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Delhi Excise Policy case: ED opposes Arvind Kejriwal’s plea against arrest; says evidence reveals CM’s role in crime

The ED told the apex court that Arvind Kejriwal was avoiding interrogation by not remaining present before the investigating officer despite being summoned nine times.

Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Priyanka, Rahul Gandhi likely to contest from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats

Smriti Irani defeated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Amethi. Irani has again been fielded by the BJP from the seat.

The anti-Trump movement’s secret Zoom calls give their target ammo

At first glance, it might seem like inside baseball. A bunch of former prosecutors and cable pundits talking to each other about how much they don’t like Donald Trump and how he’s in deep legal trouble? Doesn’t that happen every day in green rooms and the corner bar? But this, as disclosed by Politico, is different. These are some of the most prominent commentators in the media universe, and they appear to be consulting/coordinating/conspiring about their main target. DAVID PECKER CALMLY LINKS TRUMP, MICHAEL COHEN TO SUPPRESSING STORIES, PUSHING FAKE NEWS Even if that’s not the case, it looks awful. It plays into the hands of conservatives who back Trump that the media are part of the resistance, determined to bring him down at all costs. They can now say that it is a cabal, confirming all their darkest suspicions about the press determined to bring him down. Every Friday, these media hotshots join in a secret, off-the-record Zoom call. In a high-road description, the piece says the goal is to “intellectually stress-test the arguments facing Trump on his journey through the American legal system.” But a beat later it says, “most are united by their dislike of Trump.” The origins of the group are telling, beginning during the Jan. 6 hearings, when committee staffers began briefing legal commentators on their work. I can think of classified military matters that haven’t remained secret as long. TRUMP BLASTS JUDGE AFTER BARRING HIM FROM ATTENDING IMMUNITY ARGUMENTS Who’s doing the zooming? Norman Eisen, an Obama administration official who worked with House Democrats on Trump’s first impeachment and is a CNN legal analyst, is the founder.  He’s joined by Bill Kristol, a leader of the anti-Trump conservatives; longtime Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe; Watergate figure John Dean; and George Conway, ex-husband of Kellyanne, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and a fixture on MSNBC.  AT A TURNING POINT? COLUMBIA ARRESTS AND ANTI-JEWISH HARASSMENT SHUT DOWN CAMPUS That’s just the beginning. There is MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissman, who investigated the fruitless Russian collusion accusations against Trump as a prosecutor for Bob Mueller; why would anyone doubt his objectivity? There are CNN legal analysts Jeffrey Toobin, Elliott Williams and Karen Agnifilo, along with L.A. Times columnist Harry Litman. And there’s Mary McCord, a former DOJ official who co-hosts an MSNBC podcast.  Sometimes there are guests, which is also revealing. After Trump was held liable in E. Jean Carroll’s first defamation and sexual assault suit, her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, addressed the group. And, says Politico, former conservative judge J. Michael Luttig, who spearheaded a campaign to kick Trump off state ballots under the 14th Amendment, was another guest. The Supreme Court rejected the anti-democratic move. Despite efforts to rationalize this as a meeting-of-great-minds exercise, I’m not buying it. Even Politico concedes the calls could “breed groupthink” – what a shocking thought. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP And cable news drives plenty of other coverage, particularly when certain themes are constantly pounded. All these folks are smart enough to think for themselves. Which makes it surprising that they lack the common sense to see how troubling the Zooming looks.

Secret Service agent on VP Harris’ detail removed from assignment after physical fight while on duty

A U.S. Secret Service agent with Vice President Kamala Harris’ detail was removed from their assignment after engaging in a physical fight with other agents while on duty Monday, Fox News Digital has learned.  The fight was first reported by The New York Post and confirmed to Fox News Digital by a source. The incident happened at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland while Harris was at the Naval Observatory, but didn’t delay her departure from the base, the Secret Service told Fox News Digital.   Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service, called the incident a “medical matter,” adding that the agency wouldn’t be commenting further.  RECORDS SHOW BIDEN DOG, COMMANDER, ATTACKED SECRET SERVICE MEMBERS AT LEAST 24 TIMES  “At approximately 9 a.m. April 22, a U.S. Secret Service special agent supporting the Vice President’s departure from Joint Base Andrews began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing,” Guglielmi said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital. TEEN CHARGED IN 2023 BREAK-IN OF SECRET SERVICE SUV PARKED OUTSIDE OF NAOMI BIDEN’S DC HOME He added, “The agent was removed from their assignment while medical personnel were summoned. The Vice President was at the Naval Observatory when this incident occurred and there was no impact on her departure from Joint Base Andrews. “The U.S. Secret Service takes the safety and health of our employees very seriously. As this was a medical matter, we will not disclose any further details.”  The agent, who had been acting “erratically,” began punching the special agent in charge after getting on top of him, Real Clear Politics reported.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The agent, who was handcuffed after the incident and treated by medical staff, had previously been a subject of concern by staff, the outlet reported.

