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President Biden has said Donald Trump is “willing to sacrifice our democracy” to regain power – as the US Supreme Court agreed to look at questions over his eligibility.

Mr Trump is favourite to be his rival again in November’s election.

President Biden attacked his ambitions and motivations, repeatedly referencing the 2021 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.

It came as the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr Trump‘s appeal over Colorado’s decision to disqualify him from its presidential primary elections.

The state of Maine has also followed suit.

The Supreme Court – which is weighted in his favour – could now make a decision that will settle such eligibility questions.

It indicated a speedy decision, scheduling oral arguments for 8 February, ahead of the Colorado primary on 5 March.

The states excluded him over language in the US Constitution’s 14th amendment that bars people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.

A statement by the Trump campaign said it looked forward to a ruling that would “affirm the civil rights of President Trump, and the voting rights of all Americans”.

Speaking in Pennsylvania on Friday, President Biden said the election would be a fight for the country’s soul and “all about whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause”.

“Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot,” he said.

He painted Mr Trump’s re-election campaign as a backward-looking ego-trip and “all about him, not America”.

The Capitol riots, in Washington on 6 January 2021, saw Trump supporters run amok after he made false claims the election had been “stolen”.

Mr Biden called the event one of the “worst derelictions by a president in US history” because Mr Trump did not intervene.

“He told the crowd to fight like hell. And all hell was unleashed,” Mr Biden told supporters near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

“Then as usual he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House.”

“We nearly lost America – lost it all,” Mr Biden added.

Five people died due to the chaos and dozens were injured, as thousands descended on Washington to try to stop the election result being certified.

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The ex-president is promising “revenge and retribution” if elected again and his campaign has glorified the riots, said Mr Biden.

He said Mr Trump’s description of his opponents as “vermin” was the “exact same language used in Nazi Germany.

Mr Biden also hit out at Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 result, saying he had lost 60 court cases and “exhausted every legal avenue”.

The former president faces dozens of criminal charges related to his efforts to reverse his election loss.

However, he says top Democrats are themselves trying to subvert democracy by using the legal system to stop his campaign.

Ahead of Mr Biden’s speech, the Trump team put out an ad calling Mr Biden “the true destroyer of democracy” and referencing the special counsel’s investigation into his actions on 6 January.

Prince Andrew had daily massages when he spent “weeks” at Jeffrey Epstein’s Florida home according to the billionaire’s former housekeeper, court documents have revealed.

The newly-released documents include the transcript of a video interview with Juan Alessi, who worked at the paedophile financier’s Palm Beach residence.

The unsealing of the first batch of papers caused the court’s website to crash earlier this week, but much of the content repeats information that was already in the public domain.

In a video-taped interview under oath in 2009, Mr Alessi faced questions on Epstein’s relationship with the Duke of York and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson.

Mr Alessi said he believes the Duchess of York visited the Florida estate “only once and for a short time” but identified Andrew as someone who “spent weeks with us”.

When asked if he would “frequently have massages”, Mr Alessi replied: “I would say, daily massages.”

Andrew stepped back from public life amid a furore over his friendship with Epstein in November 2019.

He was then cast out of the working monarchy and stripped of his HRH title when Virginia Giuffre accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17. He strenuously denies any wrongdoing.

The third and fourth batches of documents with details on Epstein’s sexual abuse of teenage girls includes a total of 73 exhibits.

The third tranche consists of 411 pages and the fourth totals 649.

The papers were part of a lawsuit filed by Ms Giuffre against Epstein‘s former girlfriend and long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The lawsuit was settled in 2017.

The documents are sprinkled with the names of celebrities and politicians who socialised or worked with paedophile financier Epstein in the years before accusations against him became public.

The third set of documents include photocopies of Epstein’s assistant’s notepad, revealing Harvey Weinstein – who was exposed as a sexual predator in October 2017 – once called the paedophile financier.

He also received a call from the wife of former Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner “to talk about something private”, the documents reveal.

They also show that lawyers hunting for information on Maxwell’s computer searched for words including “Prince” and “Andrew” as well as the terms “masturbate” and “nipple”.

More from Sky News:
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Andrew has found himself back in the spotlight though, as the second release included testimony from a woman who claimed he touched her breast while on a couch at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2001.

Buckingham Palace has previously said the allegations are “categorically untrue”.

Other notable names mentioned are Stephen Hawking, Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton but their inclusion does not mean they are accused of wrongdoing.

Members of the Pistorius family have told Sky News that Oscar’s release has brought them a measure of clarity after an exhausting and protracted legal battle that spanned almost a decade.

They said that they are desperately happy to welcome him home, and he is surrounded by those who love him.

As a disabled individual, they assert that Pistorius suffered numerous hardships inside the correction system, but they believe that he has served his time.

They told Sky News that Oscar Pistorius is not the same man who entered the custody of the correctional services in 2013. The mistake that he made is something he will regret for the rest of his life, they added.

Pistorius does not have a plan for the immediate future – other than fulfilling his parole conditions, which includes getting a job.

Family members believe that he will continue to serve society in the most meaningful way that he can, just as he did when he was an athlete.

His disability drove him to help others – whenever and wherever he could – and they think that is unlikely to change.

Read more:
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‘Has there been justice for Reeva?’

Pistorius – a double amputee who became an Olympian and a global star – has served nine years behind bars for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

He had fired four times through a locked toilet cubicle door – hitting Ms Steenkamp in the head, hip and hand – and maintains he had mistaken her for a dangerous intruder.

However, prosecutors alleged that he intentionally killed her in anger during an argument.

In a statement following his release on parole, Reeva Steenkamp’s mother June said she accepted Pistorius’s parole, but the pain of her daughter’s death remained “raw and real”.

She added: “Has there been justice for Reeva? Has Oscar served enough time? There can never be justice if your loved one is never coming back, and no amount of time served will bring Reeva back. We who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence.”

Pistorius will face strict parole conditions until his sentence expires in 2029 – including a ban on consuming alcohol and speaking to the media.

The 37-year-old is also required to attend programmes on anger management and violence against women, and complete community service.

He could be jailed once again if he breaches any of these conditions.

Officials at a prison in Pretoria described his release as an “operation” that was designed to avoid a media scramble.

The decision to release Pistorius has divided opinion in the city – and while some say he deserves a second chance, others regard his punishment as too lenient.

Bulelwa Adonis, a spokesperson for Women For Change, said: “We are talking about somebody’s life that’s been taken… The fact that someone can walk out free eight years later, it tells us that it’s not that big of a deal.”