There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

IT IS hard to imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin getting much in the way of sleep right now. With Ukraine having seized the initiative and momentum after six months of conflict — six months that neither Putin nor his military advisers thought it would take to crush Ukrainian resistance to the Kremlin’s “special military operation” — Putin is being taught a salient lesson in the perils of hubris when it comes to waging war.
In his much-anticipated address to the Russian people — and by extension the world — in the aftermath of a stunning Ukrainian counteroffensive that succeeded in retaking 2,000 square miles of territory back from Russian control in north-east Ukraine earlier this month, Putin has claimed that Russia is “fighting the entire Western military machine.”
Here, at least, he does have a point, what with the West coming to the aid of Ukraine with huge amounts of aid in military equipment, training, logistics and planning over these past six months. However, that he and his military chiefs failed to anticipate or factor this probability into their plans at the outset constitutes a major blunder, one that has been paid for in the lives of thousands of Russian troops.

Mary Kom’s fists made history in the boxing world. Malak Mesleh’s never got the chance. One story ends in glory, the other in grief — but both highlight the defiance of women who dare to fight, writes JOHN WIGHT

The Khelif gender row shows no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of anyone involved anytime soon, says boxing writer JOHN WIGHT

When Patterson and Liston met in the ring in 1962, it was more than a title bout — it was a collision of two black archetypes shaped by white America’s fears and fantasies, writes JOHN WIGHT

In the land of white supremacy, colonialism and the foul legacy of the KKK, JOHN WIGHT knows that to resist the fascism unleashed by Trump is to do God’s work