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North Carolina bill to force sheriffs to work with ICE advances

Authorities in North Carolina would have to hold defendants in jail if requested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials under a bill that cleared its first hurdle on Wednesday.

A House judiciary panel approved House Bill 370, a measure sponsored by North Carolina Republican lawmakers unhappy with recent decisions by newly elected sheriffs to stop assisting federal immigration agents.

"These sanctuary sheriffs are putting politics ahead of public safety," said Rep. Destin Hall, a chief sponsor of the bill, said during a committee meeting.

BORDER HITS ‘BREAKING POINT’ IN EL PASO, CBP COMMISSIONER SAYS

Hall's bill would require sheriffs in all counties to fulfill ICE detainer requests, which can be used to hold criminal suspects up to 48 hours. Those holdings currently aren't mandatory.

"No matter what these sheriffs do, ICE has a job to do," Hall said Wednesday. "When sheriffs don't cooperate with them, they still have that duty to enforce federal immigration law, and they're going to do that. Except, instead of doing it in the jail  -- a controlled environment that's much more safe -- they're going to do it out in the community."

House Bill 370 would require sheriffs in North Carolina to fulfill ICE detainer requests, which can be used to hold criminal suspects up to 48 hours. These holdings currently aren't mandatory.

House Bill 370 would require sheriffs in North Carolina to fulfill ICE detainer requests, which can be used to hold criminal suspects up to 48 hours. These holdings currently aren't mandatory. (AP Photo)

Sheriffs elected last year in urban areas in and around Raleigh, Asheville and Durham have announced they won't honor these requests.

In response to those actions, ICE stepped up immigration raids in the state because of the decreased cooperation, with the regional director calling the heightened presence the "new normal," WRAL reported.

LARGE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT GROUPS CROSSING US-MEXICO BORDER PUSHING AGENTS TO ‘BREAKING POINT’

Immigration advocates and some state Democrats have come out opposing the measure, with one lawmaker called it a "gross overreach" by the government to take power away from locally-elected sheriffs, The Winston-Salem Journal reported.

“Who are we to tell our elected law-enforcement officers how they should behave,” Rep. Wesley Harris said during the hearing.

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Those opposed to the measure are already urging Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper to veto any final bill that comes to him.

A spokesperson for the governor told the Journal that Cooper has "serious concerns" about taking away local authority from sheriffs.

“The governor will review any legislation that comes to his desk before making a decision,” Cooper spokesman Jamal Little told the newspaper.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Abuse survivors demand Vatican transparency, accountability

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse met with organizers of a Vatican prevention summit Wednesday and demanded transparency, zero tolerance for abuse and for religious superiors to be held accountable when they protect priests who rape and molest children.

The survivors met for more than two hours with the Vatican's lead sex abuse investigator and other members of the organizing committee for the four-day summit starting Thursday. The event, which Pope Francis convened, is taking place amid intense scrutiny after new allegations of abuse and cover-up last year sparked a credibility crisis for the Catholic Church hierarchy.

Phil Saviano, an American who played a crucial role in exposing clergy abuse in the United States decades ago, said after the survivors' meeting that he argued for the Vatican to release the names of abusive priests around the world along with their case files.

"Do it to launch a new era of transparency," Saviano said he told the summit committee in a letter and in person. "Do it to break the code of silence. Do it out of respect for the victims of these men, and do it to help prevent these creeps from abusing any more children."

The Vatican had asked Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz, who last year helped open Francis' eyes to the seriousness of the abuse scandal, to arrange the meeting.

Cruz invited a dozen representatives of some of the more vocal advocacy groups that have long demanded accountability from the Vatican, including SNAP, Ending Clergy Abuse and French group La Parole Liberee.

"The culture of cover-up needs to end," he said after the meeting, which was held on the grounds of a gated Vatican residence with protesters waiting outside.

More than 30 years after the scandal first erupted in Ireland and Australia and 20 years after it hit the U.S., bishops in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia either deny clergy sex abuse exists in their regions or downplay the problem.

Francis announced the summit in September. Realizing that church leaders in some parts of the world still didn't "get it" about abuse, he invited the presidents of every bishops' conferences for a tutorial on preventing abuse, investigating cases and listening to victims.

Jamaican survivor Denise Buchanan, who attended the organizing meeting, demanded to know why the Vatican wasn't implementing zero-tolerance policies on sex abuse across the board. The U.S. bishops' conference is considered a model for requiring any priest who is found guilty of molesting a child to be removed permanently from ministry.

"What is the holdup in implementing zero tolerance?" Buchanan said. "It is like, 'Oh, we already have the laws, we just need to implement the laws.' Obviously, the laws are not working because children are being raped right now."

