Up to 30 women are expected to take a judge up on his invitation to speak at a hearing after Jeffrey Epstein killed himself while facing sex trafficking charges.
Related: Prince Andrew took a flight on Epstein private jet with Russian model
Continue reading...Prince Andrew has commented on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, saying he did not “see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to [the] arrest and conviction” of the deceased financier.
Related: 'Boorish and self-centred': little love for Prince Andrew over Epstein links
Continue reading...Court papers detail no beneficiaries for $577m estate, opening a potentially lengthy battle as victims seek justice
Jeffrey Epstein signed a will just two days before he killed himself in jail, new court records show, opening a new legal front in what could be a lengthy battle over the disgraced financier’s fortune.
Court papers filed last week in the US Virgin Islands list no details of beneficiaries but value the estate at more than $577m, including more than $56m in cash.
Continue reading...The financier is dead but the investigation has continued – and it’s possible any participants may have fled into hiding
Jeffrey Epstein is dead but the investigation that snared on sex trafficking charges has continued as authorities seek to make good on their promise not to let the convicted sex offender’s apparent suicide mark an end to their quest for justice.
Given the nature of the wealthy financier’s elite international social scene, it’s possible potential co-conspirators or other participants in the alleged trafficking would have the means to flee into hiding, in the US or abroad.
Continue reading...Jim Kenney urged state and federal government to stand up to NRA or ‘then let us police ourselves’
The mayor of Philadelphia has joined a growing chorus of calls for America to take action on gun control after a dramatic shooting incident in which six police officers were wounded as they served a drug warrant.
The officers were injured as part of a night of drama which saw a tense standoff eventually resolved when the suspected gunman was taken into custody. It is believed he had an automatic rifle and he exchanged multiple bursts of gunfire with police which saw civilians run for cover in a densely populated part of the city.
Continue reading...The wealthy financier, who died by apparent suicide, lived freely for years despite the multitude of sex abuse allegations
When Jeffrey Epstein first appeared in Manhattan federal court to face sex trafficking charges last month, gone were the trappings of a high-flying financier who had once counted the rich and powerful as his associates and for whom the whole world seemed a fantasy playground.
Epstein, whose navy blue jail scrubs and mussed-up hair gave him an air of fatigued dishevelment, pleaded not guilty to allegations that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls” between 2002 and 2005 at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida.
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Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador is accusing the Trump administration of trying to start a war by sabotaging talks between president Nicholas Maduro and his opposition, as the Trump administration’s national security adviser John Bolton doubled down on his view that “Maduro has to go,” according to the Associated Press.
Addressing a summit on Venezuela’s crisis in Peru’s capital, Lima, Bolton pronounced Maduro’s “dying regime” doomed – even though a seven-month US-backed campaign has so far failed to topple Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian successor.
Bolton claimed Donald Trump’s latest moves – which will also see those who do business with Maduro’s government sanctioned – would help end “Maduro’s tyrannical reign”.
Related: 'It will not work': experts question Venezuela sanctions as Bolton touts them
Two members of Congress have sent a letter to the National Archives seeking records related to the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“In the coming year, the supreme court will again address important matters regarding civil rights, criminal justice, and immigration,” reads the letter, authored by the New York congressman and House judiciary committee chairman Jerrold Nadler and the Georgia congressman Hank Johnson.
Related: Judicial council tosses misconduct claims against Brett Kavanaugh
Continue reading...Donald Trump faced a barrage of criticism on Sunday as the US reeled from a brutal mass shooting in the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, linked to white nationalism and anti-immigrant hate rhetoric.
A total of 20 people were killed in the majority Latino city, nestled in western Texas on the US-Mexico border, as federal authorities investigated a potential hate crime and local prosecutors charged a 21-year-old white man, Patrick Crusius, with murder and said they would pursue the death penalty.
Continue reading...At least 16 high-profile attacks have been motivated by white nationalist conspiracy theories
In the past eight years, more than 175 people around the world have been killed in at least 16 high-profile attacks motivated, or apparently motivated, by white nationalist conspiracy theories, including the far right racist belief that nonwhite immigrants and refugees are “invaders” who pose an existential threat to the white race.
