An American journalist who has lived in China since 2010 and worked for several state media organizations there pleaded guilty in a U.S. court Thursday to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government, the Justice Department said. Thomas Pauken II is set to be sentenced Sept. 1 in a U.S. District Court and he faces up to 10 years in jail, the department said. He writes under the name Tom McGregor to distance himself from his father with the same name, who was a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s and ran for governor...
Senate passes $70B immigration enforcement bill without limits on Trump settlement fund
The Senate passed legislation to fund President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies early Friday morning, after weeks of delays and fierce backlash to an unrelated $1.776 billion settlement fund that threatened to derail the bill. Senators voted 52-47 for the $70 billion legislation to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the next three years, through the end of Trump’s term. The final vote came just before 5 a.m., after Republicans narrowly defeated multiple attempts by Democrats and Republicans to add language to the bill that would permanently ban Trump’s settlement fund for political allies who believe they...
Putin Says Russia Will Bolster Its Air Defenses In Response To Ukrainian Drone Attacks
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia will strengthen its air defenses to counter recent Ukrainian drone attacks, which have reached deep inside his country and cast a cloud over his showcase economic forum in his hometown of St. Petersburg. Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with heads of international news agencies, Putin acknowledged the damage from Ukrainian drone attacks. “To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin said of the drone strikes. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.” The...
Police Arrest Son Of James Handy’s Girlfriend In Actor’s Stabbing Death In LA
Police have arrested the son of actor James Handy’s girlfriend in his death after he was found stabbed in the chest in Los Angeles, law enforcement said Thursday. Officers responded to a home Wednesday morning after a 911 caller said, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin,” according to the The Los Angeles Police Department. They found the 81-year-old who appeared in films like “Jumanji” and “Top Gun: Maverick” in the front yard stabbed in the chest and unconscious, according to police. He was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead. Michael Gledhill,...
Karen Read Sues The Police Agencies That Investigated Her Boston Police Boyfriend’s Death
Karen Read has filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts State Police and the town of Canton, alleging misconduct and negligence in the investigation that led to her prosecution in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend. The lawsuit filed Thursday in Bristol County Superior Court argues that Read’s acquittal last June revealed “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.” It alleges that the town and the police department were negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of officers and seeks damages for legal fees, lost income, emotional distress...
Jamaica Policeman Charged With Murder In Killing Of Woman That Sparked Protests
Authorities in Jamaica have taken the rare step of charging a police officer with murder after he was accused of fatally shooting a 45-year-old woman in a case that has prompted violent protests. The officer appeared in court on Wednesday and was denied bail. Another hearing is scheduled for mid-June. Security forces in Jamaica have long been accused of unlawful killings and using excessive force, with the island’s Independent Commission of Investigations reporting 140 fatal shootings so far this year on the island of 2.8 million people. The killing of Latoya “Buju” Bulgin on May 17 in northwest Jamaica sparked...
In Public Letter, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Calls On Putin For Direct Negotiations In A Neutral Country
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power. Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war. “I am proposing a meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote. U.S. President Donald Trump...
Graham Platner Denies An Ex-Girlfriend’s Report That He Once Twisted Her Arm, Held Her In A Room
An ex-girlfriend alleges that U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner repeatedly grabbed her hard enough to leave marks, pulled her from a cab by the wrist, and, in one incident, twisted her arm behind her back and held her in a room when they dated more than a decade ago, according to a new report. Lyndsey Fifield told The New York Times that Platner, a Democrat, never hit or punched her, but the incidents left her shaken and afraid. Fifield, a conservative activist, told the Times she dated Platner for about two years, starting in 2013 when he was a student...
Former Prince Andrew Made Money Subletting Cottages On His Rent-Free Estate, Report Shows
The former Prince Andrew made money by subletting three cottages on the estate where he lived rent-free for two decades, according to a report on the royal family’s properties released Friday by the U.K. public spending watchdog. It also disclosed that his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, live in rent-controlled palace properties paid for by their uncle, King Charles III. The National Audit Office report said Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received income from renting out the cottages on the Royal Lodge estate, his home near Windsor Castle for more than 20 years. A lease for Royal Lodge signed in 2003 shows...
Dutch Police Detain 4 Suspects In Probe Into Men Who Drugged, Abused Women They Knew
Dutch police have detained four men in a major investigation into allegations of drugging and sexually abusing women they knew then sharing videos of the abuse, in a case that has echoes of French woman Gisèle Pelicot’s ordeal. The suspects, whose identities were not released in line with Dutch privacy rules, were detained after police, acting on information shared by authorities in Germany and the United Kingdom, searched several houses across the Netherlands over two days last week, police said in a statement Thursday. “Information indicates that possibly multiple women in the Netherlands were drugged by someone in their immediate...