UNITED STATES
Ex-speaker hid abuse: paper
Former House of Representatives speaker Dennis Hastert, 73, who has been indicted by a federal grand jury, allegedly paid off an individual to hide past sexual misconduct, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday. Hastert was on Thursday indicted on charges that he violated banking laws to pay US$3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct,” media reported. The LA Times, citing two unidentified federal law enforcement officials, on Friday reported that the alleged misconduct was of a sexual nature and did not relate to his public office. Thursday’s federal indictment described the victim, “Individual A,” as a man, the newspaper reported, saying that the alleged misconduct dated from Hastert’s time as a high-school wrestling coach and teacher.
UNITED STATES
Hanging inquiry closed
The Department of Justice on Friday said it was closing its inquiry into the death of a black man found hanging from a tree in Mississippi in March after finding no evidence of homicide. Federal investigators joined the probe into the death of Otis James Byrd after he went missing for more than two weeks before being found less than a kilometer from his home in rural western Mississippi. The state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called for a federal probe, saying the death might have been a hate crime. However, the department said it would not pursue charges. “After a careful and thorough review, a team of experienced federal prosecutors and FBI agents determined that there was no evidence to prove that Byrd’s death was a homicide,” it said.
GREECE
Suspect shoots self in raid
A suspected bank robber committed suicide on Friday as police carried out a raid against a far-left-linked gang, a police source said. Two men arrested at a house in the central coastal town of Nea Anchialos are presumed former accomplices of the Revolutionary Struggle group, whose leader, Nikos Maziotis, is in prison. A third suspect is thought to have committed suicide, the source added. “Two shots were heard from inside the house as police were encircling the premises,” the source said. “Two of the men walked out with their hands up and the third was found dead inside,” it added. Police said the three men made off with about 300,000 euros (US$327,300) from a bank in Distomo in August last year, briefly taking a cashier hostage.
CANADA
Video shows suspect praying
An armed assailant suspected of fatally shooting a soldier in Ottawa in October last year and of storming Parliament prayed aloud in Arabic before the attacks and asked for help, previously unreleased sections of a video he made show. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau made the short video on his cellphone on Oct. 22. The unedited video was released by police on Friday. A Canadian convert to Islam, Zehaf-Bibeau died in a gunbattle with police and security guards at the Parliament building. The majority of Zehaf-Bibeau’s video was released in March, save for about 18 seconds that had been held back for what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) called operational reasons. The full video shows Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, beginning with a prayer. “Lord open for me my chest, ease my task for me and remove the impediment from my speech,” he said, according to the subtitles supplied by the RCMP. “Lord accept from me and peace be upon you and upon the mujahidin. May Allah curse you,” he said.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
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