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US shared intel with UK showing ‘high likelihood’ of COVID-19 lab leak: report

US shared intel with UK showing ‘high likelihood’ of COVID-19 lab leak: report

Mike Pompeo, when he was U.S. secretary of state, shared intel with the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic suggesting a “high likelihood” that the deadly coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, according to The Telegraph. An intelligence alliance known as “Five Eyes” reportedly met in January 2021 to discuss the lab-leak theory, the outlet reported. Around the same time, Pompeo is said to have shared information from classified American reports put together by the State Department to then-U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, as well as representatives from New Zealand, Canada and Australia.  The British newspaper says two former Trump administration officials believe Raab – and the U.K. government as a whole – ignored the lab leak theory due to pressure from government scientists who leaned toward the theory that the illness had been transferred from animals to humans.  “We saw several pieces of information and thought that they were, frankly, gobsmacking,” one former official who worked on the intelligence in Pompeo’s report told The Telegraph. “They obviously pointed to the high likelihood that this was indeed a lab leak.” HOUSE COVID COMMITTEE CALLING FOR CRIMINAL PROBE INTO GAIN-OF-FUNCTION VIRUS RESEARCH IN WUHAN The reports, consisting of information collected in the early days of the pandemic, were also shared with the U.K. via Five Eyes between October and December 2020. Five Eyes consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Information in one document obtained by The Telegraph states U.S. officials accused Chinese officials of “stonewalling,” as well as “gross corruption and ineptitude.” The information also reportedly showed that the Chinese military had been working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years before the pandemic, and that lab researchers got sick soon before COVID-19 was first reported in the area.  ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE PRESIDENT TO TESTIFY ON COVID ORIGINS, WUHAN LAB TAXPAYER-FUNDED RESEARCH On May 1, the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic called for a criminal probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The demands for an investigation come after the release of an interim staff report accusing EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak of funding “dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, without sufficient oversight.” EcoHealth Alliance is a non-governmental organization based in the United States and focused on researching pandemic prevention. According to congressional lawmakers, EcoHealth used taxpayer dollars “to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)” in China.  The NGO disputes that claim. Fox News Digital previously reported that EcoHealth Alliance received millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and that U.S. taxpayer funds flowed to Chinese entities conducting coronavirus research through EcoHealth Alliance. Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

Eye-popping haul amid trials has Team Trump closing fundraising gap with Biden

Eye-popping haul amid trials has Team Trump closing fundraising gap with Biden

Former President Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) are showcasing that they hauled in over $76 million last month, as the presumptive GOP nominee works to reduce his fundraising deficit to President Biden in their 2024 election rematch. The announcement came as Trump this weekend headlines the RNC’s spring donor retreat, which is being held in Palm Beach, Florida.  The haul by Trump and the RNC is up from $65.6 million in March. But Biden and the Democratic National Committee combined raked in roughly $90 million in March. And according to campaign disclosures, the president had more than twice as much money in his campaign coffers as the Republican challenger and predecessor in the White House as of the beginning of April. But Trump and the RNC’s fundraising has soared since the former president clinched the 2024 GOP nomination in March, and his top political advisers repeatedly insist they’ll have enough campaign cash to compete with Biden. VP STAKES: TRUMP MEETING WITH POTENTIAL RUNNING MATES THIS WEEKEND “President Donald J. Trump is not only winning across every battleground state, but we are raising the resources necessary to deliver a victory in November,” Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement Saturday that announced the April haul.  “With half of funds raised coming from small dollar donors, it is clear that our base is energized. The Republican Party is united, and voters nationwide are ready to FIRE Joe Biden and elect President Donald J. Trump,” they added. HAS BIDEN’S BUMP AGAINST TRUMP FLATLINED? “Our team will continue working every day to exceed expectations, raise the funds we need, and build an unmatched party infrastructure to prove that President Trump’s momentum is unstoppable,” RNC chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump added in the statement. Whatley, the former North Carolina GOP chair, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, were installed as the new RNC leadership by Trump in early March as he effectively took over control of the party after clinching the nomination. The fundraising figures were first revealed earlier on Saturday as Trump campaign officials gave a one-hour presentation to donors at the closed-door retreat, Republican sources confirmed to Fox News. The weekend confab is being held at the Four Seasons oceanfront resort in Palm Beach and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, which is located a few miles north. During the presentation, which was first reported Saturday by the New York Times, Trump campaign officials emphasized that the former president is ahead in the key battleground states of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, and competitive in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Biden narrowly carried all six of those states in 2020 to defeat Trump and win the White House. Trump’s advisers also said they aimed to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, where they said their polling shows Trump competitive in states Biden comfortably won four years ago. The RNC spring retreat provided a brief break for Trump from his criminal trial in New York City. The former president is being tried on nearly three-dozen state felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress. Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