Conn. Gov. Ned Lamont had thousands of trees, bushes ‘illegally’ cut behind $7.5M home

Hypocrisy’s the root of the problem. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont had thousands of trees and bushes illegally chopped behind his sprawling Greenwich home — despite publicly championing a statewide effort to plant more conifers, according to angry neighbors and other sources. The wealthy 70-year-old Democrat was hit with a citation for cutting down more than 180 trees in a protected wetland area to allegedly get a better view of a pond from his $7.6 million abode, CT Insider reported Tuesday. “[It’s a] chainsaw massacre,” land use attorney John Tesei, who represents nearby property owners INCT LLC, said according to the outlet. AMERICAN CAUGHT WITH AMMO IN AIRPORT FACES 12 YEARS IN PRISON: COULD LOSE ‘EVERYTHING’ “I’ve never seen anything, overall, like this, ever.” “Our clients are deeply disturbed and devastated,” he said at a March 25 wetlands meeting. Lamont allegedly hired workers to axe the beloved sugar maples, beech trees and pignut hickories without permits on several acres behind his seven-bedroom manse in early November, sources from the city’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourse Agency told the paper. Some of the trees were 40 feet tall — and a vital part of the delicate ecosystem on the wooded banks of a small river, the sources said. Fred Jacobsen, a property manager for privately-owned forest lands in Greenwich’s Midcountry, heard a chainsaw buzzing near the governor’s home on Nov. 9 and called police, he said. “It was a coordinated destruction of the entire ecosystem in that area,” Jacobsen said at the meeting. The saw-wielding workers also crossed a property line, “trespassing” onto land owned by INCT LLC, a Delaware-based company, staffers with the wetland agency said in documents. CAMPED OUT ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS GIVE COLUMBIA NEW ULTIMATUM “The Lamonts appear to be the ones that hired the contractor,” Beth Evans, the town’s director of environmental affairs who advises the wetland agency, told CT Insider. Lamont, his neighbors the Viks and the Ashton Drive Association were all hit with citations for wetland  violations in Greenwich, according to the paper. “It’s no coincidence that the cutting opened up a very wide view of the lake for the personal aesthetic benefit and viewing enjoyment of two dwellings, Gov. Lamont and the Viks,” said Peter Thorén, an executive of INCT LLC said at the meeting. He called the hacked trees an “illegal invasion.” Greenwich’s wetland association ultimately issued a cease-and-correct order on Nov. 28, which was sent to the Lamonts, the Viks and the Ashton Drive Association. It wasn’t immediately clear if the politician would be charged a fine. No criminal charges were filed over the alleged trespassing, the Greenwich Police told the paper. But the conifer-slashing flies in the face of an environmentally friendly plan the governor announced last April to plant thousands of trees in dense urban parts of the state. BIDEN MAKES SIGN OF THE CROSS DURING PRO-ABORTION SPEECH IN FLORIDA At the time, Lamont sought a slice of the $1 billion in federal funding for urban forestry programs allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act, commissioner for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Katie Dykes, said in April 2023. Locals now want the greenery-chopping governor to replace the dead trees and shrubs. “The perpetrators should restore the entire area as closely as possible to the way it was,” Jacobsen said. Lamont, a former cable television entrepreneur and Harvard University grad, raked in more than $54 million in annual income in 2021, according to the CT Mirror. His 2.5-acre abode at 4 Ashton Drive is valued at $7.57 million, according to redfin.com. “This is a dispute between the homeowners association and one of the neighbors,” a rep for Lamont told The Post Wednesday. She claims the HOA was given the citation, not the governor. “The association and the neighbors are working it out,” Lamont told CT Insider. A rep from the Inland Wetlands and Watercourse Agency declined to comment, saying the matter would be discussed at a public hearing Monday afternoon. The conifer clash echos a similar battle that broke out in June over 32 chopped trees in New Jersey. In that case, the culprit was fined $13,000.

