Ghislaine Maxwell, the close friend of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been charged over her 'critical role' in helping the now late billionaire groom underage victims and for lying under oath.
Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex.
Continue reading...Maxwell had kept a low profile and her whereabouts were unknown since Epstein’s arrest last July on sex trafficking charges
Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and close friend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested, an FBI spokesman has said.
Maxwell was accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges.
Continue reading...The killing of a young black man who was jogging in a Georgia town when he was shot dead has become a part of national debate
A grand jury has returned indictments on the three suspects in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man who was accosted and shot dead as he went for a jog in a Georgia town, US media has reported.
The killing sparked widespread outrage and has since become a key part of an intense national debate around police killings and racism.
Continue reading...The adult film star Ron Jeremy was charged with raping three women and sexually assaulting a fourth, Los Angeles county prosecutors said Tuesday.
Jeremy, 67, whose real name is Ron Jeremy Hyatt, was charged with three counts each of forcible rape and forcible penetration by a foreign object and one count each of forcible oral copulation and sexual battery.
Continue reading...Special agents in America have busted a smuggling ring on the US-Mexico border, but their haul is not drugs or the immigrants that President Donald Trump rails against with his “big beautiful wall”.
These smugglers were trafficking something all together less high profile – so-called “living rock cactus” that grows uniquely on the arid plains of Big Bend national park in Texas.
Continue reading...Charges come after a three-year investigation of the actor, who is being held on $3.3m bail
Danny Masterson, the actor known for That ‘70s Show, has been charged with the rapes of three women in the early 2000s, Los Angeles prosecutors said Wednesday.
The three counts of rape by force or fear come after a three-year investigation of the 44-year-old Masterson. The charges were filed Tuesday and Masterson was arrested late Wednesday morning, jail records showed. He was released a few hours later after posting bond and is scheduled to be arraigned 18 September.
Continue reading...Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medellín cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s
The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medellín drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online.
Carlos Lehder Rivas, who has both German and Colombian citizenship, was escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities, the report said.
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Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced yet again during Sunday afternoon’s Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, although these days it might qualify as bigger news if the former reality TV host’s terrazzo-and-brass totem went longer than a week unmolested.
Trump’s star was defaced during today’s Hollywood protest march. #blm #hollywoodprotest #JusticeForGeorgeFlyod #hollywoodboulevard #hollywoodblvd #protests pic.twitter.com/UI3SOIZSiV
Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered at the Montana State Capitol building in Helena in protest of the killing of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Helena Independent Record reports Sunday’s protest is the largest of a number of demonstrations that have been held in Montana’s capital city in recent weeks amid the nationwide backlash to police-related violence against black and brown people.
The protest for George Floyd in Helena, MT is... huge. pic.twitter.com/LLwdiHMwxZ
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Bobby Rush, an Illinois congressman and a Civil Rights era leader who co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1967, responded to Trump’s Rose Garden address with this:
We are living in a police state. https://t.co/YjO8x7QZjt
The Episcopal bishop of DC told The Washington Post that she was “outraged” after the officers cleared peaceful protestors gathered near the White House with tear gas and rubber bullets, to clear the way for Donald Trump to take photos outside St. John’s Church.
The Episcopal bishop of DC – who oversees the DC church Trump just stopped at – tells the @washingtonpost she is "outraged" and that neither she nor the rector was asked or told… “that they would be clearing with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop.." 1/3
"We so disassociate ourselves from the messages of this president. We hold the teachings of our sacred texts to be so so grounding to our lives and everything we do and it is about love of neighbor and sacrificial love and justice." @Mebudde Bishop Mariann Budde 3/3
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A striking detail from tonight’s coverage has been reports that as protesters surged towards the White House on Friday night, US president Donald Trump, his wife Melania and son Barron briefly retreated to the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre – a fortified bunker-like structure beneath the residence.
The last time a US head of state was publicly known to have used the bunker was on 11 September, 2001, where senior members of the George W Bush administration spent that day after their west wing offices were evacuated. There are no other public reports of presidents needing to use the area since - the New York Times, which first reported this detail, says “it has not been used much, if at all” since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it notes the area has since been strengthened to withstand the impact of a passenger jet.
Related: Trump fled to bunker as protests over George Floyd raged outside White House
My colleague Julian Borger in Washington DC has just filed this update on a tense evening the capital.
Multiple fires broke out near the White House late on Sunday evening, as angry protesters gathered in Washington DC for the third night in a row following the death of George Floyd.
Sunday evening’s protests in front of the White House started relatively cheerfully, with a crowd of a few thousand in Lafayette park. Earlier in the day, demonstrators had marched through the city’s downtown, chanting “George Floyd! Say his name!” and “No Justice! No Peace!”