‘Radicalised’ 16-year-old shot dead by Australia police after stabbing man

‘Radicalised’ 16-year-old shot dead by Australia police after stabbing man

Police kill the boy after he stabbed a man in Perth in an attack authorities say indicated ‘terrorism’. Police in Australia say they have shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in the western city of Perth, in an attack authorities said had “hallmarks of terrorism”. There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been “radicalised online”, Western Australia province’s Premier Roger Cook told reporters on Sunday. The victim in his 30s was stabbed in the back on Saturday night in the parking lot of a hardware store in the city’s suburban Willetton area. Authorities said they received calls from concerned members of the local Muslim community before the attack. The man was stable in a hospital, authorities said. “At this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Cook told a televised news conference in Perth. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had been briefed on the incident by police and intelligence agencies, which advised there was no ongoing threat. “We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” Albanese said on X. My thoughts are with those who have been affected by the incident in the Perth suburb of Willetton overnight. I have spoken with WA Premier Roger Cook this morning, and I thank the WA Police for acting swiftly to contain the incident. — Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 5, 2024 Police said members of the local Muslim community had made complaints about the boy’s behaviour just before the attack, helping to quickly identify him. On Saturday night, the teenager appeared to have placed a call to the police, saying he was going to commit “acts of violence”. Police said they were later alerted by a phone call from a member of the public that a knife attack was under way in the car park. Three police officers responded, one armed with a gun and two with tasers. The tasers failed to subdue the boy before he was killed by a single gunshot. Syed Wadood Janud, the imam of Perth’s largest mosque, the Nasir Mosque, condemned the stabbing in a statement. “There is no place for violence in Islam,” he said. “We appreciate the effort of the police to keep our communities safe. I also want to commend the local Muslim community who had flagged the individual prior with the police.” Saturday’s incident is the latest in a series of knife attacks in Australia in recent weeks. Last month, New South Wales police charged several boys with terrorism-related offences in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a livestreamed sermon in Sydney. The attack on the bishop came only days after a stabbing spree killed six in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi. Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government. Adblock test (Why?)

India calls Canada arrests over Sikh activist murder ‘political compulsion’

India calls Canada arrests over Sikh activist murder ‘political compulsion’

Reacting to Indian nationals’ arrest, Trudeau acknowledges fear in Canada’s Sikh community but underscores ‘rule of law’. Canada’s investigation into alleged Indian involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver last year is a “political compulsion”, India’s foreign minister has said after three Indian citizens were arrested over the killing. Canadian police on Friday arrested the trio for the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, saying they were investigating their links to the Indian government, “if any”. He migrated to Canada in 1997 and acquired citizenship 18 years later. He was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder, the allegations he had denied. On June 18, 2023, he was shot dead by masked assailants in the car park of the Sikh temple he led in suburban Vancouver. Nijjar’s killing sent diplomatic relations between Ottawa and New Delhi into a tailspin last year after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” linking Indian intelligence to the crime. India rejected the allegations as “absurd”, temporarily halting the processing of visas and forcing Canada to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country significantly. “It is their political compulsion in Canada to blame India,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as saying on Saturday. New Delhi has sought to persuade Ottawa not to grant Sikh separatists visas or political legitimacy, Jaishankar said, since they are “causing problems for them [Canada], for us and also for our relationship”. He added that Canada does not “share any evidence with us in certain cases, [and] police agencies also do not cooperate with us”. Jaishankar said India will wait for the Canadian police to share information on the arrested men, adding that the suspects “apparently are Indians of some kind of gang background”. “We’ll have to wait for the police to tell us,” he said. “But, as I said, one of our concerns which we have been telling them is that, you know, they have allowed organised crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada.” The three Indian nationals, all in their 20s, were arrested in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta province, on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges. They were accused of being the attacker, driver and lookout in his killing last June. The Canadian police said they were aware that “others may have played a role” in the murder. Meanwhile, Trudeau, speaking on Saturday at an event in Toronto to celebrate Sikh heritage and culture, acknowledged that many Sikhs in Canada are “feeling uneasy, and perhaps even frightened right now”, but urged faith in the justice system. “Let us remain calm and remain steadfast in our commitment to our democratic principles and our system of justice,” he said. Trudeau said the arrests were “important because Canada is a rule of law country with a strong and independent justice system, as well as a fundamental commitment to protecting all its citizens”. Nijjar advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India. Thousands of people were killed in the 1980s during the separatist movement, which was put down by the Indian security forces. The movement has largely petered out within India, but in the Sikh diaspora – whose largest community is in Canada, with about 770,000 people – it retains support among a vocal minority. India has warned governments in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom repeatedly that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback. In November, the US Department of Justice charged an Indian citizen living in the Czech Republic with allegedly plotting a similar assassination attempt on US soil. A Washington Post investigation found last week that Indian foreign intelligence officials were involved in the plot, a claim rejected by New Delhi. Adblock test (Why?)