More people exposed to Manhattan Project chemicals deserve compensation, advocates say

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act has been a lifeline for some people and families exposed to toxins linked to decades-old nuclear weapons tests, but advocates say more people deserve compensation.  The law, first enacted in 1990 and set to expire this year, has provided payments for anyone who may have contracted certain cancers and illnesses as a result of the effort to build the first atomic bomb. “This goes back to the Manhattan Project and all of the Cold War era, when the government’s nuclear program was really made possible by working people who went to the mines, who processed uranium. They’d been exposed to this nuclear radiation and not been compensated,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said. From 1945 to 1962, the U.S. conducted nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. Thousands of workers were hired to mine for uranium throughout the West while others worked at test sites. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act covered many of these workers but left out those who worked in labs and refineries in other locations. FOREIGN POLICY EXPERT REVEALS 2 KEY OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES US MUST ‘SEIZE’ ON TO WIN ‘COLD WAR’ WITH CHINA “The victims have never been compensated by the government for the exposure the government put them through,” Hawley said. Hawley is working to extend and expand the payments in places like Alaska, Kentucky, Tennessee and his home state of Missouri. “We didn’t know the extent of the government’s nuclear processing or radiation tests,” Hawley said. “The government has exposed them. They’ve gotten sick because of it, and what this legislation does is, it helps them get the medical treatment and other cost help that they need in order to, if not be made whole, at least be compensated in some way for their sacrifice for this country.” In St. Louis, the extent of exposure to Manhattan Project chemicals has extended far beyond the locations where refining and testing took place. “After the uranium processing facility in St. Louis during the Manhattan Project era shut down, the government didn’t dispose of the waste properly or really at all,” Hawley said. Documents revealed that workers took the chemicals to three separate sites over the years, and some of them leaked into a creek that flows throughout North County, St. Louis. “I have lupus, and I also have psoriatic arthritis and some other autoimmune diseases,” Just Moms STL Founder Karen Nickel said. She grew up in North County and raised her kids in the area. She said they also have suffered from illnesses that she said were linked to radioactive waste in the area. “Lupus is an environmental trigger. They do know that it is connected to some radiation,” Nickel said. Missouri State Rep. Chantelle Nickson-Clark, a Democrat, also grew up in North County. She’s a two-time breast cancer survivor from a family with a history of cancer, but she said she believed environmental exposure could have played a part in her illnesses.  “As data reflects, there’s nothing concrete. Coming from a family where cancer just runs all through my family, we believe that [chemical exposure] is a contributing factor,” Nickson-Clark said.  SEN HAWLEY URGES MORE COMPENSATION FOR RADIATION EXPOSURE AS PARTIAL SHUTDOWN DEADLINE LOOMS Both Nickel and Nickson-Clark lived near Coldwater Creek. Testing over the years has shown radioactive chemicals are present in the water and have spread to creek beds along the waterway. “This is no small creek. This is more like a little river,” Nickel said. A 2019 health assessment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined exposure to the creek could have resulted in elevated risks of developing certain cancers. “More testing needs to be done,” Hawley said. “I’ve been saying for years now that the Army Corps needs to test all along the floodplain.” Before the danger was determined, the creek was a frequent playground.  “Back in the 1950s, folks went out and built homes there. It was a nice suburban area,” Hawley said. Nickel said her parents chose to live in the neighborhood because it was a good place to raise a family.  “There were a lot of children in the neighborhood, and kids spent sunlight to sunset in the park there and playing in the creek,” Nickel recalled. Several decades later, Nickel said she and her family have not been alone in suffering from illnesses.  “It’s just person after person after person that have passed away from rare cancers and whatnot, the amount of illnesses and autoimmune diseases, and it’s astronomical,” Nickel said.  Nickel and her neighbor, Dawn Chapman, have worked together to learn more about radioactive waste in the area. They founded their organization, Just Moms STL, to inform others of the toxic sites near their homes. “Unlike Karen, I didn’t grow up next to this,” Chapman said. “It was staggering to see how many people were ill, and then again, be able to look back in my community where I grew up, there is none of that.” US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS PLANS TO REOPEN PORT OF BALTIMORE BY END OF APRIL AFTER KEY BRIDGE COLLAPSE Chapman and Nickel both bought homes near one of the sites where the radioactive chemicals would eventually end up. Neither of the women said they knew the waste was there until an underground fire began burning near the site. “The longer this fire burns, the more unstable the ground becomes where the fire is, which gives it the ability to move, and so, we are racing up against a clock,” Chapman said. She added that she first learned about the fire at the West Lake Landfill in 2013. “I had been smelling something for a little while,” she said, “kind of like when you cut an onion. That’s what our eyes were doing. That’s what it felt like, like this very intense burning. It was like, ‘Oh, my God. What’s happening to me?’” Chapman said she called the Natural Resources Department.  “He started talking about the Manhattan Project and there being radioactive waste, and he was

What happens when activists are branded ‘terrorists’ in the Philippines?

