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Ukraine claims to have liberated the village of Robotyne, which could lead to a push towards Crimea.

Some 15,000 people, including many tourists, have pasted each other with tomatoes in Spain’s annual “Tomatina” street battle in the eastern town of Buñol

A judge has ruled that former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial

The storm leaves roads and towns along Florida's 'nature coast' inundated with knee-deep floodwaters.

A group of hunters have captured the longest alligator ever to be recorded in Mississippi

The Texas power grid operator ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) issued an appeal to residents calling for

Buster Murdaugh has broken his silence to deny any involvement in the mysterious killing of gay teenager Stephen Smith – and insist that he still believes his father is innocent of the murders of his mother and brother. Alex Murdaugh’s only surviving son spoke out in his first TV interview since his family was propelled to national attention, for the new three-part FOX Nation documentary “The Fall of the House of Murdaugh”. In the interview, Buster slammed rumours that he too could have been involved in a heinous murder – that of 19-year-old Smith in July 2015 – and offered an alibi for his whereabouts on the night the teenager was killed. “I never had anything to do with his murder, and I never had anything to do with him on a physical level in any regard,” he said in a clip from the documentary, due for release on 31 August. Smith, a nursing student, was found dead on a road in Hampton County, South Carolina, in the early hours of 8 July 2015 – not far from the prominent Murdaugh family’s estate where Alex Murdaugh murdered Maggie and Paul six years later. Despite Smith suffering blunt force trauma to the head and there being no skid marks or vehicular debris on the road, officials ruled his death a hit-and-run at the time. Smith’s mother long questioned this official account and, for years, the Murdaugh name continued to crop up in connection to the case. Buster and Smith were classmates and there were unsubstantiated rumours that the two had been in some sort of relationship around the time of his death. Smith’s mother Sandy Smith named Buster as the prime suspect in her son’s murder in a letter begging the FBI to get involved in the case back in 2016. In June 2021 – mere days after Maggie and Paul’s murders – SLED announced that it was opening a new investigation into Smith’s death. This April, the agency then finally announced that Smith’s death was being investigated as a homicide and his body was exhumed for a private autopsy. No one has ever been charged over Smith’s death and law enforcement have never announced anything linking Buster to the killing. In the FOX Nation documentary, Buster for the first time offered an alibi for the night of Smith’s death saying that he was at his family’s Edisto Beach house with his late mother and brother. Hitting out at the rumours that continue to swirl, he said it was “a terrible thing” to be accused of. “I don’t want to be rude here, but have you ever been accused of murdering somebody?” he asked. “Well, let me tell you, this is very, very, very, very, very, it’s a terrible thing to place on somebody with absolutely no fact. I mean, it has harmed my reputation. I mean, people perceive me as a murderer.” In the interview, Buster also doubled down on his father’s innocence in the murders of Maggie and Paul – even after a jury of 12 peers convicted him back in March and he was sentenced to life in prison on the charges. 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. When asked if he ever thought it possible that his father might have killed their loved ones, Buster insisted no. “No, because I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed,” he said. The 29-year-old went on to say that he thinks there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered about the murders. “My biggest thing that I want people to realise, that there are always two sides of the story. Now, they can pick which one they want to believe,” he said. “But I think there’s a heck of a lot that still needs to be answered about what happened on June the 7th.” He said that prosecutors presented a “crappy motive” and that the case was not “fair”. “I do not believe it was fair,” he said. “I was there for six weeks studying it, and I think it was a tilted table from the beginning. “And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the jurors felt that way prior to when they had to deliberate. It was predetermined in their minds prior to when they ever heard any shred of evidence that was given in that room.” Buster said that he believed the police were under “an awful lot of pressure” to come up with a suspect in the killings and so “the route that they decided to go with” was to charge his father. He also blamed the media coverage of the case which he said left jurors going into the process with their minds already made up. “Because of everything they had the ability to read prior to the trial,” he said. “I think that people get overwhelmed, and I think that they believe everything that they read. And I think it took advantage of a jury pool in a very small town in a very small county.” Now, with his father behind bars, he said he fears that the real killer is still walking free. “I think I set myself up to be safe but yes, when I go to bed at night, I have a fear that there is somebody that is still out there,” Buster added. Throughout the high-profile murder trial, Buster stood by his father, attending each day of the court’s proceedings with his family members. Buster also testified in his father’s defence saying that Murdaugh had been “destroyed” and “heartbroken” in the aftermath of the deaths of his mother and brother. But despite continuing to insist his father’s innocence even now, Buster did not deny that his father may be a psychopath. “I’m not prepared to sit here and say that it encompasses him as a whole, but I certainly think there are characteristics where you look at the manipulation and the lies and the carrying out of that such, and I think that’s a fair assessment,” he said. When asked if he worries he might be like his father, Buster also had some harsh words for his father’s character. “No, I do not worry, because I am not a thief. I am not a liar. I’m not a manipulator,” he said. “In those regards, I am nothing like him, but, in other regards, I believe that I do hold some of his more admirable traits, which I am quite proud of.” Murdaugh, 54, was sentenced to life in prison for the murders and is serving his time in the maximum security facility McCormick Correctional Institution in South Carolina. He is also facing a slew of financial fraud charges for stealing millions of dollars from his law firm clients and his dead housekeeeper’s family and over a botched hitman plot where he claims he paid an accomplice to shoot him dead. As well as Smith’s death, Murdaugh’s high-profile conviction also shone a spotlight on some other mystery deaths tied to the South Carolina legal dynasty. An investigation was also reopened into another mystery death connected to the Murdaugh family – that of their longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in 2018 in a mystery trip and fall accident at the family home. Murdaugh then allegedly stole around $4m in a wrongful death settlement from her sons. At the time of his murder, Paul was also awaiting trial for the 2018 boat crash death of Mallory Beach. Read More Alex Murdaugh set to plead guilty to federal financial charges Alex Murdaugh’s friend gets jail sentence for scheming to steal millions from dead housekeeper’s family New Alex Murdaugh jail call audio reveals awkward interaction with surviving son Buster

