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A lesbian couple have become the first in Europe and only the second in the world to have a baby they both carried. Little Derek Eloy came into the world weighing just over 7 lb 4 oz. Couple Estefanía, 30, and Azahara, 27, went to a fertility clinic in March to begin the process. A capsule of eggs and sperm was first placed into Estefania’s vagina. It was left for five days so the sperm could naturally fertilise the eggs in vivo. After the device was removed, the embryos were examined and selected before being transferred into Azahara’s uterus for further development. Azahara then carried Derek for nine months before giving birth to the healthy boy on 30 October. Derek’s birth in Palma, Majorca, was made possible thanks to an innovative fertility treatment called INVOcell. In total, the couple paid more than £4,400 (€5,000) for the treatment and the medication they had to take. A doctor from the team that made Derek’s birth possible explained: “The novelty in this process is that both could carry the embryo and share it for as long as needed.” Estefanía told local media: “It was a way for both of us to be able to carry him. “The idea that I could participate in this way and carry him in my womb was much more exciting.” Derek is the first European baby born via INVOcell. The technology has only been used once before - in 2018 by Texan couple Bliss and Ashleigh Coulter to allow them to carry their son, Stetson. Estefanía said: “Now, I look at him, my partner and I look at each other, and we feel that it’s something that has been within both of us, something we’ve done together.” Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Catholic Church in the United States, Australia and some other countries began coming to terms with their clergy sexual abuse legacies years ago and set up mechanisms to compensate victims

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Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill has not yet responded to allegations of jury tampering in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial - but her co-author is staunchly defending the clerk he describes as someone of integrity and genuine character. Neil R Gordon appeared on Court TV Tuesday night just hours after Murdaugh’s defence attorneys filed a motion requesting a new trial for the convicted killer on the basis that Ms Hill tampered with the jury because she was driven by fame and a desire to secure a book deal. Mr Gordon and Ms Hill worked together for months after the trial on a tell-all book titled Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders, which was released on 1 August. Mr Gordon told Court TV’s Vinnie Politan on Tuesday that he was shocked when he heard about the allegations and what Murdaugh’s attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin believed to be Ms Hill’s alleged motivation. “I was pretty upset at what Harpootlian said was the motivation Becky had,” Mr Gordon said. “Last time I checked, Simon and Schuster did not send us a check for $200,000.” Mr Gordon explained that his family and Ms Hill’s family together forked over their own money, about $30,000, to self-publish the book. “We put up our own money because we thought it was an interesting story to tell,” he added. “We felt like it was a story that should be told,” adding that he doesn’t believe there would be another trial like this one in our lifetime. After six weeks of harrowing testimony back in March, the jury took just three hours to convict Murdaugh in the June 2021 murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul. It was Ms Hill who read the verdict. Now, months later, the defence team has accused the court clerk of telling jurors not to trust him when he testified in his own defence, having private conversations with the jury foreperson and pressuring jurors to come to a quick verdict. The request filed by Murdaugh’s lawyers on Tuesday also accuses Ms Hill of giving jury members business cards from reporters during the trial. After the verdict, she traveled to New York City with three of the jurors to do interviews. Ms Hill has not released an official statement, except for a brief comment to Court TV, in which she told the outlet the allegations are “untrue.” Mr Gordon said he has spoken with her, and said the “allegations are so deep” that the court clerk has hired legal counsel and they are planning to put out a statement in the “near future.” “What I do know is that she will answer each and every one of these allegations truthfully.” When asked about any possible conversations Ms Hill might have had with the jury, Mr Gordon said his friend, who he described as a “very spiritual person”, is known to pray with her staff. And knowing the jury to also be very prayerful, he said he asked her if she ever prayed with them. She responded to him, “Oh no no no. No legal entity is allowed to have prayer with the jury,” Mr Gordon said. “It was very clear that there was a line there,” he added. Mr Gordon and Ms Hill met through his wife, photographer Melissa Brinson Gordon, who, like many in the area, attended the jury proceedings of the trial that had gripped the nation. She had requested to take a selfie with Ms Hill which eventually led to friendship and talk of a mutual desire to capture the trial in Ms Hill’s words and Melissa’s photos. In the motion filed on Tuesday citing allegations against Ms Hill, Murdaugh’s attorney Mr Harpootlian, a state senator and lawyer for 50 years, said trial court clerks “aren’t someone who should even talk to them about the case. I’ve never heard of that.” The motion claims that when Murdaugh took the stand, Ms Hill instructed the jury to “watch him closely,” to “look at his actions,” and to “look at his movements” on the stand – something at least one juror said they understood to mean that Murdaugh was guilty. When the defence presented evidence, they were allegedly urged not “to be fooled”. The motion also claims that Ms Hill had frequent private conversations with the jury foreperson and repeatedly asked jurors for their opinions about Murdaugh’s guilt or innocence. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson released a brief statement on the motion, saying only that “we are currently reviewing the defense’s latest motion and will respond through the legal process at the appropriate time”. Maggie and Paul were found shot dead on the family’s 1,700-acre Moselle estate back on 7 June 2021. Alex Murdaugh had called 911 claiming to have found their bodies. During his high-profile murder trial, jurors heard how Paul was shot twice with a 12-gauge shotgun while he stood in the feed room of the dog kennels on the affluent family’s 1,700-acre Moselle estate. The second shot to his head blew his brain almost entirely out of his skull. After killing Paul, prosecutors said Murdaugh then grabbed a .300 Blackout semiautomatic rifle and opened fire on Maggie as she tried to flee from her husband. During the dramatic six-week trial, Murdaugh confessed to lying about his alibi on the night of the murders but continued to claim his innocence of the killings. The jury didn’t agree and the disgraced legal scion was convicted in March of the brutal murders. Read More Alex Murdaugh juror back in spotlight as killer accuses clerk of court of tampering in trial – latest Alex Murdaugh accuses ‘fame seeking’ court clerk of jury tampering at his murder trial Alex Murdaugh has a new victim story. We should be paying attention

Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann has been hit with a lawsuit over $70,000 in unpaid wages to a former assistant at his Manhattan architecture firm. In what marks the latest legal problem for the accused murderer, New York state’s Labor Department sued Mr Heuermann on Tuesday for labour violations. The lawsuit accuses the 59-year-old father-of-two of failing to pay outstanding damages to former employee Donna Sturman. From February 2017 to March 2018, Ms Sturman worked as an executive assistant at RH Consultants & Associates – the architecture business Mr Heuermann founded in 1994. During her employment, Mr Heuermann and his firm paid her below New York’s state’s minimum wage – effectively stealing $20,908.10 in wages from her, according to the suit. This included $9,454.56 in vacation pay that Ms Sturman was owed. In 2021 – two years before he was arrested on suspicion of being the serial killer who terrorised the shores of Long Island one decade before – Mr Heuermann and his firm agreed to settle the lawsuit for $84,945.84. As well as the unpaid wages, the settlement included interest, damages and civil penalties. Since then, Mr Heuermann has made just one payment of $16,385 and so still owes $68,560.84 in payments, the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit is the least of Mr Heuermann’s troubles as he sits behind bars charged with the murders of three women. The 59-year-old married father-of-two was taken into custody on 13 July when he left his architecture firm office in Midtown Manhattan and officers swooped on him in the centre of the city. He was charged with the murders of Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy and Amber Costello. He is also the prime suspect in the murder of Maureen Brainard-Barnes – who was last seen alive in early June 2007 in New York City and who, with the three other women, is known as the “Gilgo Four”. All four women worked as sex workers and disappeared after going to meet a client. They were all found in December 2010 within one-quarter mile of each other, bound by belts or tape and some wrapped in burlap – their bodies dumped along Gilgo Beach. They are among 11 victims whose remains were found along the shores of Long Island in 2010 and 2011, sparking fears of one or more serial killers. His arrest is said to have caught his loved ones off guard and plunged them into Vess Mitev, who began representing his adult children Victoria Heuermann, 26, and Christopher Sheridan, 33, after their father’s arrest, told The Independent that the family are now living in a “surreal hellscape”. “The Heuermann children have been living in a constant, surreal, waking nightmare,” he said. “Just because the news coverage doesn’t continue or it’s not in the news on a daily basis each day, for them it’s every day, it’s every moment. It’s the moment they wake up to the moment they go back to sleep again. “It’s a situation you wouldn’t want to wish on anyone. It’s not a reality.” He added: “Their focus has just been on managing their basic daily needs. We have specific, fundamental needs that we require to survive as people and that has really been their primary goal as their resources have been depleted completely or are no longer available to them. “Their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter and a safe space to sleep in have been all but obliterated. They’re trying to piece back together those very basic but yet so vital things that most of us take for granted.” Mr Mitev also hit out at the “wild conspiracy theories” that the family may have known about his alleged crimes saying that they “shouldn’t even be dignified with a response”. “These allegations shouldn’t even be dignified with a response,” he said. “But they are emblematic of someone with a thirst for the spotlight – an unquenchable thirst.” The pushback comes after Long Island attorney John Ray accused Mr Heuermann’s wife Asa Ellerup of being involved in her husband’s alleged killing spree. Speaking at a press conference last month, Mr Ray – who represents the families of two Gilgo Beach victims Shannan Gilbert and Jessica Taylor – claimed that Ms Ellerup should be treated as a suspect in the case. “It’s part of one large criminal enterprise,” he said. “She should be considered a suspect and not just a bystander or someone who’s been victimised by her husband.” Mr Ray has offered no evidence for this claim and Long Island officials are not treating Ms Ellerup, Ms Heuermann or Mr Sheridan as suspects. Court documents laying out the case against Mr Heuermann have stated that his family members were all out of town at the time of the killings. When asked about the allegations levelled by Mr Ray, Mr Mitev slammed the fact that the “wild conspiracy theories” should even need to be addressed. Instead of fending off unfounded claims about their own lives, Mr Mitev said that Victoria and Christopher are simply trying to survive after being thrust into the national