by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project: (Truthout) The House Judiciary Committee Democrats have released a trove of evidence regarding allegations of sexual assault, including a new rape allegation, against President Donald Trump in relation to Jeffrey Epstein that the lawmakers say has been deliberately covered up by the Department of Justice. The 50-page report, released […]
C’è chi risponde alle polemiche con un tweet e chi con una chitarra. Bryan Adams ha scelto la seconda strada. Mercoledì 28 ottobre il cantautore canadese ha pubblicato un nuovo brano che critica l’ordine esecutivo con cui, ad agosto, Donald Trump ha cambiato il nome del Lago Ontario in Lake America. Il pezzo si intitola semplicemente “Lake Ontario”.
Il lago divide Stati Uniti e Canada. Ad agosto Trump ha firmato un ordine che impone alle agenzie federali americane di chiamarlo “Lake America”. La mossa si inserisce nella lunga stagione di tensioni tra Washington e Ottawa, fatta di dazi e di ripetute uscite sul Canada come “51esimo stato”.
La reazione musicale era già partita a fine estate con “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet” dei Blue Rodeo che poi è diventata virale, con migliaia di fan a Toronto che ne urlavano il verso sul Lago Ontario. Il leader Greg Keelor ha spiegato che il lago, prima dato per scontato, è diventato una linea nella sabbia, cioè una linea di confine simbolica. Anche altri artisti si erano schierati dal palco: Blue Rodeo, JoJo e gli Iron Maiden hanno preso posizione contro il cambio di nome durante i loro concerti a Toronto.
Federal Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who was presiding over the trial of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in the United States, died Wednesday at the age of 92, according to The New York Times. It is not immediately clear who will replace Hellerstein in the high-profile case, which is scheduled to begin on June 14.
Tras el deceso del veterano juez Hellerstein, la experimentada magistrada federal Analisa Torres toma el control del caso contra el mandatario venezolano, en la antesala de una crucial audiencia sobre inmunidad soberana.
U.S. federal judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who presided over the criminal case against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, died Wednesday at the age of 92, and his pending cases will pass to another judge.
Alvin K. Hellerstein died Wednesday at 92 of natural causes after nearly three decades presiding over high-profile matters. He had led the penal process against President Maduro and Cilia Flores since the two were kidnapped on January 3 during a U.S. military incursion into Venezuelan territory.
Ed Friedland, administrative director of the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York, confirmed the death.
Hellerstein held the role for nearly three decades. He was appointed in 1998 by then U.S President Bill Clinton to the Southern District of New York, considered one of the most significant federal tribunals in United States.
BDE: Longtime Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, an Orthodox Jew appointed by President Clinton in 1998, has died at 92, according to a court spokesperson. He was overseeing the prosecution of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/w0nHyrcwc2
The federal case against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has a new judge. Analisa Torres will preside over the Southern District of New York proceedings after the death of Alvin K. Hellerstein, court records confirmed Wednesday.
The tribunal posted a document covering the reassignment of matters “previously assigned to judges no longer serving due to retirement or death.” The notice names Torres as the magistrate now handling the file.
The court’s standard procedure produced the transition. A docket left by a deceased judge passes to a colleague, assigned without public choice. The reassignment document makes no special provision for the President Maduro file, treating it like every other pending matter.
Analisa Torres was born in New York in 1959. She reached the federal bench in 2013 by appointment of President Barack Obama, and she has since presided over a wide range of civil, criminal, and regulatory matters.
Her path runs deep in the law. Descended from a family of Puerto Rican judges, she graduated with honors from Harvard, earned her doctorate at Columbia Law School, and worked in private firms before entering the courts. Before her federal appointment she sat for almost a decade on the New York State Supreme Court. Earlier she served on the city’s civil and criminal benches.
The trial against the Venezuelan President and his wife remains set for June 14, 2027. The judge’s death did not alter that date, and the schedule already fixed by the court holds.
On October 15, President Maduro and Flores appeared at a judicial hearing in New York after prosecutors tightened the accusations against them. The two listened to the arguments and pleaded “not guilty” to the new charges of alleged conspiracy to commit torture brought by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
That same day Hellerstein accepted a request presented by both the prosecution and the defense to postpone the start of the trial by two weeks. The extra time allows both sides to present pretrial motions.
The next hearing was programmed for December 17. On that date the defense will argue its motions to dismiss the case. The outcome of those arguments could reshape the proceeding before it reaches a jury. President Maduro’s lawyers affirmed that sovereign immunity shields the President from prosecution in a foreign court.
Hellerstein’s career extended far beyond this single file. Over nearly three decades on the federal bench he supervised a wide variety of matters, including the litigation tied to the September 11 attacks.
That new judge will inherit the pretrial motions, the pending defense requests, and the responsibility of presiding over a trial that involves a sitting head of State and his spouse.
Venezuelan authorities have characterized the detention of President Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores as a kidnapping carried out during a military incursion into sovereign territory. The December 17 hearing stands as the next concrete step in a process scheduled to stretch into mid 2027.
Just two weeks ago, Hellerstein presided over the arraignment of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, on torture charges that were added to their ongoing narco-terrorism conspiracy case.
Luego del fallecimiento del magistrado, el conjunto de causas que se encontraban en su despacho pasará a manos de un nuevo juez, según el director administrativo del Tribunal Federal para el Distrito Sur de Nueva York.