The mother of suspended Spanish football president Luis Rubiales has vowed to continue her hunger strike despite her son’s worried pleas for her to stop. Mr Rubiales was suspended by Fifa for kissing Women’s World Cup winner, Jenni Hermoso, on the lips in an act the footballer says she did not consent to. His mother, Angeles Bejar, has locked herself in a church in Montril, southern Spain, and is going on a hunger strike in order to end the “inhumane witch-hunt” on her son as the Spanish Football Federation (Rfef) asked the football president to resign. “I am willing to die for justice because my son is a decent person and it is not fair what they’re doing,” she told a Spanish TV station. Fifa banned Rubiales from all football-related activity for 90 days over his conduct and has launched an investigation into his behaviour, while Spanish police are now investigating the federation president for alleged sexual assault. Ms Bejar told MailOnline: “My son is very worried and has asked me not to continue, to stop, but I will be here until I drop and my body can continue. ”He is not here. He is away but he has told me to stop but I’ve said I will not. I will carry on.” Following his refusal to resign, the Spanish women’s national team signed a letter stating they will not play for their country until Rubiales is removed from his role and the coaching staff – except manager Jorge Vilda – have all walked out. The Spanish FA also requested that Uefa exclude national and club teams from all European competitions because of Spanish government intervention in the crisis – a request which Uefa has denied. Mr Rubiales’ cousin Vanessa Ruiz said his family was “suffering a lot for him, we don’t think that what’s happening is fair”. “He has been judged ahead of time. We don’t think this is normal and we want them to leave us alone. The statements speak for themselves. There are videos, there are audios,” she said. Read More Is the World Cup kiss Spain’s Me Too moment? Luis Rubiales crisis: How Spanish FA president fell from grace Luis Rubiales news LIVE: Spanish FA president’s mother opens up about ongoing hunger strike Spain has condemned inappropriate World Cup kiss. Can it now reckon with sexism in soccer? Spanish soccer president faces general assembly amid reports he will resign for kissing a player Spain soccer coach faces scrutiny for touching a female assistant on the chest while celebrating

A former member of Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko’s special security forces is to face trial in Switzerland next month for the forced disappearances of political opponents in the late 1990s

The only person who spent time behind bars as a result of the indictment related to efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia has been released from jail