Baguio, Philippines – Inside an unlit bathroom, Windel Bolinget gently tips a pail of water over his head, careful to minimise the sound of splashing on the tiled floor. A well-known activist leader in the mountainous Cordillera region in the northern Philippines, the 49-year-old spends most of his days between several undisclosed refuges. Bolinget tries to stay invisible indoors, not leaving unless absolutely necessary and avoiding making any noise that might draw attention. “I have normal routines with some extraordinary effort,” he said. On the rare occasions that he spends with his family in their own home, he follows the same protocol. At night, whether Bolinget is there or not, his wife and four children wake up whenever any of their six dogs bark. They monitor security cameras and step into the street, worried that armed men might have come for him. Nearby households do the same, knowing that the man they’ve called a friend for decades has been branded a “terrorist” by the Philippine government, which wants him behind bars. “We need to be able to smell danger, have the emergency contacts at the ready, and be able to tell if we’re being tailed in a public place,” he said. Bolinget is chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), an activist coalition of Indigenous people’s groups. He and three other CPA leaders Jennifer Awingan-Taggaoa, Steve Tauli, and Sarah Abellon-Alikes were designated “terrorists” by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) on July 10, 2023. Citing “probable cause” of engagement in “organised violence,” the ATC, led by executive officials, claims the CPA and the four individuals are part of the country’s long-running Communist armed rebellion. Indigenous activist Windel Bolinget lives his life in the shadows after being designated a ‘terrorist’ by the government [Michael Beltran/Al Jazeera] Under the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) of 2020, the authorities can arrest people identified as “terrorists” without a warrant, restrict travel, freeze assets, conduct surveillance and issue new court decisions to restrict their movements without explaining why. Some individuals who have previously been labelled “terrorists”, communists or enemies of the state have later been found dead. Some 89 extrajudicial killings of activists have taken place since June 2022 when Ferdinand Marcos Jr became president. According to the human rights group Karapatan, 51 people are currently designated as “terrorists”. The designation marks a step up from the more common red-tagging, where activists are linked to the armed rebellion in a bid to justify a crackdown. In the past, all four CPA leaders have been slapped with cases relating to their alleged involvement with rebels. All of which, including a “shoot to kill” order on Bolinget, have been dismissed in court. Critics have described the ATL as the second coming of martial law in the Philippines. For the last nine months, the CPA leaders have lived in relative seclusion apart from court hearings to contest the ATC decision. “We want to prove the facts and question the basis of the designation,” said Baguio City Councilor Jose Molintas, lawyer to the four alleged “terrorists”. Karapatan’s Cristina Palabay said the law “institutionalises the ATC’s mandate to act as judge and jury in implementing its draconian crackdown. It not only threatens and harasses activists, but also puts their lives at risk.” Life in terror On social media, the Bolinget and Taggaoa families were branded terrorists as early as 2020. Pictures of their children, some of whom are under the age of 18, have been paraded as the offspring of “terrorists” by trolls and even law enforcement personnel. Taggaoa’s daughter Kara, a labour rights activist in Manila, was also arrested in 2022 over a robbery that allegedly took place during a demonstration. Jennifer Awingan-Taggaoa spent four months moving between safe houses after she was designated a ‘terrorist’ [Michael Beltran/Al Jazeera] Joel Egco, spokesperson for the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict, issued a warning to dissenters earlier this year: “Before we charge you (with terrorism), surrender now!” In such an atmosphere, the CPA leaders live in constant fear for their family’s safety. Bolinget says some friends and relatives have cut ties, fearful that associating with them could be considered criminal. “I’m an enemy of the state, an open target. The state wants to isolate me from the family, it’s easier for them that way,” he said. Bolinget led one of the 37 Supreme Court petitions against the ATL back in 2020, flagging potential human rights abuses. “All our fears came true and I have become a living testament that to be deemed a terrorist is to be treated worse than a criminal,” he said. The designation is also affecting their health. Bolinget and Taggaoa have been experiencing more frequent stomach trouble and must convince their doctors to see them at inconvenient times. Taggaoa feels “so sickly all the time. The doctors said it’s stress-induced.” Bolinget blames the lack of sleep for his poor health. “One-half of your brain is always awake and alert. I’m always on edge, like my temper is going to boil any minute,” he said. Constant alarm When Taggaoa was arrested in January 2023, she was not worried. She, Bolinget and five others had been charged with rebellion after allegedly joining an armed raid. “I knew right away it was fake and I could prove this in court,” she told Al Jazeera. The case was dropped that May. But a couple of months later, she discovered she had been designated by the ATC when the decision was published in a national newspaper. Taggaoa spent the next four months hopping between safehouses and reminding her family back home to lock all doors and stay vigilant. In January, Marcos Jr said he wanted the Philippines‘ swift exit from the “grey list” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog for money laundering and terrorist financing. To do this, Marcos announced accelerated “action plans to combat money laundering and counterterrorist financing, and to file cases against violators”. Living without access to personal and business funds has been