Related: Two mass shootings in US leave at least 29 dead as Trump faces criticism
Continue reading...Nine people in Ohio have been killed in the second mass shooting in the US in less than 24 hours, and the suspected shooter also died, police have said. Dayton police tweeted that an active shooter situation began in the Oregon district at 1am on Sunday, but that officers nearby were able to 'put an end to it quickly'.
Continue reading...At least 20 people have been killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping for the new school year in the Texas border city of El Paso, sending panicked shoppers fleeing.
Texas governor Greg Abbott said 20 people had been killed, and more than two dozen more were injured. Mexico’s President Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead and six were among the wounded.
Continue reading...Timothy Sammons used works by Picasso and Chagall as collateral for personal loans
A prominent British art dealer who defrauded his clients out of millions by using a scheme that involved masterpieces by artists including Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall has been sentenced for up to 12 years in prison.
Timothy Sammons – a former Sotheby’s specialist who had offices in New York and London and who brokered multimillion-pound deals for the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – used art that did not belong to him as collateral to obtain personal loans between 2010 and 2015.
Continue reading...Authorities in Florida have launched an investigation into whether the financier Jeffrey Epstein was properly monitored during a 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from underage girls, the product of a controversial 2008 deal with federal authorities.
Related: The Jeffrey Epstein scandal - podcast
Continue reading...Brendt Christensen has never revealed the whereabouts of Yingying Zhang, whom he raped and then decapitated in Illinois
A former doctoral student has been spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison in Illinois for kidnapping and killing of a 26-year-old scholar from China.
Jurors deliberated for eight hours over two days at the court in Peoria before announcing they were deadlocked on whether 30-year-old Brendt Christensen should be put to death for killing Yingying Zhang.
Continue reading...Video from the NBC archive shows Trump making friendly conversation with Epstein and pointing out women
Footage of a friendly exchange between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a November 1992 party has surfaced after the president tried to distance himself from the wealthy financier who was arrested earlier this month for the alleged sex trafficking of minors.
Related: Jeffrey Epstein: how US media – with one star exception – whitewashed the story
Continue reading...The family of Eric Garner have spoken of their anger after no charges were brought against Daniel Pantaleo, a white police officer implicated in the chokehold death of Garner, an African American man was killed almost five years ago. The arrest was captured on cellphone video, which showed Garner repeating the phrase 11 times as Pantaleo pulled him to the ground in what has been described as a banned chokehold. Eric Garner's mother said: 'My son said 'I can't breathe' 11 times, and today we can't breathe'
Continue reading...Authorities say man threw incendiary devices and tried to ignite propane tank at Tacoma Northwest Detention Centre in Washington state
A 69-year-old man armed with a rifle threw incendiary devices at an immigration jail in Washington state early on Saturday morning, then was found dead after four police officers arrived and opened fire, authorities said.
The Tacoma police department said the officers responded about 4am to the privately run Tacoma Northwest Detention Centre, a US Department of Homeland Security detention facility that holds migrants pending deportation proceedings.
Continue reading...The billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking contained in a newly unsealed 13-page Manhattan federal court indictment. Some victims of Epstein’s abuse were just 14 years old, prosecutors alleged in the shocking document.
Related: Jeffrey Epstein: inside the decade of scandal entangling Prince Andrew
Continue reading...Epstein faces 45 years in jail over alleged sex trafficking – and the case could have implications for others who have mixed with him
The sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein, unveiled by prosecutors from the southern district of New York in Manhattan, may have implications for many men who have come in and out of Epstein’s social circle.
Related: Jeffrey Epstein expected to make court appearance on sex trafficking charges
Continue reading...A federal judge imposed a life sentence on the self-described neo-Nazi who killed Heather Heyer by crashing his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a white supremacist rally, saying release would be “too great a risk”.
The 22-year-old neo-Nazi, James Fields of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He had sought a lesser sentence, apologizing after the court viewed video of him plowing his car into a crowd after the 12 August 2017 Unite the Right rally, also injuring 19 people.
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