A group of geologists has recently achieved a breakthrough in identifying potential sites for the formation of diamonds. Diamonds, the hardest naturally occurring material we have found, originate under the extreme conditions of immense pressure and high temperatures deep within the Earth's interior. These precious gems are occasionally pushed to the surface in molten rock formations known as kimberlite. However, there are currently two competing theories regarding what is responsible for this rush of kimberlite which brings diamonds to the surface. In a recent study, these theories were closely examined by a research team. In a piece for The Conversation study author and Associate Professor in Earth Science at the University of Southampton, Thomas Gernon explained: “one proposes that kimberlite magmas exploit the ‘wounds’ created when the Earth’s crust is stretched or when the slabs of solid rock covering the Earth - known as tectonic plates - split up.” “The other theory involves mantle plumes, colossal upwellings of molten rock from the core-mantle boundary, located about 2,900km [1,802] beneath the Earth’s surface.” However, neither of these theories adequately explains how magma manages to find its way through the Earth's crust, or the specific composition of the resulting kimberlite. By employing statistical analysis and machine learning, the team analysed the breakup of continents and its correlation with kimberlite formation. Their findings indicated that the majority of kimberlite volcanoes erupt 20 to 30 million years after tectonic breakup. “It also added a major clue,” Gernon explained. “Kimberlite eruptions tend to gradually migrate from the continental edges to the interiors over time at a rate that is uniform across the continents.” Delving deeper into their investigation through computer-generated models, the team ultimately concluded that diamond eruptions stem from a "domino effect." As continents gradually drift apart from each other, they generate rifts of thinned crust. As this happens, regions of thick, cold rock descend into the hot magma beneath, inducing an upsurge of the mantle, which in turn triggers a similar flow in nearby continents. Gernon elaborated on the team's findings, saying, "Various other results from our computer models then advance to show that this process can bring together the necessary ingredients in the right amounts to trigger just enough melting to generate gas-rich kimberlites,” Gernon explained. “Once formed, and with great buoyancy provided by carbon dioxide and water, the magma can rise rapidly to the surface carrying its precious cargo.” Moreover, the same methodology could potentially be employed to locate diamonds and other rare elements. “The processes triggering the eruptions that bring diamonds to the surface appear to be highly systematic,” Gernon siad. “They start on the edges of continents and migrate towards the interior at a relatively uniform rate.” The study is published in the journal Nature. Sign up to our 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.

Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, so it’s not surprising that they can do many of the things that we can. They’re able to create tools and can even use sign language, plus they share 98.8 per cent of their DNA with humans. It is, therefore, no wonder that the question has often been asked: could humans and chimps ever produce offspring? The answer, according to one evolutionary psychologist, is yes – and it’s already happened. Gordum Gallup made the eyebrow-raising claims in an interview with The Sun Online back in 2018. He told the news site that a human-chimpanzee hybrid – which he dubbed a “humanzee” – was born in a Florida lab 100 years ago. And if you’re wondering how the scientists behind the experiment managed to keep it hushed up for decades, it’s because – according to Gallup – they swiftly killed the infant when they realised the implications of what they’d done. Gallup, a professor at New York’s University at Albany, said his former university teacher told him that the secret birth took place at a research facility in Orange Park, where he used to work. “They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth,” the psychologist told The Sun. “But in a matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised.” Putting Gallup’s unsubstantiated story to one side, it’s unclear whether a human-chimpanzee hybrid is even possible. Some experts believe that our human ancestors and chimpanzees may have been capable of interbreeding as late as 4 million years ago according to IFL Science, which notes that our last common ancestor lived 6-7 million years ago. However, the website also notes that this theory is widely contested. It also points out that other animals with similar genetic differences to that of humans and chimps, such as horses and zebras, have been able to reproduce. And yet, the offspring are often infertile. Nevertheless, back in the 1970s, plenty of people believed that a chimp called Oliver was a human-monkey hybrid thanks to his humanistic walk, intelligence and physical features (he was said to have a smaller, flatter face than his ape peers, according to Historic Mysteries). It wasn't until tests were conducted on Oliver in 1996 that the matter was finally settled: he had 48 chromosomes so was categorically not a humanzee but a regular chimp. Oliver The Humanzee www.youtube.com Still, one certainty is that scientists continue to tread an ethical tightrope when it comes to investigating chimps and their potential to further biomedical research. In 2021, scientists created the first (publicly documented) part-monkey, part-human embryo by growing human stem cells in a macaque monkey. The aim of the work, which was carried out at California’s Salk Institute, was to help create organs for transplants and improve our understanding of human development and disease progression. In 2020, a team of German and Japanese scientists spliced human genes into the brains of marmosets, resulting in the monkey fetuses having larger, more human-like brains, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science. Once the experiment was complete, the team destroyed their creations “in light of potentially unforeseeable consequences with regard to postnatal brain function”. One thing’s for sure, no scientist wants to find themselves the architect of a real-life Planet of the Apes. Sign up for our 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.