that his hideaway, an...

NEW YORK, Aug 31 (Reuters) - A lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands said on Thursday that JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) told U.S. authorities it processed more than $1 billion for Jeffrey Epstein over 16 years. JPMorgan reported the transactions as suspicious to the U.S. Treasury Department following Epstein's suicide in 2019, Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the territory, said at a hearing concerning its lawsuit against the largest U.S. bank. Reuters did not view the bank's disclosures to the Treasury, which are not public. A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment. Epstein had been a JPMorgan client from 1998 to 2013,...

JPMorgan Chase said the US Virgin Islands gave Jeffrey Epstein more than $300million in tax incentives and waived sex offender monitoring requirements, shielding the disgraced late financier as he gave cash and gifts to top officials and local police. In a Tuesday court filing, the largest US bank described how Epstein allegedly paid law enforcement entities such as the Virgin Islands Police Department. The newly unredacted filing is part of JPMorgan's effort to show that the US Virgin Islands, including former first lady Cecile de Jongh, 'actively facilitated' Epstein's sexual abuse of young women and teenage girls. JPMorgan is defending...

Virgin Galactic customers who have splashed out hundreds of thousands of dollars on a trip to space are finally set to be rewarded. The firm, founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, has confirmed it will perform its first commercial flight, 'Galactic 01', at the end of June. It has a three-day window from June 27 to launch a crew of six aboard the VSS Unity spaceplane from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Galactic 01 will be followed by a second commercial spaceflight, 'Galactic 02,' in early August 2023, with monthly spaceflights expected thereafter. Virgin Galactic completed its final test...

The U.S. Virgin Islands government says it's unable to locate Google co-founder Larry Page to serve him a subpoena in an ongoing lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for allegedly enabling Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, a new federal filing revealed. The Virgin Islands sued the world’s largest bank in December, alleging it knowingly facilitated Epstein’s exploitation of women and minors. The lawsuit argues that the bank "turned a blind eye to evidence of human trafficking over more than a decade because of Epstein’s own financial footprint and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to...

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings (VORB.O) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday after the satellite launch company failed to secure the long-term funding needed to help it recover from a January rocket failure. The Long Beach, California-based company lodged the filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware seeking a sale of its assets after announcing the layoff of roughly 85% of its 750 employees last week. “At this stage, we believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward ... Virgin Orbit went public in 2021 through a blank-check deal, raising $255 million...

Satellite launch company Virgin Orbit is starting an "operational pause" and furloughing most employees except for a skeleton crew, CNBC has reported. The company is reportedly seeking new investors to relieve financial pressure and plans to give "an update on go-forward operations in the coming weeks," a spokesperson said in a statement. Companies like SpaceX launch heavy rockets from the ground to get satellite payloads in orbit. However, Virgin Orbit carries smaller rockets to a height of about 35,000 feet on the wing of a Boeing 747, reducing fuel required. Earlier this year, it attempted to launch nine satellites into...

President Joe Biden plans to leave for a vacation in the Virgin Islands on Tuesday after the United States was blasted with record-cold temperatures and winter weather. The president and his family leave Tuesday evening for St. Croix and plan to stay on the island for the rest of the week to celebrate New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, about 50 people were killed across the United States as a bomb cyclone of Arctic air created record winter storms and freezing temperatures across most of the country. The city of Buffalo suffered a “once-in-a-generation” storm as 43 inches of snow fell over...

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.—Richard Branson is scheduled to travel to the edge of space Sunday in a flight aimed at spurring a new, multibillion-dollar space-tourism industry. The flight, originally scheduled for 9 a.m. ET, was delayed 90 minutes on Sunday because of weather overnight at the launch facility in New Mexico. The launch is now scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET. At that time, a highflying Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. airplane is expected to take off from the Spaceport America facility near Truth or Consequences. The plane, called the VMS Eve, will carry the spacecraft VSS Unity, which will include Mr....

It’s no secret that the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace) has become immensely lucrative in recent years, nor the fact that it has become intensely competitive as a result. To illustrate, one needs to look no further than the top three NewSpace companies in the world right now: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Between these three companies, all founded by billionaires with similar visions, a new space race has begun. In recent months, the race has intensified as Jeff Bezos announced that he would be going to space on the inaugural flight of the New Shepard rocket. In response,...

