List of All Articles with Tag 'ame'

Members of the House Oversight Committee who have alleged that President Joe Biden and members of his family have committed multiple federal crimes failed to offer any evidence that any member of Mr Biden’s family had done anything of the sort, at a press conference to unveil new “evidence” against the Biden family on Wednesday. The nearly hour-long session led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer came one week after Mr Comer and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley alleged in a letter that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has in its records a report detailing “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions”. Mr Comer had issued a subpoena for the FBI document, known as a FD-1023, and had given FBI Director Christopher Wray until 10am Wednesday to turn over the document. “I mean, guys, you in the press, this is easy pickings,” Representative Byron Donalds of Florida told reporters. “I'm giving you Pulitzer stuff here. Like all you have to do is literally look at our memo and see the level of detail upon which they have created this and it's ... very frustrating.” Flanked by a horde of fellow members of the House Oversight Committee ranging from relatively moderate Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina to opponents of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy such as Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, the assembled GOP representatives tried to make the case that Mr Biden and his family had profited off of his tenure in public service. Republicans attempted to tell the press that the allegations were serious and that reporters should probe into potential illegal activity. In the days leading up to the presentation, Mr Comer and his allies had intimated that they would be presenting bombshell evidence that would show clear instances of wrongdoing. They’d expected a significant turnout and asked reporters attending to RSVP to the press conference. Upon arrival, The Independent was handed a summary of the allegations of impropriety, but when Mr Comer began to speak shortly after 9am, it was clear that seats in the House television studio were not nearly as packed as the chairman and Republican members had likely hoped. As he opened the press conference, Mr Comer noted that the FBI had not yet turned over the report at issue, and said the panel would “report to you only facts when they are verified and indisputable” after receiving the document. He also said his committee “will not pursue witch hunts, or string the American people along for years with false promises of evidence that is beyond circumstantial evidence”. Yet at the same time, the Kentucky Republican offered conclusions for which he had no proof, such as when he told reporters it was “inconceivable that the president did not know” his family members were allegedly receiving “millions of dollars from China”. The House probe being led by Mr Comer, who earlier this year shuttered an investigation into how members of former president Donald Trump’s family came into billions of dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds after he left office in 2017, is a continuation of efforts by top Republicans to tar Mr Biden with corruption allegations through his son, attorney and former lobbyist Hunter Biden, and other members of his family. The first of Mr Trump’s two impeachment trials was touched off by efforts by the then-president and his associates to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce sham investigations into both Joe and Hunter Biden, the latter of whom served on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm for several years in the 2010s. In appearances on Fox News, Mr Comer has also alleged that Hunter Biden’s prior business relationship with a Chinese national factored into decisions his father has made as president. He and other top Republicans have accused the president of being “compromised” by his son’s business dealings even though Mr Biden has never been shown to have garnered any financial benefit from them. He has also repeatedly denied having any involvement in his family’s private business affairs. But Republicans have nonetheless attempted to cast the president as somehow leading a family-based enterprise that they’ve unfavourably compared to Mr Trump’s eponymous real estate and branding company, even though two of Mr Trump’s companies were convicted of criminal tax fraud in a New York court last year. Despite promises to prove Mr Biden’s criminality, Mr Comer’s presentation on Wednesday did not allege any criminal acts by Mr Biden or his family – even as he and his fellow committee members told reporters that Hunter Biden, Mr Biden’s brother James, and other members of the president’s family have been involved in “shady business deals that capitalised on Joe Biden's public office and risked our country's national security”. Much of what Mr Comer discussed involved bank records which he said reveal that Hunter Biden had a “lucrative financial relationship” with a Romanian national by the name of Gabriel Popoviciu during the period his father was vice president under Barack Obama. According to The New York Times, Mr Popoviciu retained Hunter Biden, who is a Yale-educated lawyer, to represent him in an effort to fend off criminal charges related to a land deal in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. The funds transfers Republicans suggested were evidence of wrongdoing began in 2015, the year Hunter Biden began representing Mr Popuviciu. Mr Comer described the Romanian national as having been “under investigation for and later convicted of corruption” in his home country, though the Kentucky Republican never alleged that the investigation or conviction had anything to do with Mr Biden or acknowledged that the two men had an attorney-client relationship. One of Hunter Biden’s attorneys, George Mesires, has said his client never discussed the Popoviciu case, Romanian anti-corruption efforts or anything else related to Romania with the then-vice president, his father. Despite the clear explanation for the transactions at issue, the Oversight Committee chairman alleged that Hunter Biden’s relationship with Mr Popoviciu was connected to the then-vice president’s work carrying out Obama administration policy in Romania, which he described as “a foreign adversary” even though Romania is a longstanding American ally and member of Nato. He also suggested that the wire transfers to Hunter Biden, an attorney and lobbyist, were suspicious because they “occurred while Joe Biden was vice president and leading the United States efforts in these countries” and accused the now-president of “lecturing Romania on anti corruption policies” while “walking billboard for his son and family to collect money”. Mr Comer accused the Biden family of engaging in “a pattern of influence peddling” because the end of Hunter Biden’s business relationship with Mr Popoviciu