Related: Fires light up Washington DC on third night of George Floyd protests
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The Guardian’s Ankita Rao, reporting from New York, on the mayor’s controversial late-night statements:
Mayor Bill de Blasio took to the podium on Saturday night to tell protestors across the city that they were “heard, loud and clear”.
I’m in Brooklyn to talk about tonight’s protests. https://t.co/oBVXGh7JWo
US prosecutors have filed federal charges against three people in New York, accusing them of using “molotov cocktails” on New York police vehicles during the Friday protests:
BREAKING: Three people charged with federal crimes in connection with Molotov cocktail attacks on the NYPD during #GeorgeFloyd protests in NYC Friday night. pic.twitter.com/dyaDJByMit
Continue reading...Authorities say Thomas Scully-Powers, 32, stabbed his father multiple times as horrified call participants scrambled to dial 911
A Long Island man suspected of fatally stabbing his father on a live Zoom call confessed to the caught-on-camera killing after police found him trying to wash blood off his body with Dr Pepper, prosecutors said on Friday.
Thomas Scully-Powers, 32, was arraigned via video and ordered jailed without bail after pleading not guilty to a murder charge in the attack on Long Island, New York, on Thursday that left 72-year-old Dwight Powers nearly decapitated as horrified call participants scrambled to dial 911.
Continue reading...Suspect was taken into custody safely, officer said, while one injured person was taken to a hospital
Three people were injured, one of them critically, in a shooting near a popular shopping and entertainment district west of Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday, police said.
The suspect was taken into custody safely, Glendale officer Tiffany Ngalula said in a televised briefing. The most seriously injured person was taken to a hospital, and the two others were expected to survive.
Continue reading...The local prosecutor who argued two white men were legally justified in chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, has been at the center of aggressive and flawed prosecutions of at least two black women in recent years.
One of the women was wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade on a murder conviction secured by later discredited forensic evidence, and another woman was unsuccessfully tried twice for helping people vote.
Continue reading...Marcus Arbery Sr says Ahmaud’s death at the hands of two white men, while he was out for a run, was an act of racism
Marcus Arbery Sr says his son was just like him, fit and athletic.
Related: ‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case
Continue reading...Convicted rapist will be evaluated to determine which state prison facility meets his security, medical and other needs
Harvey Weinstein was transferred to a state prison in New York on Wednesday as he begins to serve a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault in his landmark #MeToo case.
The disgraced film mogul, who will turn 68 on Thursday, is locked up at the maximum security Wende correctional facility near Buffalo, according to state prison officials. He is known behind bars as inmate No 20B0584.
Continue reading...New York judge imposed 20 years for a first-degree criminal sex act and three years for third-degree rape, to run consecutively
Harvey Weinstein, the titan of Hollywood turned convicted rapist, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison on Wednesday in New York.
Related: Weinstein’s lawyers say 'remarkable accomplishments' warrant light prison sentence
Continue reading...Defense team pleads for minimum sentence after Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on one woman and raping another
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers have petitioned the judge who presided over his trial and rape conviction in a New York court to sentence him to the minimum of five years in prison, controversially citing the fallen producer’s “remarkable accomplishments”.
The disgraced mogul’s defense team, led by Donna Rotunno, are pleading for the very lightest possible sentence. Judge James Burke will reconvene at the New York supreme court at 9.30am on Wednesday to hand down his sentence, which could be as severe as 29 years in prison.
Continue reading...Harvey Weinstein’s record of sexual attacks and harassment against women dates back to the 1970s in a “lifetime of abuse” in which he “trapped women into his exclusive control and assaulted or attempted to assault them”, according to New York prosecutors.
In a note to the New York supreme court released on Friday ahead of Weinstein’s sentencing next week, the lead prosecutor at his rape trial essentially threw the book at the fallen movie mogul. Without providing the state’s desired sentence, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon urged Judge James Burke to impose “a sentence that reflects the seriousness of [his] offenses, his total lack of remorse for the harm he has caused, and the need to deter him and others from engaging in further criminal conduct”.
Continue reading...Harvey Weinstein, the titan of Hollywood turned convicted rapist, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison. In February 2020, a New York jury found Weinstein guilty of rape and sexual assault against two women who had hoped he could help build their careers. The Guardian's Ed Pilkington looks back at how the disgraced producer was able to operate above the law for decades, and what the verdict means for the #MeToo movement and his dozens of accusers.
In the US, Rainn offers support at 800-656-4673 or by chat at Rainn.org. In the UK, the rape crisis national freephone helpline is at 0808-802-9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800-737-7328) or 1800respect.org.au. Other international helplines can be found at Ibiblio.org