British politician Peter Mandelson faces pressure to quit House of Lords over Jeffrey Epstein ties

LONDON (AP) — A year ago, Peter Mandelson was Britain’s ambassador to Washington, the latest high-profile post in a rocky but consequential political career.

Friendship with Jeffrey Epstein cost him that job. Now, after new revelations, Mandelson — like other powerful men including King Charles III's brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — is facing new demands he come clean about his relationship with the late sex offender.

Mandelson resigned from the governing Labour Party on Sunday following new claims he received payments from Epstein two decades ago. Mandelson said he was stepping aside to avoid causing “further embarrassment,” even as he denied the allegations stemming from a trove of more than 3 million pages of documents relating to Epstein released by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who fired Mandelson from his ambassadorial job over earlier revelations about his Epstein ties, is now urging him to quit politics altogether and testify in the U.S. about what he knew of the financier's activities.

Opposition politicians, joined by some lawmakers from the governing Labour Party, called for police to investigate claims Mandelson gave Epstein sensitive government information. The Metropolitan Police force said it had received “a number of reports relating to alleged misconduct in a public office” and would review them "to determine if they meet the criminal threshold for investigation.”

Starmer urged Mandelson on Monday to resign from his lifetime seat in the House of Lords — Parliament's upper chamber of appointed politicians, donors and assorted notables — and to give up his noble title, Lord Mandelson.

The alternative if he does not go willingly would be a lengthy process requiring Parliament to pass legislation — a process last undertaken more than a century ago to remove the titles of aristocrats who sided with Germany in World War I.

“The prime minister believes that Peter Mandelson should not be a member of the House of Lords or use the title,” said Starmer spokesman Tom Wells. “However, the prime minister does not have the power to remove it.”

Mandelson — like Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew — is also facing calls to testify about Epstein in the U.S.

Cabinet minister Steve Reed said Monday that both men have a “moral obligation” to share any information that could help Epstein’s victims.

Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls. Years before he had avoided federal prosecution by pleading guilty to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor and another charge.

The latest release of Epstein files includes hundreds of text and email messages exchanged between Mandelson and the financier, revealing the British politician's warm relationship with the man he called “my best pal” in 2003.

Several documents seem to refer to payments from Epstein to Mandelson or his partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva. What appear to be bank statements from 2003 and 2004 suggest an Epstein account sent three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts connected to Mandelson.

Mandelson has questioned the authenticity of the bank statements. In a letter to Labour resigning from the party, Mandelson said he had no recollection of receiving that money and would investigate.

“While doing this I do not wish to cause further embarrassment to the Labour Party and I am therefore stepping down from membership of the party,” he wrote.

Mandelson added that he wanted to “repeat my apology to the women and girls whose voices should have been heard long before now.”

Other documents suggest that in 2009 Epstein sent da Silva 10,000 pounds (about $13,650 at today's rates) to pay for an osteopathy course.

The documents also include an email exchange from 2009 in which Mandelson, then a U.K. government minister, appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

Documents also suggest Mandelson sent details of sensitive U.K. government discussions to Epstein after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Starmer on Monday ordered the civil service to conduct an “urgent” review of all of Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein while he was in government.

Also among the files is a photo of Mandelson in a shirt and underwear, standing near an unidentified woman in a bathrobe.

A email requesting comment on the documents was sent to Mandelson through the House of Lords.

Mandelson, 72, has been a major, if contentious, figure in the center-left Labour Party for decades. He is a skilled — critics say ruthless — political operator whose mastery of political intrigue earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”

The grandson of former Labour Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison, he was an architect of the party’s return to power in 1997 as centrist, modernizing “New Labour” under Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mandelson served in senior government posts under Blair between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. In between, he was the European Union’s trade commissioner.

Mandelson twice had to resign from government during the Blair administration over allegations of financial or ethical impropriety, acknowledging mistakes but denying wrongdoing.

He later returned to government, and was back on the political front line when Starmer named him to the key post of ambassador to Washington at the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Mandelson’s trade expertise and comfort around the ultra-rich were considered major assets with the administration. He helped secure a trade deal in May that spared Britain some of the tariffs Trump has imposed on countries around the world.

But Starmer fired him in September after emails were published showing Mandelson's friendship with Epstein continued even after the financier's 2008 guilty plea.

This story has been updated to correct that documents suggest Epstein sent Mandelson's partner 10,000 pounds, not $10,000. It was also updated to correct that the Justice Department says the release contains more than 3 million pages of documents, not more than 3 million documents.

British Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson speaks during the rededication ceremony of the George Washington Statue in the National Gallery in London, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

FILE - Britain's Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, speaks during a reception at the ambassador's residence on Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump, left, gets a reaction from Britian's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson, right, as they take questions from members of the media after announcing a trade deal between U.S. and U.K. in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, file)

FILE - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 in Washington. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP, file)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a news conference.

The engine firing was flawless, she noted.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crewmates were glued to the capsule's windows as they left Earth in the rearview mirror, taking in the “phenomenal” views. Their faces were pressed so tightly against the windows that they had to wipe them clean.

“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.

NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.

Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will go the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at flight’s end on April 10.

Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black person, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.

“Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful," Glover said in a TV interview after beholding the globe from pole to pole. "And from up here you also look like one thing: homo sapiens as all of us no matter where you’re from or what you look like, we’re all one people.”

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them.

“We are ready to go,” Glover said.

Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule is relying on the gravity of Earth and the moon — termed a free-return lunar trajectory — to complete the round-trip figure-eight loop. The engine accelerated their capsule to more than 24,000 mph (38,000 kph) to shove them out of Earth's orbit.

“I’ve got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this," Wiseman said. "Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that.”

Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were all business while on duty but will likely reflect on the momentousness of it all once they go home.

“I suspect everybody understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment," he told reporters.

The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.

Orion will zoom 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savored the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.

NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028.

The so-called lunar loo may need some design tweaks, however.

Orion's toilet malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.

The urine pouches are serving double duty. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser on Thursday. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem recurred. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 2 gallons (7 liters) worth before pivoting to the moon.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Artemis II crew, from left, Canadien astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and pilot Victor Glover as they speak with NASA Mission Control via video conference from the moon's orbit Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This image released by NASA on Thursday, April 2, 2026, shows NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Earth in the background. (NASA via AP)

This image taken from video provided by NASA shows the Earth, left, from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it fired its engines heading toward the moon Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, a view of the Earth from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it orbits above the planet during the Artemis II test flight, on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station's cupola, on March 30, 2026. (Jessica Meir/NASA via AP)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)