US elections are six months away. How does the race stand and what’s next?

US elections are six months away. How does the race stand and what’s next?

A crackdown on pro-Palestinian student protests, Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial, and political bickering over foreign aid and immigration have dominated headlines in the United States in recent weeks. The issues have shone a spotlight on deep divisions in the country as it moves closer to what is expected to be a heated battle for the White House between incumbent President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his Republican predecessor, Trump. But for most people across the US, the presidential election on November 5 — exactly six months from Sunday — is not yet on their radars. “In the United States, most people still have not tuned in. Despite you, I and the political class, the vast majority of Americans are not paying attention to the election,” said Erik Nisbet, a professor of policy analysis and communications at Northwestern University. “People don’t tune in until September,” he told Al Jazeera. “At this point though, it’s important to get your narratives out. It’s important to get your base solidified and mobilised.” Perceptions of an ‘Election 2.0’ Most polls show a tight race between Biden and Trump as the election nears, with experts saying the contest will likely come down to how the candidates fare in critical swing states like Michigan, Georgia and Nevada. But there is also widespread frustration that the choice this election cycle is the same as in 2020, when Biden defeated Trump to win the White House. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that nearly half of all registered voters said they would replace both Biden and Trump on the ballot if they could. About two-thirds of respondents said they had little to no confidence that Biden is physically fit enough to be president, the poll said, while a similar number said they did not believe Trump would act ethically in office. “It is Election 2.0,” said Jan Leighley, a political science professor at American University in Washington, DC. “I think that creates a disincentive for voting, which again comes back on the campaigns to convince people that, even though it’s the same choice, there’s still a reason to vote.” Youth vote For the Biden camp, the message so far has been that a vote for the Democratic incumbent is a vote for democratic ideals. “Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot,” Biden said in January. But that message is failing to resonate among key segments of the Democratic base who are angered by the Biden administration’s unequivocal support for Israel amid its war in Gaza. The recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses has highlighted a generational divide over the US’s relationship with Israel, and that, in turn, could pose a serious problem for Biden as he seeks the youth vote in November. In 2020, Biden won about 60 percent support among voters aged 18 to 29. But a recent CNN poll showed Biden trailing Trump — 51 percent to 40 percent — among voters under age 35, and experts say a lack of enthusiasm among young voters could spell trouble. “We know how college students are feeling,” said Hasan Pyarali, the Muslim Caucus chairperson for College Democrats of America, the university arm of the Democratic Party. “And I can tell you for sure that there are too many who would stay home” on November 5 if Biden does not change his Middle East policy, Pyarali added. “I doubt that people would switch over to Trump, but they would certainly not vote.” According to Nisbet at Northwestern University, Biden’s campaign needs to focus in the coming months on “getting the Democratic house in order” before it tries to appeal to the relatively small number of undecided voters in the country. Any protests at the Democratic National Convention, for example, could hurt him. Democrats will gather in Chicago in August to formally confirm Biden as their 2024 nominee. “The Democratic Party, or at least the Biden campaign, does not want any dissension within the [party] because it’s a bad visual,” said Nisbet. Trump’s legal woes Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Trump’s campaign has unfolded against unprecedented legal turmoil. The former president faces four separate criminal cases, including an ongoing trial in New York over allegations he falsified business records related to a hush-money payment made to an adult film star. While the indictments have done little so far to dent Trump’s support among Republican voters, some polling suggests that a chunk of the US electorate would not vote for him if he were convicted in any of the cases. Trump is expected to be confirmed as the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee at the party’s convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July. “The conventions go on over the summer, but there’s usually not a whole lot of activity campaign-wise,” said Leighley at American University. But this year might be different, given Trump’s court hearings and the pressure on Biden over the Gaza war. “Those could be unusual bumps, if you will, that provide campaigns opportunities to do more in terms of ads,” she said. Key issues Both Leighley and Nisbet said the US economy is always an important election issue, and it will continue to be a focus over the next few months of campaigning. Despite positive economic indicators, many Americans believe they are worse off now than when Trump was in the White House, recent polls have suggested. “There is a big gap where people, for whatever reason — it could be because of the economics, it could be a bias of memory — they look more favourably at Trump’s then-presidency than Biden’s current one overall,” said Nisbet. He added that the economy is hurting Biden among Latino and Black voters, as well as young people, all of whom are key segments of the Democratic base. “Trump will want to talk about how bad the economy is,” said Nisbet, while Biden’s team instead will “try to change the conversation” and pivot to other issues. That includes access to abortion. Biden has made defending access to reproductive healthcare