happened around the time the Obama-Biden administration left office, though he offered no evidence that any American policy decision was the result of any undue influence exerted by Hunter Biden or anyone with whom he had a business relationship. Other committee members who spoke after the chairman attacked other members of Mr Biden’s family, including Hallie Biden, the widow of Mr Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden. Rep Kelly Armstrong noted that bank records show that some of the money paid to Hunter Biden by Mr Popoviciu in 2015 was transferred to Ms Biden, and called those transfers suspicious because then-Vice President Biden had delivered a speech about the dangers of corruption during a May 2014 visit to Romania. “In fact, it's very hard to come up with any legitimate business reason to conduct transactions with this type in this type of complex way,” he said. He also suggested that there was no legitimate reason for Ms Biden to receive any portion of funds paid to Hunter Biden by Mr Popoviciu in late 2015 even though she had by then entered into a romantic relationship with him following the death of her husband in May 2015. Though not a single committee member offered any evidence that the president, his son or his brother had broken any laws, some called for the prosecution of Mr Biden and his family nonetheless. Ms Mace of South Carolina said the Department of Justice “needs to get off its a**” and file charges against the Bidens. “If any these allegations are proven true than someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged, prosecuted, maybe spend a little time in prison to take to account and responsibility,” she said, despite it being unclear what crimes, if any, she was alleging the Bidens to have committed. The presentation by the House Republicans comes as House Democrats, the White House and outside groups are stepping up efforts to defend the president — and his family — from what they describe as unsubstantiated attacks that are heavy on innuendo and lacking in substance. Mr Comer’s Democratic counterpart, Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, said in a statement that the GOP “has failed to provide factual evidence to support his wild accusations about the President” and panned the allegations as “innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago” made with “cherry-picked bank records, misrepresentations about confidential and unverified bank reports known as SARs, and baseless conspiracy theories to attack the President’s family, including his grandchildren”. “As Republicans use their oversight powers to advance this tiresome and aging smear campaign, they refuse to honor their public commitment to investigate former President Trump and former senior White House advisor, Jared Kushner, their hundreds of LLCs, and the billions of dollars they collected directly from autocratic and corrupt foreign governments. If they’re in search of presidential corruption by foreign powers, the undisputed champion is their own guy.,” Mr Raskin said. An outside group led by veteran Democratic operative David Brock, Facts First, also held a conference call with reporters to debunk the Republican claims shortly after Mr Comer’s session had concluded. Mr Brock noted that the GOP’s own report “showed no payments to Joe Biden, no evidence of any policy decisions influenced by anything other than a US national interests” and mocked Mr Comer’s promise to reveal wrongdoing that would make the Watergate scandal which ended Richard Nixon’s presidency “look like jaywalking”. “The reality is we don't even have a scandal here, much less Watergate,” said Mr Brock, who was followed by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen. Cohen, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, making false statements to a federally-insured bank, and campaign finance violations for actions he has said he undertook at Mr Trump’s behest, told reporters that Mr Comer’s claim of having found “breathtaking foreign entanglements” was “ridiculous and irresponsible” and evidence that the Oversight committee chair is auditioning for a spot on the 2024 GOP ticket alongside Mr Trump. He also said nothing Mr Comer has alleged about the Bidens is worse than what Mr Trump and his family is known to have done during and after his time in the White House. “The Trump children profited more off their father's presidency than anyone in history. For example, Ivanka, and Jared somehow made over $600 million during their time in service as senior advisors to the President. Now, during that tenure, Ivanka also received a series of trademarks on her clothing and her jewellery lines from China. And Jared, shortly thereafter, received a Middle East bailout on his troubled 666 Fifth Avenue property, a property that Jared acquired on behalf of his family, which happens to be noted as the single worst real estate deal in New York City's history,” he said. Read More House Republicans hang Oversight chair James Comer out to dry after shocking Beau Biden remarks Exclusive: Senior Republican tries to wriggle out of Beau Biden row after comments cause backlash White House calls senior Republican ‘despicable’ for wishing Biden’s dead son had been prosecuted National Archives leader confirmed amid turmoil over Trump probe Idaho man who dangled from Senate balcony during Capitol riot receives 15-month prison sentence California's Feinstein returns to Senate after monthslong absence

George Santos described criminal charges against him as a “witch hunt” in a defiant press conference following his arrest on Wednesday. The New York congressman spoke outside a federal courthouse after being arraigned on charges of fraud, theft of public funds and money laundering. “It’s a witch hunt,” he told a crowd of reporters. “I’m gonna fight my battle, I’m gonna deliver, I’m gonna fight the witch hunt, I’m gonna take care of clearing my name,” he said, adding that he was planning to run for reelection. The 34-year-old congressman for New York’s third district, who won his election after a campaign that was littered with lies about his past, was arrested shortly after 9am after turning himself in to authorities. In the 13-count indictment, federal prosecutors accused Mr Santos of lying on financial disclosure forms he filed to the House when he became a candidate, first by overstating his income from one job and failing to disclose income from another, and secondly by lying about his earnings from his company, the Devolder Organization. Prosecutors also allege that Mr Santos fraudulently used donations to his political campaign for his own benefit, spending “thousands of dollars of the solicited funds on personal expenses, including luxury designer clothing and credit card payments.” The indictment alleges that Mr Santos’s fraud began before his successful run for Congress, accusing him of running an unemployment insurance fraud scheme in which he applied for government assistance in New York while still employed by a Florida-based investment firm. “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself,” Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. Mr Santos pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on a $500,000 bond following his arraignment, which lasted for around 15 minutes. His lawyer said that the congressman surrendered his passport to the court. Mr Santos could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Read More Here are the 13 counts New York Rep. George Santos faces George Santos pleads not guilty to duping donors, stealing campaign cash to burnish wealthy image George Santos pleads not guilty to 13 charges – live

