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Ex-Border Chief: US Border Crisis ‘Worst in Our History’

The national emergency unfolding at the U.S. Southern border is a “meltdown” of unprecedented scale, according to correlating statements made by a former Border Patrol chief and a current director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Mark Morgan, who led Customs and Border Patrol under President Obama, asserts that this is the worst immigration catastrophe in U.S. history.

“This is a question that people really need to pay attention to: I am saying, based on 30 years of public service, that the crisis we face right now along the Southwest border is actually the worst we’ve ever experienced in our history — the worst,” Morgan told Tucker Carlson.

“People want to talk about the numbers back in the 2000s, 1.5 million — it’s the demographics, Tucker. Back then, 90 percent — the overwhelming majority — were Mexican males and we were deporting them. Now it’s family units and unaccompanied minors, and because our laws are broken, we’re allowing them in.”

Morgan explained that roughly 65% of those who attempt to enter the U.S. illegally or via asylum loopholes end up staying.

“We’re going to reach a million this year — that means we’re going to allow 650,000 into this country, much of which we don’t know who they are and we’ll never hear from them again,” Morgan said.

Concurrently, acting ICE director Ron Vitiello offered a grim assessment of the status of America’s Southern frontier.

“It’s an absolute crisis down there, it has humanitarian aspects, it has border security aspects — this policy can’t continue,” Vitiello told Fox News. “The system is in a meltdown. It’s just getting worse day by day.”

Vitiello revealed that over 130,000 migrant families have been released into the interior of the United States since December alone.

Commenting on President Trump’s imminent visit to Calexico to meet with officials, Vitiello said, “What he is going to see is this unbelievable flow at the border and no way for us to legally address it without Congress acting.”



Alex Jones issues an emergency message to President Trump, suggesting that he must close the U.S. southern border, finish building the wall, and stop the flow of illegal immigration to stop America’s collapse.

Source: InfoWars

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Five years on, Crimea annexation divides a family

Crimean Tatar prominent activist Umerov attends a welcoming ceremony at Boryspil International Airport outside Kiev
Crimean Tatar prominent activist Ilmi Umerov (R), who opposed to Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, then was sentenced by a Russian court and recently freed, attends a welcoming ceremony and a news conference at Boryspil International Airport outside Kiev, Ukraine October 27, 2017. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

March 15, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV/SIMFEROPOL (Reuters) – Five years after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, prominent dissident Ilmi Umerov finds himself in Kiev, separated from his wife and family in Crimea whom he fears rejoining because of what he thinks is the threat of prosecution.

The pro-Kiev Crimean Tatar activist was jailed for two years by Russia in 2017 for separatism but has been released as part of a deal brokered by Turkey.

The 62-year-old now lives in Kiev with his youngest daughter, while his wife, two other children and relatives live in Crimea.

He fears local authorities could open a new case against him if he returns.

The Tatars, a mainly Muslim Turkic community that makes up about 15 percent of Crimea’s population, suffered mass deportation under former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

They have largely opposed Russian rule in Crimea and say Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula was illegal, a view supported by the West.

“Frankly speaking, it is not my separation from the people that is hard, but my separation from Crimea. It took so many efforts to return to Crimea after the deportations in 1944,” said Umerov, referring to the Crimean Tatars’ return many years later.

He urges Crimean Tatars not to leave the peninsula unless there is a real threat to their life and freedom.

Umerov was deputy head of the Crimean Tatars’ semi-official Mejlis legislature before it was suspended by Moscow in 2017.

His wife visits him regularly in Kiev and his son Suleyman, who lives in the Crimean city of Simferopol, makes the trip twice a year.

“I have a father and he is not that far from me. But while I am here and he is there, it feels like something was taken out of me and was not put back to its place,” Suleyman told Reuters in Simferopol.

(Reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely)

Source: OANN

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New NAFTA deal ‘in trouble’, bruised by elections, tariff rows

FILE PHOTO: Flags of the U.S., Canada and Mexico fly next to each other in Detroit, Michigan
FILE PHOTO: Flags of the U.S., Canada and Mexico fly next to each other in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. August 29, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

April 7, 2019

By Dave Graham and David Ljunggren

MEXICO CITY/OTTAWA (Reuters) – More than six months after the United States, Mexico and Canada agreed a new deal to govern more than $1 trillion in regional trade, the chances of the countries ratifying the pact this year are receding.

The three countries struck the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA) on Sept. 30, ending a year of difficult negotiations after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded the preceding trade pact be renegotiated or scrapped.

But the deal has not ended trade tensions in North America. If ratification is delayed much longer, it could become hostage to electoral politics.