‘We need you’: Solomon Islands’ support for US agency’s return revealed

A United States development aid agency whose return to the Solomon Islands has been delayed for years without explanation found “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for its work, with the Pacific island nation’s leader telling officials “We need you”, a previously unreleased report shows. The Peace Corps’ findings bring into focus the agency’s unexplained failure to resume operations in the archipelago nearly five years after it announced its return amid jockeying for influence between the US and China. The “Solomon Islands Re-entry Assessment Report,” obtained by Al Jazeera via a freedom of information request, paints a picture of emphatic support for the agency resuming operations in the country after a two-decade absence, both among the local population and within the government. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is quoted in the report telling Peace Corps representatives, “We need you,” while Attorney-General John Muria is quoted as saying the agency “really had a lasting impact on people and communities in Solomon Islands”. “On the ground, the assessment team was welcomed openly and enthusiastically by the Government of Solomon Islands at all levels from the Prime Minister to the provincial level,” the agency said in the report. “The team enjoyed support in equal measure from other development partners, non-governmental organisations, international volunteer organisations, service providers and vendors, former Peace Corps staff, and community members who were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers.” Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has forged closer ties with China [cnsphoto via Reuters] The Peace Corps, which withdrew from the Solomon Islands in 2000 amid ethnic violence, commissioned the report to examine the feasibility of resuming operations in the country after receiving a formal invitation from Honiara to return in February 2019. In August, the assessment team submitted its report recommending the agency’s return after concluding the Solomon Islands offered an “enabling environment in which Volunteers can have meaningful work and serve safely with the necessary medical care and logistical support”. “From the Prime Minister and national and provincial government ministries to service providers, local community members, and former Peace Corps staff, the team was warmly welcomed and strongly encouraged to bring Volunteers back to the ‘Hapi Isles,’” the report said. “Peace Corps has had a lasting impact in the country and our absence is noticeable, particularly in the education sector.” The Peace Corps publicly announced the re-establishment of its Solomon Islands programme that October, with the first volunteers scheduled to arrive in mid-2021. The Solomon Islands, located about 2,000 kilometres northeast of Australia, is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific, with its population suffering from limited access to high-quality education and healthcare. While the Solomon Islands closed its borders for more than two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency’s ongoing absence and the current status of its planned return have not been publicly explained. Although the Peace Corps temporarily suspended operations in the Pacific during the pandemic, its volunteers have since returned to neighbouring countries including Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Other comparable agencies have also resumed work in the Solomon Islands, including the Australian Volunteers, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, and New Zealand’s Volunteer Service Abroad. The US Congress has allocated just $500 to the Peace Corps’ work in the archipelago for the fiscal year of 2024, suggesting there is little prospect of its imminent return. In December, Al Jazeera reported that opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands and US observers suspected that Sogavare’s government was deliberately stalling the agency’s return to curry favour with China, which has made major inroads in the archipelago in recent years. Sogavare severed ties with Taiwan in 2019 to recognise China and signed cooperation agreements with Beijing on security and policing in 2022 and last year, prompting alarm in the US, Australia and New Zealand. Despite being one of the world’s smallest countries with a population of about 720,000 people, the Solomon Islands has become a focal point for the heated competition for influence between Washington and Beijing due to its strategic location in the Pacific. The status of Honiara’s relations with Beijing is currently in the balance as Sogavare vies to form a government with opposition MPs after general elections this week that produced an inconclusive outcome. Sogavare is seeking a fifth term in office, but he is being challenged by at least three opposition leaders, including Peter Kenilorea Jr, who has pledged to restore ties with Taipei. The Peace Corps and the Solomon Islands government did not respond to requests for comment. Catherine Ebert-Gray, who served as US ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from 2016 to 2019, expressed hope the agency would be able to resume its work in the country. “I am hopeful the next parliament and government will renew their interest in returning Peace Corps volunteers to rural villages to support the nation’s environmental, health and education plans,” Ebert-Gray told Al Jazeera. Adblock test (Why?)