Late last month, as Washington’s political and media elite gathered at the Hilton hotel for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Joe Biden, 80, couldn’t gloss over a fact that’s increasingly colouring his political future: He’s just an exceptionally old person to be president. In fact, he’s the oldest person to ever hold the White House. “I believe in the First Amendment — not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” the president began in his remarks, before good-naturedly taking The New York Times to task for stories about his age. “You call me old? I call it being seasoned,” he said. “You say I’m ancient? I say I’m wise. You say I’m over the hill? Don Lemon would say that’s a man in his prime.” The reference was a telling one. Mr Lemon, who was ousted from CNN last month, caused a minor media scandal when he commented about women of a certain age being past their “prime.” This remark was itself a reaction to former South Carolina governor and current presidential contender Nikki Haley calling, somewhat scandalously, for mental competency tests for politicians over age 75. Generational conflict is nothing new in American politics, but age has played an especially prominent role in Washington in recent months, impacting everything from leadership battles in Congress to the future of the presidency, raising questions about fairness, gender, and the vitality America’s very institutions themselves, which have scarcely ever been filled with more senior citizens. Mr Biden may have been in a laughing mood at the Correspondents’ Dinner, but that may have just been him putting on a smiling face for the cameras. His pollsters are surely worried about recent data, such as a March poll finding 68 per cent of registered voters thought he was too old for another term, or an April poll finding that 70 per cent of adults said Mr Biden shouldn’t run again, with the roughly same percentage saying age was a factor in that decision. The age-related worries are just the tip of the iceberg though. Overall, there’s a marked lack of enthusiasm for Mr Biden, with 57 per cent of respondents in a recent poll suggesting the Democrats should nominate someone else in 2024. If these doubts were vanquished, and Mr Biden did win again, he would be 86 by the end of his second term. If Mr Biden was re-elected, it would further cement the dominance Baby Boomers have exerted over national politics in recent decades, according to Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Pennsylvania State University, author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture. “We’ve had 28 years of Boomer presidency in a row,” he said. “That streak was only ended by Joe Biden, who is technically too old to be a Boomer by two years. That is unprecedented for a single generation.” Age was a political accelerant during the Trump presidency, too. Prior to Mr Biden, the billionaire, at age 70, was the oldest person ever to become president. Throughout his presidency, Mr Trump’s mental fitness and cognitive health was a political flashpoint, with the former president bragging about his results on mental competency tests, psychologists openly openly opining about the president’s mental acuity, and former advisors gossiping to the political press that Mr Trump’s mental decline was so serious cabinet officials considered invoking the 25th Amendment and removing him from office. Of course, Mr Trump, the insult-comic-in-chief, found a way to turn this speculation against his rival, dubbing Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe” throughout the 2020 campaign season. It’s not just the White House, though, where age has been a concern. The present Congress contains the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in US history. Generationally, the US population fits roughly into four, equal-sized blocks of about 20 to 25 per cent: ages 0 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55-plus. The composition of Congress, meanwhile, is drastically tipped toward the elder part of that range, with the median House member aged 57.9 and the median senator aged 65.3. Beyond just being another way the US government doesn’t mirror the wider diversity of the US population, age within Congress can become a political weapon, used by both parties as part of their machinations. In March, Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, the oldest US Senator, who has been dogged in her later years with accusations of declining mental faculties, was hospitalised with shingles, and has had to miss large swathes of in-person work in the upper chamber as she recovers. The following month, she asked to temporarily be replaced on the key Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles the appointment of federal judges, one of the few remaining ways the Democrats can exert lasting influence in a divided Congress. However, Republicans, knowing that the full Senate must approve committee assignments, have added a major, likely unacceptable demand for the Democrats: they’ve asked that Senator Feinstein must resign the Senate entirely before they consider a replacement. In a sign of just how scrambled the politics of age are on the Hill, members of both parties have argued such treatment is unfair, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP from changing its tune. Sen Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called the demands “very anti-woman” and “very anti-aging” in an interview with The Independent, while Sen Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, argued, “The Republicans are saying no, for no reason, other than trying to block the court from going forward in its investigation of the Supreme Court and pass more judges, which is the right of the majority to do.” The issue has divided the Democratic Party as well. In April, rising star California congressman Ro Khanna forcely called for Sen Feinstein to resign. “We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty,” he said. “While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.” Age has also been a clear undercurrent in House leadership battles, where former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a point to highlight the comparative youth of the new slate of Democratic leadership, following at times barbed exchanges between her and younger, more