Ksenia Khavana jailed for treason over donation to US charity that helps Ukraine
A Russian court on Thursday sentenced the US-Russian dual national Ksenia Khavana to 12 years in prison on a treason conviction for allegedly raising money for the Ukrainian military.
The rights group the First Department said the charges stemmed from a $51 (£40) donation to a US charity that helps Ukraine.
Continue reading...Experts urge accelerated access to vaccines and testing. Plus, Columbia University president resigns
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Good morning.
An outbreak in Africa of mpox, the disease formerly known as monkeypox, has been declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization.
How is the WHO responding? Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general, said the situation warranted the “highest level of alarm under international health law”. The WHO released $1.5m from its contingency fund, and called on donors to help reach the $15m it needed for the response.
What are experts saying? Trudie Lang, a professor of global health research at Oxford University, said: “I have heard so many people refer to this as being very similar to the early days of HIV.” Dr Ayoade Alakija, the chair of Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said if the outbreak was in Europe, mpox would have already been considered a major international health emergency.
What are the details? Palestinian civilians, mostly young men, are picked up by Israeli soldiers, who dress them in Israeli army uniforms and send them into tunnels and damaged houses ahead of Israeli forces, soldiers told Haaretz and Breaking the Silence. Their hands are tied together and a camera is attached to their bodies as they go in.
What’s the latest with ceasefire talks? A new round is expected to begin today, although expectations of success are low. Israel has hardened its position in recent weeks and Hamas has indicated it is unlikely to attend the talks in Qatar.
Continue reading...Syrian government denies claims that Tice, who vanished while reporting in Daraya 12 years ago, is being held captive
Joe Biden has called for the immediate release of Austin Tice, the American journalist and former marine who disappeared in Syria in 2012, and who US authorities believe is being held by the Syrian government.
“This week marks 12 long, terrible years since American Austin Tice was abducted in Syria,” the US president said on Wednesday. “We have repeatedly pressed the government of Syria to work with us so that we can, at last, bring Austin home. Today, I once again call for his immediate release.”
Continue reading...Man says wife died of allergic reaction at Disney World but company claims streamer’s terms block him from filing suit
Attorneys for Disney World are seeking to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit brought by a husband over the death of his wife last year because of the terms and conditions he agreed to when signing up for Disney+ streaming service several years earlier.
In February of this year, Jeffrey Piccolo filed a wrongful death suit against Disney on behalf of his wife, Dr Kanokporn Tangsuan, a medical doctor from New York who died last year. His lawsuit claims that her death was a result of suffering an allergic reaction while dining at a resort restaurant in Disney Springs at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
Continue reading...Storm moving over open waters towards Bermuda, bringing torrential rain and winds of 75mph
Storm Ernesto has strengthened into a hurricane as it dropped torrential rain on Puerto Rico and left nearly half of all clients in the US territory without power.
The storm was located about 175 miles (280km) north-west of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving over open waters towards Bermuda. It had maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h) and was moving north-west at 16mph.
Continue reading...Michael Caughran’s history raises questions about extent to which his far-right and survivalist activities overlapped with his enlistment
A former US air force survival expert with militia and Christian nationalist connections is running survival and live-fire combat trainings in remote locations throughout the Pacific north-west, boasting on his website that the training incorporates trained law enforcement officers, “church security” operatives, and current and former US military members.
Michael Patrick Caughran’s new training business, American Reconstruction Concepts (ARC) shows organizational and personnel continuities with an earlier organization that explicitly offered “biblical training on war” to young people. That organization, Team Rugged, was directly connected with both a neo-Confederate pastor and a former Washington state legislator who has advocated for Christian nationalism, who a state house investigation found to have participated in “domestic terrorism”.
Continue reading...Vice-presidential candidate, once a high school teacher in Nebraska and Minnesota, warmly remembered by alumni
Imagine your teacher in the White House.
For Tim Walz’s former students, the hypothetical could become real. And they’re stoked.
Continue reading...Robotic, peculiar wording in recent issues of Cody Enterprise tipped a veteran reporter off
A quote from Wyoming’s governor and a local prosecutor were the first things that seemed slightly off to Powell Tribune reporter CJ Baker. Then, it was some of the phrases in the stories that struck him as nearly robotic.
The dead giveaway, though, that a reporter from a competing news outlet was using generative artificial intelligence to help write his stories came in a 26 June article about the comedian Larry the Cable Guy being chosen as the grand marshal of the Cody Stampede parade.
Continue reading...Ruling marks first time a US judge has gone against a university over demonstrations against Israel-Hamas war
The University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The preliminary injunction marks the first time a US judge has ruled against a university over the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses earlier this year.