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 791

As the war enters its 791st day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Fighting At least six people were injured after Russia launched a missile attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Officials said the S-300 missiles caused damage to residential buildings, offices, a gas pipeline through the city centre and dozens of cars. Russia claimed to have struck a military dormitory. Ukrainian intelligence sources told the Reuters news agency its drones had struck two Rosneft-owned oil depots in Russia’s Smolensk region, west of Moscow, as well as a major steel factory in the southern Lipetsk region. Russian regional officials said fires had broken out at the oil facilities following the attack, while a drone had come down in an industrial zone in the Lipetsk region. They did not say whether there was any damage. Politics and diplomacy The United States Congress passed a long-delayed $61bn aid package for Ukraine that was quickly signed into law by President Joe Biden. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the approval and said Ukraine would do its best to “make up” for the past six months as it has struggled to fend off better-equipped Russian forces. Zelenskyy said he was working closely with US officials to work out an incoming $1bn military package containing “exactly the weapons that our soldiers need”. He specifically mentioned Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), artillery, antitank weapons, high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) and air defence. Zelenskyy said 16 Ukrainian children previously “deported to Russia” had been reunited with their families after mediation talks organised by Qatar. Kyiv has accused Russia of the forcible deportation of thousands of children from Ukrainian territories it has occupied. Family, friends and army comrades gather to mourn Ukrainian army paramedic Nazarii Lavrovskyi who was killed on April 18 while helping to evacuate wounded troops from the front line in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine [Francisco Seco/AP Photo] A court in Moscow ordered Timur Ivanov, one of Russia’s 12 deputy defence ministers, to be held in custody pending trial on charges of bribery. Ivanov was in charge of military construction projects and was known for his lavish lifestyle. The 48-year-old, who wore his military uniform in court, faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty. Ukraine’s SBU security service said it suspected Metropolitan Arseniy, a high-ranking cleric and head of the main Orthodox monastery in eastern Ukraine, of having “tipped off” Russian forces about Ukrainian army positions in the Kramatorsk district and promoted “pro-Kremlin narratives”. The priest faces as many as eight years in prison if convicted. Ukraine stopped issuing new passports to some military-aged men overseas, according to amended legislation. The exact scope and period of the measure were unclear. Ukraine is expanding conscription to boost the number of troops on the battlefield. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Italy will sign an agreement next month with Ukraine and the United Nations’ cultural agency UNESCO to rebuild the city of Odesa and its cathedral, which was badly damaged by a Russian attack last July. Weapons White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the US had sent a “significant number” of long-range ATACMS to Ukraine and would “send more”. Sullivan was responding to reports in the US media that the missiles had been sent, and used twice. The long-range ATACMS has a range of 300km (186 miles). Adblock test (Why?)

Arizona alleged ‘fake electors’ who backed Trump in 2020 indicted by grand jury

Eleven Republicans have been indicted by a grand jury in Arizona and charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery for falsely claiming that former President Trump had won the state in 2020 over then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  “I will not allow American democracy to be undermined,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a Wednesday video announcing the indictments over the “fake elector scheme.”  She added, “The investigators and attorneys assigned to this case took the time to thoroughly piece together the details of the events that began nearly four years ago. They followed the facts where they led, and I’m very proud of the work they’ve done today.”  She added that the co-conspirators were “unwilling to accept” that Arizonans voted for President Biden in an election that was “free and fair” and “schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency.” MICHIGAN AG CHARGES 16 ‘FLASE ELECTORS’ FOR DONALD TRUMP IN 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION The defendants include former chair of the Arizona Republican Party Kelli Ward, sitting state Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern and an unindicted co-conspirator described as “a former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election,” a clear reference to Trump.  WITH PRESIDENTIAL RACE ON THE HORIZON, NM LAWMAKERS LOOK TO OUTLAW FAKE ELECTORS  In December 2020, the defendants wrote on a certificate sent to Congress that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors for Trump, claiming he had won the state.  Seven others were indicted but had their names redacted, pending charges being served.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Alleged “fake electors” have also been charged in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.