progressive parts of the party like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,” she said in November when she stepped aside. “Now we must move boldly into the future, grounded by the principles that have propelled us this far, and open to fresh possibilities for the future.” All told, according to Professor Munger, the age of America’s most senior politicians – Sen Chuck Schumer is 71, Sen Mitch McConnell is 81 – often means that issues that matter to other generations don’t get top billing, leading both to disaffection and to bigger-picture existential issues, like a lack of serious climate legislation or the impending funding crisis of Social Security. “It’s been clear that because of the size of the Boomer generation, at a certain point we were either going to have to raise taxes on the workforce or cut the benefits,” he said. “We didn’t do either of those things. Sometime in the 2030s, it’s going to run out. They’re not going to cut benefits to Boomers…Instead, younger generations are going to have to fully fund this obvious 30-year shortfall.” In the case of Social Security in particular, many of the leaders deciding on the issue are current recipients, while those younger generations who will likely pay more or get less in the future aren’t represented in office. A similar problem arises with climate change: the leaders holding up urgent action on the climate likely will not be alive to see the very worst impacts of their inaction. “The issues that matter to younger generations don’t get on the agenda at all,” Prof Munger added. Instituting parliamentary system, he said, instead of our current winner-take-all model might lead to more representational and ideological diversity, but like major climate or benefit reform, overhauling the US election system doesn’t seem to be a consensus priority at the moment. And those younger generations in turn don’t participate as much as they fully could at the national level. In the 2022 midterms, only 23 per cent of eligible young Americans cast a ballot, up from 2014’s woeful 13 per cent, but still well below the participation rate of older generations. The same held true in 2020, the highest turnout election of the 21st century: 76 per cent of those age 65 to 74 voted, while only 51.4 per cent of those 18 to 24 did. Some of this demographic dominance is unavoidable, argues Philip Bump, Washington Post columnist and author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. The Boomers, born in the abundant post-war years between 1946 and 1964, were until very recently the largest generation in US history. During their lifetimes, American cemented its place as a global economic superpower, the voting age lowered to 18, and the federal government poured millions into creating a new middle class. It’s no surprise then, Mr Bump says, this generation has a strong hold on power. “The Baby Boomers make up a disproportionate share of elected officials, especially at the federal level, simply by virtue of scale,” he told The Independent. Combine that with the built-in political advantages of incumbency and wealth, and you have a recipe for a political system tilted towards older people. “Senators are not usually just elected out of the blue,” he added. Some argue that critcising elected leaders, and the system at large, over age concerns is ageist, and often sexist as well, given the extra scrutiny paid to leaders like former Speaker Pelosi or Senator Feinstein. However, according to Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, an organisation that encourages young people to run for office, this is largely missing the point. Any one elected leader can be an effective and competent advocate regardless of age, she told The Independent, but we must acknowledge that the system at large needs to allow more young people in. “This isn’t about any one person. This is about a collective problem of Congress not being reflective of the American people,” she said. “We know that in business, and in other governments, things work better when they’re made up of diverse perspectives. All of us would be better served if there were more voices at the table.” According to Penn State’s Professor Munger, debates about age in politics aren’t new. During Ronald Reagan’s second term, similar conversations about mental fitness and age circulated around the Beltway and the country at large. And despite the apparent controversy of someone like Nikki Haley calling for age limits, the US already has such policies in other arenas, like age requirements for generals or pilots, or mandatory retirement ages in certain other professions. What makes these conversations often intractable, though, is that they’re not really ever just a conversation about age or reform, he argues. Both parties are always considering the partisan stakes. “There’s no way to have that debate except through the lens of immediate political reference,” he said. Finding some resolution to the generation wars will be urgent, however. There’s a higher percent of Americans older than 65 than there has ever been in US history, so questions about age, competence, and representation aren’t going away any time soon. Neither are big-picture problems like the climate crisis, where urgent action is needed now to prevent impacts that will play out in both a matter of seasons and centuries. Ms Litman, of Run for Something, is encouraged by recent research her organisation did, which found that more than 130,000 young people around the country wanted to run for office. To her, it showed that for all the inaccessibility of the US political system, younger generations have the same urge to serve as those who came before them. “We often hear, young people don’t vote. They don’t want to engage,” she said. “That’s not true. You have to ask. You have to open the door to them. When you do, they are ready and eager to run right through it.” Read More Biden 2024: The polls, the politics, and why he needs Trump in order to win What should Democrats do about Dianne Feinstein? Biden laughs off 2024 age concerns: ‘My career of 280 years’ The US has approved $42 billion in loan forgiveness for public service workers. Here's what to know Harris 1st woman to deliver West Point commencement speech AP source: Harris postpones MTV event over writers' strike