In a statement after the meeting ended, the organizing committee thanked the victims for "sincerity, the depth and the strength of their testimonies."

They said the survivors' input would help them to understand the "gravity and urgency" of the problem during the summit.

The committee included Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's longtime lead sex abuse investigator; Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias; German Jesuit the Rev. Hans Zollner, an expert in child protection. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the former Vatican spokesman who is moderating the summit, also participated in the meeting with abuse survivors.

___

Full coverage at https://www.apnews.com/Sexualabusebyclergy

Source: Fox News World

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Violence in some areas of Colombia has worsened since peace deal, Red Cross says

Christoph Harnisch, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Colombia, poses for a photo after a news conference in Bogota
Christoph Harnisch, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Colombia, poses for a photo after a news conference in Bogota, Colombia March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

March 28, 2019

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Violence in some regions of Colombia has worsened significantly since the 2016 signing of a peace deal with Marxist rebels, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.

Problems include mass displacements and injuries from landmines, as a power vacuum created by the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) left smaller armed groups fighting for control of the lucrative drug trade.

Improving the situation will require a robust response from all parts of the government, the ICRC said, including the provision of basic services to the most deprived areas.

The FARC, the country’s largest rebel group, demobilized after signing an accord in late 2016 with the government to end more than five decades of war.

But implementation of the deal has been fraught. President Ivan Duque, who took office last year, has criticized it for being too lenient on rebels and is asking Congress to approve changes to a tribunal meant to try guerrillas for war crimes.

And conflict continues between the government, FARC members who refused to demobilize, the smaller ELN rebel group and crime gangs, the ICRC said.

Conditions are especially bad in provinces like Choco, Cauca, Arauca and Norte de Santander, where armed groups are fighting for control of drug trafficking routes and coca plantations.

“These civilian populations are in a more difficult situation than before,” ICRC delegation head Christoph Harnisch told journalists. “Peace did not reach these areas.”

Those battles meant mass displacement increased by more than 90 percent last year, affecting 27,780 people, the organization said.

The number of land mine victims, more than half of whom were civilians, climbed last year by more than 280 percent to 221 people, the ICRC said. Thirty-one died of their injuries.

Duque’s government will need to bring more state resources to bear in these areas to improve the situation, Harnisch said, citing the need for health centers and other services.

“The answer cannot just be one of security – the answer must be from all of the government,” he said.

The arrival of more than 1 million Venezuelan migrants, fleeing food shortages and an ongoing political crisis in their country, has put additional pressure on deprived areas, he said.

Migrants are especially vulnerable to extortion or forced recruitment by armed groups and need access to healthcare and utilities.

“The response (to Venezuelan migration) up to now has been very generous, but it needs more structure and a more long-term strategy,” Harnisch said.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Helen Murphy and Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

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U.S. safety officials review Ethiopian black box data: sources

FILE PHOTO: Men unload a case from a diplomatic car of the Ethiopian Embassy arrives at the headquarters of France's BEA air accident investigation agency in Le Bourget
FILE PHOTO: Men unload a case from a diplomatic car from the Ethiopian Embassy outside the headquarters of France's BEA air accident investigation agency in Le Bourget, north of Paris, France, March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo

March 28, 2019

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. safety investigators have reviewed data from the flight recorders or black boxes that were aboard crashed Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, four people briefed on the investigation told Reuters.

The National Transportation Safety Board has reviewed raw data from the flight data recorder and listened to the cockpit voice recorder, the sources said. The review was reported earlier by ABC News. A preliminary report is expected as early as next week, U.S. officials said.

Under international rules, Ethiopia safety officials are in charge of the investigation and are the only entity that can release information about the probe. An NTSB spokesman declined to comment on Thursday.

Boeing unveiled new software upgrades and training on Wednesday after two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplanes in five months led regulators around the world to ground the planes, including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 on board has set off one of the widest inquiries in aviation history and cast a shadow over the Boeing MAX model intended to be a standard for decades. It followed an October crash of a 737 MAX operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air, which plunged into the Java Sea after takeoff from Jakarta, killing 189.

NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday that the board was getting all the cooperation it needed from the Ethiopian and Indonesian governments.

“I have no indication at all that the Ethiopians are not sharing with us the information that we need,” Sumwalt said.

It is unclear how long it may take the FAA and other international regulators to decide when to allow the 737 MAX to resume flying, but officials first want details from the preliminary findings of the Ethiopian crash. The FAA also has not yet formally received Boeing’s proposed software upgrade.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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China customs says it has lifted suspension on Tesla Model 3 imports

Tesla Model 3 car leaves a cargo vessel at a port in Shanghai
A Tesla Model 3 car leaves a cargo vessel at a port in Shanghai, China February 22, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.