**SNIP** Prosecutors are attempting to intervene in the lawsuit Maxwell filed against Epstein's estate earlier this year, seeking to block her demand for reimbursement of the legal, security and relocation expenses that she says she incurred as a result of what she claims were wrongful accusations of her alleged involvement in Epstein's alleged crimes. "If Maxwell succeeds on her undocumented and suspect claims for indemnification by the Epstein Estate," prosecutors wrote, "that will threaten the availability of Estate funds to satisfy the Government's potential judgment in its lawsuit against the estate." **SNIP** Epstein first acquired property in the U.S. Virgin...

Sir Richard Branson is seeking a buyer for Virgin Atlantic and has set an end-of-May deadline to save the airline from collapse after a taxpayer bailout proved beyond his reach. The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the pursuit of a £500m government package has been effectively shelved and that the airline is now focused on securing new private investment in the shadow of potential insolvency.

Sir Richard Branson has told staff that Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia will need financial help if they are to survive the coronavirus crisis. The tycoon used an open letter to his 70,000 staff in 35 countries to reassure them he was "working day and night", doing all he could to invest across his business interests despite "no money coming in and lots going out". He admitted his companies were exposed to many of the sectors worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic - travel and leisure included - and also hit out at critics who have suggested he use his...

[Mark] Hamill can't officially confirm or deny whether Luke died a virgin, it does bring the expanded Star Wars universe into question. Star Wars Legends of course introduced Luke's wife named Mara Jade, who is a fan favorite character from the Star Wars novels. Together they had one child named Ben Skywalker, although neither Mara Jade nor their son have been introduced in the movies thus far and Star Wars Legends was removed from canon following Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. After the title reveal of Episode IX and the fact that J.J. Abrams recently said there is more to learn about Rey's parentage, the truth behind Luke's...

White Double THE SCHOOL WHICH IS FOUNDED upon the rule of the great Patriarch of the Monks of the West began with St. Gregory the Great. Such was the independent action of the Holy Spirit who guided it that in it women have prophesied as well as men. It is enough to mention St. Hildegarde and St. Gertrude, with whom we may fitly associate St. Mechtilde and St. Frances of Rome. Anyone who has tried modern methods will find, on making acquaintance with these ancient writers, that he is breathing another atmosphere, and is urged onward by a gentle...

NOVENA IN HONOR OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (Beginning November 12)(i. 300 Days each day. ii. Plenary on the Feast or during the Octave. I, II, IV.) (See Instructions, p. 1., 1910 Raccolta.) 1st, 4th, and 7th Days—November 12, 15, and 18 Mary, Mother of GOD, tradition tells us that when you were three years of age, your parents, Joachim and Anne, took you to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill their vow. The holy couple offered you to GOD by the ministry of the priest in charge, who invoked the blessing of GOD upon you...

White Double “AMONG THE MOST STRIKING PROOFS of the infinite love of our Redeemer is this, that, at a moment in which the love of the faithful was growing cold, the Divine Love proposed himself as the object of special veneration and worship, and the precious treasure of the Church was opened to enrich with indulgences the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge … In that Sacred Heart we must place all our hope, from that Heart ask and expect our salvation.” The great devotion to the...

White Double “ALTHOUGH THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT IN HEAVEN, and the Church mourning here on earth appear to be completely separated,” says Bossuet on this feast, “they are nevertheless united by a sacred bond. This bond is charity, which is found in this land of exile as well as in our heavenly country; which rejoices the triumphant Saints and animates those still militant; which, descending from heaven to earth, and from Angels to men, causes earth to become a heaven, and men to become Angels. For, O holy Jerusalem, happy Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven,...

White Double of the Second Class IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, even amidst their many divergences, the so-called Reformers agreed in utterly rejecting all the honors paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her Divine Son. Four centuries have more than sufficed to show the result of so doing: the Son has followed the Mother! The descendants of those who refused to Mary the title and rights of Theotokos,—Mother of God—refuse to Jesus the title of Son of God in the...