An attorney representing the family of one of the teens killed in the murder-suicide in Henryetta has made shocking revelations. The Oklahoma State of Bureau Investigations confirmed last week that convicted rapist Jesse McFadden shot dead his wife Holly Guess, 35, and her children Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17, Michael James Mayo, 15, and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13 before turning the gun on himself. McFadden also killed Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 15, who were at the home visiting Tiffany for the weekend. Following the gruesome discoveries on 1 May at McFadden’s property, reports emerged that he was facing fresh soliciting and child porn charges after he was caught exchanging lewd images with a 16-year-old in 2016 while serving time in jail for the rape of another minor. McFadden had an early release in 2020, despite the severity of his previous crime and pending charges. Over the weekend, dive teams with the OSBI were spotted using sonar devices at one of the ponds neighbouring the scene of the heinous crime, KJRH reported. The second processing came after KFOR revealed that authorities left behind a trove of stomach-churning evidence at McFadden’s property after releasing the scene. While touring the residence, a crew of reporters found hand restraints, sex toys and drug paraphernalia that have since been seized by Okmulgee Police. Cameron Spradling, an attorney representing the Webster family, has now divulged that 32 different cell phones and individuals used McFadden’s “house of horrors” as their location address. The findings have been handed to the OSBI, Mr Spradling. The mishandling of McFaddens’ sex crimes and confusion regarding leadership in the murder-suicide investigation have caused outrage in the community. Ivy and Brittany’s parents have said they did not know McFadden had been convicted of raping a minor, while Guess’ mother has said she only found out very recently. In a statement to The Oklahoman after the deviant findings at McFadden’s residence, Mr Spradling said: “The family of Ivy Webster were shocked to discover that computers and cell phones had not been seized by law enforcement when they viewed the inside of this house of horrors. No words can express this family’s fear that the sexual assault of their baby girl has been placed on the dark web. We demand that law enforcement seize all electronic devices and hunt down all sexual predators who have witnessed the suffering of Ivy Webster.” A neighbour of McFadden also told KJRH last week that six months ago, they saw somebody digging the pond where police excavation teams were seen this past weekend. When confronted, the individual reportedly said they meant to expand the pond, despite there being no apparent reason to do so. A family of the victims also found a ledger at the crime scene with a list of unknown names and ages — the last final names being those of the six victims shot dead by McFadden last week before he turned the gun on himself, according to the network. The Independent reached out to the OSBI for comment on the possibility that McFadden may have been the individual digging the pond last year, and whether the agency is investigating other potential crimes at the property. The agency declined to address the questions. McFadden, who was on the state sex offender registry, was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison for rape in 2003. After his early release in October 2020, McFadden was arrested the next month and then released on a $25,000 bond pending trial, which was repeatedly delayed, partially due to the Covid-19 pandemic. McFadden’s rape victim Krystle Strong and cellmate James Fleming told The Independent last week that they separately contacted several law enforcement agencies in a fruitless attempt to stop his release and warn authorities that he was a danger to the community. A spokesperson with Henryetta Police Department said that McFadden’s address was located in an unincorporated part of Okmulgee County, where his registration was up to date, and deferred to Okmulgee Police Department, which did not answer The Independent’s request for comment. “Due to his home address. Henryetta Police Department would have no records kept of his registration,” Henryetta Police said in a statement. Several departments in the District 25 task force were initially put in charge of the investigation, according to KFOR reporter Erin Christy. Ms Christy said that she was deferred to the OSBI by the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office after Sheriff Eddy Rice declined to clarify the confusion surrounding which agency had the eadership of the case. “Ultimately, someone needs to say we’ll go through this or that. What did you miss? And if you have people outside your jurisdiction, it doesn’t work well,” Former Tulsa Police Department homicide detective Dave Walker told KFOR. “You gotta be in charge of everything or you’re not in charge of anything.” Read More Dive and excavation teams spotted at Jesse McFadden’s property as mysterious list with victims’ names found Jesse McFadden’s obsession with sex alarmed his jail cellmate. Why was he released early? Jesse McFadden raped me 20 years before his Oklahoma massacre. My pleas to keep him locked up were ignored

“Doomsday cult mom” Lori Vallow has made the shock decision not to offer any defence in her high-profile trial for the murders of her two children and new husband’s wife. The 49-year-old is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and grand theft over the deaths of her daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and her new husband Chad Daybell’s first wife Tammy, 49. Tylee and JJ were last seen alive in September 2019. In June 2020, their remains were found buried on the Daybell property. Tammy died one month after their disappearance in October 2019. On Tuesday, the prosecution rested its case after calling around 60 witnesses over the last five weeks – with jurors seeing footage of Ms Vallow relaxing and sunbathing poolside with Mr Daybell in Hawaii when authorities served her with court papers to present her children to authorities. When it was the defence’s turn to begin its case, Ms Vallow’s attorney Jim Archibald abruptly told the court that “we don’t believe the state has proven its case so the defence rests”. Closing arguments will get under way in Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Thursday before the jury begins deliberations. Read More Lori Vallow will not present any defence witnesses in trial for her children’s murders Lori Vallow ignored stepsons’ pleas as she exchanged romantic texts with Chad Daybell after husband’s death Lori Vallow trial hears autopsy details that show Tammy Daybell was likely restrained during her murder Who is Lori Vallow? The ‘doomsday cult mom’ on trial for her children’s murders Lori Vallow’s disturbing texts revealed: ‘A reason to scream’

George Santos, the New York congressman who rose to prominence for a string of exaggerations , lies, and irregularities related to his personal background and campaign finances, has been hit with a series of federal charges. The exact nature of the charges aren’t yet public and remain under seal but they concern federal crimes, NBC News and CNN report. Mr Santos could reportedly appear in federal court in New York’s eastern district as soon as Wednesday. The New York Republican has been under investigation by multiple bodies since being elected, including the House Ethics Committee, as well as the Federal Election Commission, and local and federal prosecutors. When reached for comment about the news on Tuesday, Mr Santos claimed he was unaware of the charges. “This is news to me,” he told The Associated Press. “You’re the first to call me about this.” Derek Myers, a former aide for the congressman, tweeted that he had been working as a “confidential informant and human asset” for the FBI. He told NewsNation that the Justice Department’s charges are “just the start” of an “avalanche” of probkems for the Republican lawmaker. Read More Federal prosecutors file criminal charges against New York congressman George Santos, report says George Santos: Every lie disgraced Republican Congressman has been accused of making George Santos insists he has a ‘clean conscience’ after lying about background