March 14, 2019

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s customs authority has lifted a warning notice that barred Tesla Model 3 imports into the country last week, an official in the authority’s news department told Reuters on Thursday.

“We can confirm that the warning notice on Tesla has been canceled,” said the official, who only gave his surname as Tao.

Reuters reported earlier on Thursday that the suspension had been lifted.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh and Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue)

Source: OANN

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Spanish Populist Party Banned From TV Debate

Spanish nationalist-populist party VOX has been dropped from an upcoming televised debate due to pressure from the electoral commission, despite surging national support and major regional success.

Party leader Santiago Abascal was due to join four other top candidates at the April 23rd event, hosted by private broadcaster Atresmedia, but will no longer be allowed to participate after smaller regional parties brought a complaint.

Interestingly, it was reportedly the only debate in which Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had committed to taking part ahead of April 28th parliamentary elections.

“According to legislative reforms introduced in 2011, private networks have the obligation to respect the same principles of ‘neutrality and equality’ as public stations,” El Pais reports. “At that time, the Central Electoral Board (JEC) established that only parties that had earned at least five percent of votes at the last general election could participate in these debates.”

“Vox obtained 0.2% of the vote at the 2016 election, significantly shy of the threshold. Election officials said its presence would violate the rights of Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, whose leaders were not invited to the event.”

Abascal slammed the decision on social media.

"It is clear who still commands in Spain: the separatists," he tweeted. "A great victory of #LongLiveSpain will drive the outlawing of those who want to tear up our coexistence, our Constitution and our Homeland."

A tweet from an official VOX account pointed out that smaller parties had been allowed to participate in such a debate with no issue.

"The Electoral Board suspends the presence of VOX at #ElDebate with Atresmedia," VOX Noticias declared. "The same one that accepted We Can and Citizens Party when they had no representation in the Congress. The persecution of VOX has moved from the streets to the institutions."

Atresmedia has reportedly rescheduled and restructured the debate to comply with the electoral commission's demands, but also intends to contest the board's decision.

VOX recently sent shockwaves through the Spanish political order when the upstart party gained major traction in Andalusian elections on an anti-mass migration, anti-leftism platform.

VOX is currently polling at 11 percent heading into snap elections, according to Poll of Polls.

Although many people were recorded celebrating the Notre Dame fire online, the MSM is pushing the false narrative that conservatives are creating fake news.

(PHOTO: Jesus Hellin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Source: InfoWars

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Chris Coons: DOJ Talks of 25th Amend. Not 'Some Deep State Conspiracy'

Chris Coons: DOJ Talks of 25th Amend. Not 'Some Deep State Conspiracy'

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Sunday reported talk in the Department of Justice about using the 25th Amendment to oust President Donald Trump “deserves scrutiny” — but doesn’t amount to “some deep state conspiracy.”

In an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Coons conceded that former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s revelation to be aired Sunday night on “60 Minutes” was “alarming.”

“I don't think that this, frankly, rises to the level of some deep state conspiracy or a serious attempt at what Senator [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] called an administrative coup,” he said. “I suspect that once this is fully discussed, it'll be clearer that this was a brief or passing conversation that's been taken out of context. But it does deserve scrutiny."

On the subject of Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on Friday, Coons said Congress should move to block the resolution.

“The Congress, is going to jealously defend our right to be the body that decides on federal spending, and not let the president use this extreme measure as an end around our appropriations process,” he said.

“Presidents do have emergency powers,” he added. “They can declare national emergencies. But if you look back at the history of that over the last four decades, they've overwhelmingly been done in the face of legitimate national security threats where there was no time or no other means of addressing them.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj

AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.

Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.

PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.

The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.

“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.

Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.

A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.

“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”

PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.

The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.

The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.

The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.

Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)

(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh

CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.

ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.

The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”

Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.

In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.

“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.

Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.

The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.

ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.

In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.

Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.

ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.

The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.

Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.

The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.

Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.

The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.

A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.

In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.

Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.

The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.

Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.

(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Candidate Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of an exit poll in Ukraine's presidential election in Kiev
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Matthias Williams

KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.

Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.

“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.

“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.

Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.

Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.

Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.

“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT

The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.

Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.

Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.

Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: OANN

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A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.

Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”

JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUPS AFTER JUSSIE SMOLLETT CHARGES DROPPED 

Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.

Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.

“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”

The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”

Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.

The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.

“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.

“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.

KIM FOXX’S CHIEF ETHICS OFFICER RESIGNS FOLLOWING SMOLLETT CONTROVERSY

President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”

The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.

Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.

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After an intense investigation, police said Smollett staged the entire incident to drum up publicity for his career.

Smollett has strongly denied the accusations.

Source: Fox News National

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