Continue reading...Biden wrote to then US ambassador to Rome on behalf of the energy firm while his father was vice-president
Hunter Biden lobbied the US government for help in securing a lucrative energy contract in Italy while his father Joe Biden was vice-president, newly released documents show.
A tranche of previously undisclosed documents now made public under a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request reveals that the president’s son wrote to the then US ambassador to Rome, John Phillips, in 2016 seeking assistance on behalf of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, of which he was a board member.
Continue reading...Democratic Republic of the Congo hard-hit by virus, with death toll on continent above 1,450 since 2022
The African Union’s health watchdog has declared a public health emergency over the growing mpox outbreak on the continent, saying the move is a “clarion call for action”.
The outbreak has swept through several African countries, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the virus formerly called monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970.
Continue reading...William Suff, convicted of 12 murders in 1995, admits killing Cathy Small, then aged 19, after police find genetic link
The long-unsolved 1986 killing of a young southern California woman has been linked to a convicted serial killer who admitted the crime, authorities said on Tuesday.
DNA from the killing of Cathy Small, 19, matched William Suff, who was sentenced to death after being convicted in 1995 of 12 murders that occurred in Riverside county from 1989 to 1991, said Lt Patricia Thomas of Los Angeles county sheriff’s department.
Continue reading...Ta’Kiya Young had been suspected of shoplifting when Connor Grubb and another officer approached her car
A police officer in Ohio was indicted by a grand jury on murder charges on Tuesday for the 2023 fatal shooting of Ta’Kiya Young, a pregnant Black woman who had been suspected of shoplifting, authorities said.
Young, who was 21, had been suspected of stealing bottles of alcohol from a store last August when Connor Grubb, a Blendon township police officer, and another officer approached her car, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Continue reading...Video shoot for single Lifetimes allegedly did not get permit to film at protected S’Espalmador zone in Balearic Islands
Katy Perry is under investigation for possible environmental damage of the protected dunes of S’Espalmador after the release of the Ibiza-set music video for her new single Lifetimes.
The environment department of the Balearic Islands issued a press release on Tuesday claiming that the video’s production company did not secure the proper authorization before filming.
Continue reading...Campaign says it was ‘not aware of any security breaches’ after Trump’s campaign says it was hacked
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign said it was notified by the FBI last month that it was “targeted by a foreign actor influence operation”, a NBC News reporter said on Tuesday.
“We have robust cybersecurity measures in place, and are not aware of any security breaches of our systems resulting from those efforts,” the campaign said, according to the reporter.
Continue reading...Plaintiff in New York case says he lost job after complaining that his manager openly celebrated terrorism against Israel
A Jewish former employee of Intel sued the chipmaker on Tuesday, saying he was fired after complaining that the senior executive he reported to openly celebrated antisemitism, Hamas and terrorism against Israel.
The plaintiff, a former vice-president of engineering using the pseudonym John Doe, said Intel fired him on 2 April in a purported cost-cutting move barely two months after assigning him to report to Alaa Badr, vice-president of customer success.
Continue reading...Gideon Cody, former Marion police chief, is also accused of persuading a potential witness to withhold information
A former Kansas police chief who led a raid last year on a weekly newspaper has been charged with felony obstruction of justice and is accused of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct.
The single charge against Gideon Cody, the former Marion police chief, alleges that he knowingly or intentionally influenced the witness to withhold information on the day of the raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher or sometime within the following six days. The charge was filed on Monday in state district court in Marion county and is not more specific about Cody’s alleged conduct.
Continue reading...Body of Kris Maharaj, who died in Florida prison hospital despite judge finding him innocent, will be taken to UK by his wife for burial
During the 38 years Kris Maharaj spent incarcerated in Florida prisons insisting he was innocent of murder, his wife, Marita, dreamed of a life together back in Britain.
This week they will finally be reunited on home soil but not in the way she had hoped.
Continue reading...US territory shutters schools and opens shelters as storm is forecast to also near Virgin Islands and become hurricane
Tropical Storm Ernesto battered the north-east Caribbean on Tuesday as it took aim at Puerto Rico, where officials shuttered schools, opened shelters and helped move dozens of the US territory’s endangered parrots into hurricane-proof rooms.
Ernesto is expected to become a hurricane early on Wednesday, prompting forecasters to issue a hurricane watch for the US and British Virgin Islands as well as the tiny Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra.
Continue reading...Tom Perriello condemns tactics of Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese military before peace talks in Geneva
The US special envoy for Sudan has accused the two factions in the country’s civil war of “cowardice” before crucial peace talks that are due to start on Wednesday.
Tom Perriello told the Guardian that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military “lacked courage and honour” because of their continued use of starvation as a weapon.
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