Donald Trump posted a series of video rants on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night after a Manhattan federal jury found that he sexually abused Elle magazine columnist E Jean Carroll in a dressing room in Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s. Ms Carroll, 79, sued the former president for raping her and then “destroying” her reputation when he accused of lying about the encounter, claiming that she wasn’t “my type”. After almost two weeks of testimony, the jury found Mr Trump liable of sexually abusing Ms Carroll, but did not find that she had proven that he raped her. As it is a civil case, Mr Trump does not face any jail time and does not have to register as a sex offender but has been ordered to pay Ms Carroll almost $5m in damages for battery and defamation. The former president went on the defence following the verdict, posting three blistering videos online where he vowed to appeal. “The whole thing is a scam,” he fumed. CNN is now coming under mounting pressure to ax its town hall with Mr Trump scheduled for Wednesday night in light of the verdict. Read More I represented Trump’s accusers - because five brave women stood up, he has been caught in his truth E Jean Carroll says the ‘world finally knows the truth’ after a jury finds Donald Trump liable for sexual assault The lessons we should all be taking from E Jean Carroll’s Trump sexual abuse case Trump rape case explained: How a chance department store meeting led to a court case decades later

The mother of Madison Brooks, the LSU student who died following an alleged rape in January, has shared the final text message her daughter sent her before her death. Ashley Baustert, Brooks’s mother, told Fox News Digital that she texted her daughter on the night of 14 January that she would see her the following day to finish moving her into her dorm room for the start of her second semester at the university. Shortly thereafter, the 19-year-old responded with a text that read “I love you!!!” She also sent a picture of herself at Reggie’s Bar in east Baton Rouge with the son of one of Ms Baustert’s sorority sisters. Three-and-a-half hours later, Brooks was hit by a car in the middle of a high-traffic parkway and died. Initially, investigators did not suspect foul play in the incident. The person who hit Brooks stayed at the scene and called for help, while two passersby stopped But Ms Baustert knew something was amiss. “I know something was wrong,” Ms Baustert told Fox News Digital. “I know something terrible happened. Based on the circumstances of how she was hit, where she was, the time and her being alone.” Ms Baustert’s suspicions were furthered when she went to Reggie’s Bar and found her daughter’s phone had been left there unattended. “We were like there’s no way Madi put herself at three in the morning on the parkway in that neighbourhood without her phone,” Ms Baustert said. “Like, no one would do that.” Eventually, police turned to an investigation of the events between when Ms Baustert last heard from her daughter and when she was hit by a car. Police now believe that in that three-and-a-half hour period, Brooks was raped by four men who she met at the bar — Desmond Carter, 17, Casen Carver, 18, Everett Lee, 28, and Kaivon Washington, 18, who have all been arrested. Desmond Carter was indicted in February for first-degree rape and third-degree rape. Casen Carver was indicted on 3 May on charges of first-degree rape and third-degree rape. Investigators say that following the alleged rape, the men pushed Brooks onto the side of the Burbank Highway. They then believe that she wandered into the parkway, where she was hit by the car. At the time of her death, Brooks had a blood alcohol content of .319 per cent — nearly four times the legal limit to drive. Reggie’s Bar, which was located in the popular Tigerland area of Baton Rouge, had its alcohol license revoked in April and is now permanently closed. Now, Ms Baustert and other members of Brooks’s family are working to ensure that her memory lives on. The Madison Brooks Foundation, launched in the aftermath of her death, will offer financial support to young people in need and advocate for their safety. A billboard of Brooks, wearing pink, her favourite colour pink, is currently on display in Times Square. Read More Madison Brooks’ mother slams release of video from night of LSU student’s alleged rape and death Madison Brooks was killed by a car. Now, four men who left her on the road are charged with rape We were sexually assaulted years before Madison Brooks. LSU failed us, too Madison Brooks timeline: From Baton Rouge bar to alleged rape and death, what happened to the LSU student? Madison Brooks news: LSU student’s family is ‘blown away’ by victim blaming as they say ‘rape is rape’

The state of California has reached a $24m settlement with the family of Edward Bronstein, the man who died while being restrained by state highway patrol officers in 2020. Mr Bronstein was pulled over by officers on suspicion of driving under the influence on March 31, 2020 and was pinned to the ground by officers after initially declining to submit to a blood test. In a nearly 18-minute video of the incident filmed by a sergeant and released nearly two years after the incident, Mr Bronstein can be heard telling the officers “I can’t breathe” before losing consciousness. According to Mr Bronstein’s family, he had initially declined to submit to the blood test because of a longstanding fear of needles. As he was being pinned to the ground by officers, Mr Bronstein can be heard shouting, “I’ll do it willingly! I’ll do it willingly, I promise!” “It’s too late,” one officer says in response. Another admonishes Mr Bronstein for yelling. After Mr Bronstein ceased speaking, it took officers eleven minutes to start performing CPR on him. By then, it was too late. Mr Bronstein was pronounced dead, with the Los Angeles County coroner ruling that his cause of death was “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.” According to Annee Della Donna, an attorney for Mr Bronstein’s family, the settlement is the largest civil rights settlement ever agreed to by the state of California and second largest in the history of the country following the settlement reached by the city of Minneapolis with George Floyd’s family.

Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against George Santos, the Republican congressman whose campaign was littered with falsehoods about his past, CNN reported. Mr Santos is expected to appear on Wednesday at a federal court in New York’s Eastern District, where the charges have been filed, the network reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. CBS also reported that charges had been filed. The exact charges have not yet been revealed, but Mr Santos was reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department for his campaign finances. The charges represent a rapid rise and fall for a man his own constituents decried as an “imposter.” Mr Santos was elected to represent New York’s third congressional district in November 2022, defeating Democrat Robert Zimmerman by a margin of 54 per cent to 46 per cent. Soon after that victory, it emerged that Mr Santos had lied about much of his personal history and work experience. A New York Times investigation found that he had lied about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, lied about the college he attended, fabricated an animal charity, that the company from which he had earned a salary of $750,000 and dividends of $1m did not have any online presence, lied about saying he lost four employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, and that he faced criminal charges in Brazil for cheque fraud. A local pressure group started by local citizens was formed with the aim of forcing Mr Santos from office. They held regular protests outside his campaign office and called on Republican leaders to expel him from Congress. Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy refused to hold a vote to expel Mr Santos, but the GOP leader said he would likely face a probe by the House Ethics Committee. Following the news of criminal charges on Tuesday, Mr McCarthy told CNN: “I’ll look at the charges.” Since Mr Santos was sworn into office in January, revelations about his past have continued to emerge. The most recent report found that Mr Santos was charged with writing bad checks to purchase puppies from Amish farmers in 2017. Mr Santos, 34, has apologised for what he described as “résumé embellishment,” but has refused to resign. The Independent contacted New York’s Eastern District for comment. Read More In George Santos’s district, setting of The Great Gatsby, cries of ‘imposter’ abound

Progressives are beginning a new offensive on Capitol Hill: Taking on America’s staggering $88bn in medical debt. Headed up by the Bernie Sanders spinoff group Our Revolution, advocates around the country are gathering horror stories of instances where necessary procedures were blocked by insurance companies or, perhaps worse, approved with stipulations such as “out of network” classifications that can quickly (and often do) lead to lifesaving treatment becoming a financial death sentence. The group hosted a town hall led by executive director Joseph Geevhargese on Monday, where a number of Americans shared their own personal versions of ruin at the hands of medical debt collectors and hospital bills. Between 10 per cent and half of adult Americans are thought to carry medical debt in some form, with estimates widely varrying thanks to the complexities of tracking paid-off debts. Elizabeth McLaughlin, one woman who shared her account with participants of the town hall event on Monday, spoke about how treatment she received in 2017 has led to her taking on tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt as she placed utility bills and other basic needs like groceries on lines of credit rather than face medical debt collectors. “I pass it from one [card] to another, and in the meantime I’m just grateful that I’m employed, and insured, and I can keep making the payments,” she explained. Another woman, Kristin Noreen, explained that she even filed for bankruptcy, only for her debt to immediately begin climbing into the thousands again thanks to tax obligations and other costs. Her treatment bills rose past $1m dollars after she was struck by a car on her bicycle and suffered grievous injuries, including the amputation of her hand, and now she explains that she has little chance of ever climbing out of her personal debt trap — even after her insurance paid for all but $60,000 of the treatment cost, and $50,000 of the remaining debt was handled by a charitable donation. The remaining $10,000 was still more than enough, coupled with the cost of years of therapy she says is “barely” covered by her Affordable Care Act plan, to leave her in financial desolation. “I’m back up to $10,000 on credit cards and as of last month, I have another $3,000 in debt to the IRS for prioritising my care over my estimated taxes. I’ve been denied disability and I work part-time from home as much as I’m able to,” she explained, while noting that if her pay increases from her part-time work, she is legally required to pay it towards Affordable Care Act subsidies rather than her own debt. Mr Sanders, along with a colleague in the House, Ro Khanna, reportedly plan to introduce legislation in the coming weeks aimed at addressing the issue — along with a nationwide campaign aimed at pressuring vulnerable lawmakers to get on board. Among the legislation’s priorities will be halting “predatory” debt collection practices and going after price gouging in medical billing. And while the demands in their upcoming legislation are small in comparison to Mr Sanders’s long-held desire to overhaul America’s for-profit healthcare system into a single-payer system aimed at affordability and access, the efforts by progressives to highlight the tragic cases of Americans consumed by medical debt likely aid in the left’s work to popularise the idea of major reforms and changes to the structure of America’s health system. Mr Sanders called for the elimination of all medical debt in the spring of 2022 after three leading credit agencies announced that they would no longer track paid-off medical debts when calculating credit ratings for Americans. “‘Medical debt’ and ‘Medical bankruptcy’ are two phrases that should not exist in the United States of America,” the senator said at the time. “Removing 70 percent of past-due medical debt from credit reports is a step in the right direction, and much more needs to be done. We must cancel all medical debt.” Read More Deal or default? Biden, GOP must decide what's on the table Black voters backing Biden, but not with 2020 enthusiasm House Republicans pressure Biden as they vote to raise debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday’s meeting between him, other Congressional leaders and President Joe Biden had produced no forward progress on an agreement to stave off what economists say would be a catastrophic default on America’s sovereign debt. Mr McCarty, who has kept the House in recess for the last two weeks and for a majority of the days since he and Mr Biden last met on 1 February, told reporters outside the White House that Mr Biden and both Republican and Democratic leaders had merely reiterated the positions they held when the House Speaker and the President met 97 days before. “Nothing has changed since then ... everybody in this meeting reiterated the positions they were at. I didn't see any new movement,” he said. The California Republican’s last meeting came just a few weeks after he eked out enough votes to claim the Speaker’s gavel with support from extremist and white nationalist members of the House Republican Conference, many of whom demanded that he use the need to lift the government’s century-old statutory debt ceiling as leverage to force Mr Biden to roll back much of the legislative record he and Democrats accomplished over the prior two years. Since that February meeting, the White House and the House of Representatives have remained far apart on what is needed before legislation allowing the US to resume issuing new debt instruments can reach Mr Biden’s desk for his signature. For his part, the president’s view has remained consistent since the beginning of the year. Mr Biden has repeatedly said that Congress should pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase and negotiate on spending cuts desired for next fiscal year when Congress begins work on a budget. Mr McCarthy characterised Mr Biden’s insistence that the Congress lift the debt ceiling on its’ own and address the spending cuts Republicans covet during the regular budgeting process as intransigent even though Republicans have not introduced a budget proposal for the next fiscal year. He also accused Senate Majority Leader Check Schumer of trying to stymie negotiations so Congress would be left without a choice but to pass the “clean” debt ceiling increase desired by Democrats and Mr Biden. “Chuck's whole idea before was to take us to the brink and someone's going to have to break right. I don't want to play politics with this. I think this is too important,” said the Speaker, who suggested the only reason Mr Biden had called a meeting was because the GOP-led House had passed a bill to raise the debt limit while enacting drastic cuts to government programmes favoured by Democrats. That legislation, which passed the House with a bare majority of GOP votes last month, would provide just a year’s worth of relief coupled with spending provisions that slash non-defence spending by as much as 20 per cent. Among the programmes on the chopping block: President Joe Biden’s student debt relief initiative, as well as funding for new IRS personnel. The plan would also add new work requirements for adults on Medicaid, cap the growth of the federal government, and impose 2022 limits on discretionary spending. The White House said in response to the bill’s passage that Republicans were attempting to “strip away health care services for veterans, cut access to Meals on Wheels, eliminate health care coverage for millions of Americans and ship manufacturing jobs overseas”. While the House-passed bill is unlikely to go anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate, thus far Mr McConnell and Senate Republicans have backed up Mr McCarthy’s demand for Mr Biden to sign off on GOP-endorsed austerity measures in exchange for Republican votes to allow the US to continue paying its’ debts. Prominent GOP figures frequently claim that raising the statutory debt limit to enable the US to continue meeting financial obligations — a practice that was once routine under presidents of both parties and met no objections when it was done under Mr Biden’s predecessor — is akin to authorising new spending. That claim, however, is not how the debt limit works. Raising the debt limit does not increase or decrease the amount of money that is spent on programmes that have already been authorised by Congress and have had funds allocated to them in appropriations legislation. Experts say a failure to raise the debt limit would force the government to default on its debt and precipitate a worldwide financial crisis. The last time the US flirted with that disastrous outcome was 2011, when Republicans controlled the House and Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House. Mr Biden, then the vice president under Barack Obama, led the negotiations with congressional leaders that headed off a default, but not before the US had its credit rating decreased for the first time in history. That 2011 dispute ended with Republicans suffering a drop in their approval ratings and facing accusations of endangering the US economy for political reasons. It also came along with an unprecedented downgrade in America’s credit rating. Those same charges are being raised again now by the White House and the president’s allies in Congress, who are holding firm on Mr Biden’s call for a clean debt limit boost. Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that unless Congress acts, the US will by 1 June cease having the legal ability to issue debt instruments that allow the government to pay for spending already authorized and incurred. Despite attempts by reporters to get Mr McCarthy to guarantee that the US would not default, the House Speaker repeatedly refused to make such a promise.