spotlight when their father was arrested for three of the murders that terrorised the Long Island shores over a decade ago. At the time of his bombshell arrest, the adult children still lived with their father and mother Asa Ellerup at the family home in Massapequa Park – a stone’s throw from Gilgo Beach where victims’ bodies were dumped. Mr Mitev has previously revealed that the family are considering legal action against Suffolk County officials after they say their home was left “in a deplorable condition” from the two-week long police search. Photos reveal holes cut out of bathtubs, the garden excavated and belongings strewn all over and piled up high in the home that the family of four shared. Since then, Mr Heuermann’s children and wife have been spotted sitting outside their home – as Mr Mitev said the inside of the home is too much of a mess to be in. “The reason they’ve been photographed so much on the front porch is not because that’s where they congregate but it’s that they have nowhere to sit inside because of the absolute ransacking of the home,” he said. For now, the family members are just thankful for the kindness of strangers after receiving an outpouring of support from an unlikely source. Melissa Moore, the daughter of the notorious Happy Face Killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, launched a GoFundMe campaign to help them as she compared their experiences discovering that a close family member had spent years leading a “double life” as an alleged serial killer. As of 6 September, the GoFundMe had topped $53,000 in donations. “They really do appreciate the outpouring of support and emotional solidarity. They’re not looking for anything and not looking for any of this,” said Mr Mitev. “The one thing they want is to get some semblance of private life back.” Read More Attorney for Gilgo Beach murder suspect’s children hits back at claims family knew about alleged crimes Police investigating claim that missing South Carolina woman was last seen with Gilgo Beach murders suspect Scandal-plagued former Gilgo Beach police chief arrested for soliciting sex from undercover officer in park

A former aide to former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani says he told her the ex-New York City mayor and then-president Donald Trump were offering to sell presidential pardons for $2 million apiece, according to court documents. The bombshell allegation was levied in a complaint filed against Mr Giuliani by Noelle Dunphy, a New York-based public relations professional who is suing him for “unlawful abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct” committed while she worked for him in 2019 and 2020. The lawsuit also claims that she was subjected to sexual assault, harassment, wage theft and other misconduct by Mr Giuliani, and alleges that she was forced to perform sex acts on him and work in the nude. Ms Duphy’s lawsuit details an interaction she allegedly had with Mr Giuliani on or about 16 February 2019, when he was serving as Mr Trump’s personal attorney and attempting to dig up overseas dirt on then-former vice president Joe Biden, who at the time was two months away from entering the 2020 presidential race against Mr Trump. She writes that as they reviewed emails between him and Ukrainian government officials, she asked if he had to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and offered to do the required paperwork for him. The former mayor replied that he was allowed to violate Fara and other US laws because “[he had] immunity”. She then states that Mr Giuliani asked her “if she knew anyone in need of a pardon” because he was “selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split”. “He told Ms Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act,” she added. During Mr Trump’s presidency, he frequently granted pardons to wealthy or well-connected individuals without the involvement of the Pardon Attorney, the Department of Justice official who is charged with reviewing petitions for executive clemency and making recommendations as to whether a given petition should be granted. No evidence has ever emerged that Mr Trump or Mr Giuliani were ever compensated for any presidential pardon granted during Mr Trump’s time in office, but Ms Dunphy’s allegation matches that made by another person who once sought a pardon from the then-president. In August, The New York Times reported that former CIA officer John Kiriakou broached the topic with Mr Giuliani during a meeting at the Washington, DC hotel Mr Trump’s company ran between 2016 and 2022. Mr Kiriakou, who in 2012 was sentenced to nearly three years in prison for disclosing classified information, told the Times that one of Mr Giuliani’s associates at the meeting said the ex-New York City mayor could assist him — for a price. “It’s going to cost $2 million — he’s going to want two million bucks,” he recalled the Giuliani associate as saying. He also told the Times that he did not pursue a pardon through Mr Giuliani because he could not afford to pay him $2 million. “I laughed. Two million bucks — are you out of your mind?” Kiriakou told the outlet. “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension,” he said. Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for and adviser to Mr Giuliani, told The Independent in an email that the former New York mayor “unequivocally denies the allegations raised by Ms Dunphy”. “Mayor Giuliani’s lifetime of public service speaks for itself and he will pursue all available remedies and counterclaims,” he added. The Independent has reached out to Mr Trump’s team for comment. Read More Trump news – live: Aides showed Trump tweets by AOC and Andrew Yang to psyche him up during break in town hall Rudy Giuliani sued for $10m for alleged sexual assault by former employee Trump claimed the Durham probe would uncover the 'crime of the century.' Here's what it really found Trump tells former adviser Michael Flynn: 'We’re going to bring you back' Trump says AOC ‘went crazy’ over CNN town hall as he slams Democrat’s relationship Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

The house that Candice Voelker's aunt Coreen and uncle Mando had been residing in since the 1980s was destroyed in the fire