Ahead of a harsh winter, the Netherlands is giving Ukraine €1.2 billion to keep the lights and water on under Russian strikes. Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sjoerd Sjoerdsma announced the aid during a visit to Kyiv on 28 October.
The package comes as Russia targets Ukraine’s energy system every winter. Last winter’s strikes damaged or destroyed roughly 80% of the grid, and Moscow’s next target is Ukraine’s water supply.
“Ukraine is under heavy fire and faces a very harsh winter,” Sjoerdsma said.
That, he stated, is why the government is taking additional steps now. The funds will be distributed over the next three years.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed $8-10 billion to get through winter, TSN reported.
The Netherlands shores up Ukraine’s power and water
Also, the Netherlands is fast-tracking €40 million this year to Ukraine’s Energy Support Fund for urgent repairs to power and water facilities, which are increasingly targeted by Russian strikes.
Another €55 million goes to in-kind support: energy equipment supplied by Dutch companies to Ukrainian partners through the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.
The money will also help build emergency reserves and train staff in the energy and water sectors.
Dutch business steps into Ukraine’s reconstruction
Most of the rest goes to business. Some €136 million will go to the Partnership Facility with Ukraine and other programs, and a further €19.5 million is added to export credit insurance, on top of an existing €60 million line, to lower the risk for Dutch companies entering the Ukrainian market.
Separately, the Netherlands signed a letter of intent to contribute €10 million to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “Industrial Ramstein” initiative, which aims to restore and modernize the production capacity of Ukrainian companies. Sjoerdsma traveled to Kyiv with Koen van Oostrom, chair of the business association VNO-NCW.
The support also covers the search for Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, through the UN, as well as housing, humanitarian aid, healthcare, demining, and the restoration of cultural heritage.
In all, the Netherlands is confirming the previously promised €878 million in non-military aid and an additional €327 million, much of it delivered through the EBRD, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank.
The same day, President Zelenskyy said he had arrived in the Netherlands on an official visit. The two sides plan to discuss defense and economic cooperation, strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, and further support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy is also set to have an audience with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
A House Judiciary Committee report alleges Donald Trump was actively involved in Epstein’s abuse of young women.
On Monday, Democratic lawmakers released a report calling for a special counsel to investigate possible ties between U.S. President Donald Trump and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, just over a week before the midterm elections.
The more than 50-page report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee alleges that Trump was an “active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women in the mid-to-late 1990s.”
The document, titled “The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging From the Epstein Files and the Justice Department’s Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up,” includes the names of five women who have accused Trump of “raping or sexually assaulting them” in the company of Epstein.
Among the women’s accounts is one being made public for the first time. It describes an alleged rape by Trump during a pageant held in November 1993 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, although the account provides no evidence beyond the woman’s statements.
“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the full files that the law requires, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s accomplices and the Justice Department’s cover-up, and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top-ranking Democrat.
🇺🇸 Rep. Ted Lieu says there is “ample evidence” in the full Epstein files alleging Donald Trump raped children.
Trump, for his part, has repeatedly denied committing any wrongdoing related to Epstein’s actions. He has also repeatedly said that he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and barred him from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, “for being a creep.”
The Democratic lawmakers’ report also calls for greater federal cooperation in legal proceedings against Epstein’s accomplices and increased congressional action to uncover all possible connections within his sex trafficking network.
With the document’s release, Democrats are signaling that they have no intention of backing down from their efforts to continue investigating the connections between Trump and Epstein’s sex trafficking network. They are doing so at a time when they could win a majority in the House of Representatives and even challenge Republican control of the Senate on Nov. 3.
The midterm elections will determine all seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the seats in the Senate, as well as numerous state and local offices.
Hundreds of households in North Carolina remain without a private bridge two years after Hurricane Helene. Many are frustrated by a state program’s progress.
“I knew there was a really good possibility that this would happen,” Blake Miley said. “But I don’t blame myself. It is not right what they did to me.”
The basketball star seems proud to leave the job to his partner. That’s so last century
Nobody can accuse the basketball star LaMelo Ball of being bad at his job. That said, the Minnesota Timberwolves point guard doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of dribbling.
Ball has a nine-month-old son, LaOne, with his partner Ana Montana (real name: Analicia Chaves) and is apparently uninterested in dealing with all the body fluids that come with a baby.
As autoridades francesas dizem não ter identificado risco para a população em geral e classificam o caso como excecional. O vírus já foi detetado em Portugal em animais, mas não há casos humanos no nosso país. França anunciou esta quinta-feira o primeiro caso humano conhecido de infeção pelo vírus Shamonda, um agente que até agora só se conhecia em animais. Segundo o ECDC, o doente, gravemente imunodeprimido e em tratamento de uma doença grave na zona de Lyon, morreu no início de outubro. As autoridades francesas dizem não ter identificado risco para a população em geral e classificam o caso
Alois uses the first veto of his reign to quash parliament-approved bill backed by a national petition
The hereditary prince of Liechtenstein has used his veto for the first time in his reign to quash a bill aimed at bringing abortion laws in line with much of Europe.
The legislation was approved by Liechtenstein’s parliament last month after the presentation of a citizens’ initiative signed by roughly a quarter of the nation’s voters.
The lawsuit seeks to stop attorney Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn from accepting any payments from Epstein's estate, estimated at more than $100 million.
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