The United States has its next presidential contest in 2020, and Canada holds a federal election in October.

The delay means businesses are still uncertain about the framework that will govern future investments in the region.

“The USMCA is in trouble,” said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister for North America.

Though he believed the deal would ultimately be approved, Rozental said opposition from U.S. Democrats and unions to labor provisions in the deal, as well as bickering over tariffs, made its passage in the next few months highly unlikely.

Canada’s Parliament must also ratify the treaty and officials say the timetable is very tight. Current legislators only have a few weeks work left before the start of the summer recess in June, and members of the new Parliament would have little chance to address ratification until 2020.

Trump, a Republican, has shown frustration with the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives for failing to sign off on the USMCA. He has threatened to pull out of the old pact, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), if Congress does not hurry up.

If Trump did dump NAFTA, the three nations would revert to trade rules in place before it came into effect in 1994.

TARIFFS

Canada and Mexico are seeking exemption from U.S. tariffs on global metal imports imposed last year.

The metals tariffs were not included in the USMCA and Mexico and Canada are impatient to resolve the issue. Mexico has repeatedly threatened to target new U.S. products by the end of April in retribution if tariffs are imposed.

Meanwhile, Trump on Thursday threatened to slap tariffs on Mexican auto exports unless Mexico does more to stop drug traffickers and illegal immigration.

Mexico’s government is in the final stages of completing a new list of potential U.S. imports to be targeted, said Luz Maria de la Mora, a Mexican deputy economy minister.

“There’s going to be a bit of everything,” she told Reuters, declining to give details of how the list – originally encompassing products such as bourbon, cheese, motor boats, pork legs, steel and apples – could be modified.

De la Mora would not be drawn on whether Mexico could refuse to ratify USMCA if steel tariffs are not withdrawn, saying only: “All options are on the table.”

In Ottawa, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week her government was “constantly” looking at its own retaliation list, noting that Trump’s tariffs left the country over C$16 billion worth of space to strike back.

Freeland did not say when that list could change, and a government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it might not be necessary. Still, Freeland said Canada was coordinating with Mexico about its options.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who faces a tough re-election battle, on Thursday rejected accepting quotas on Canadian steel and aluminum in exchange for U.S. tariffs being dropped.

Trudeau was criticized during the USMCA negotiations for giving ground to Trump on access to Canada’s dairy sector.

WORKERS

U.S. Democrats have threatened to block the USMCA unless Mexico passes legislation to improve workers’ rights, a demand shared by the Canadian government.

A bill already in Mexico’s Congress to strengthen trade unions should be approved this month, the government says.

Trump blamed NAFTA for millions of job losses in the United States as companies moved south to employ cheaper Mexican labor. Trump is running for re-election in 2020, and his ‘America First’ policy will likely feature prominently in the campaign.

Forcing Mexico and Canada to rework NAFTA was one of Trump’s signature pledges during his shock win in 2016, and Democrats are pulling out the stops to avoid losing again.

“The closer the election gets, the harder it will be for Democrats to grant Trump a victory” by ratifying the USMCA, said Sergio Alcocer, a former deputy Mexican foreign minister.

Some Democrats are pushing to change the deal – an idea that both Canadian and Mexican officials resist.

“People need to be very careful around opening up what could really be a Pandora’s box,” Freeland said on Thursday.

Canadian officials say they fear that if one part of the treaty were reopened, it could spark clamor for other sections to be renegotiated as well. [L1N21M1SB]

(Reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Chris Prentice in Washington; Editing by Simon Webb and Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: OANN

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Germany consults industry about blockchain potential

FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin.com buttons are seen displayed on the floor of the Consensus 2018 blockchain technology conference in New York City
FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin.com buttons are seen displayed on the floor of the Consensus 2018 blockchain technology conference in New York City, New York, U.S., May 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

February 18, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has opened a consultation process on how to tap into the potential of blockchain technology ahead of presenting a strategy by the summer, government sources said on Monday.

Berlin is a hub for startup companies of which around 170 in one way or another look at blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins the bitcoin currency.

There is great interest from would-be participants and investors across a raft of industries including cars, pharmaceuticals, energy and public sector administration that hope to transform mass market processes via blockchain.

According to the sources, companies and industry groups that could become stakeholders in a blockchain deployment process in Europe’s biggest economy were invited to supply recommendations from this week onwards.

While concrete results were being sought, it was as yet unclear whether those would immediately materialize in any legislative moves, they said.

Blockchain startups have said that without a legal framework, there are high entrance hurdles. Governments urge caution toward cryptocurrencies that run on the technology.

Few major economies worldwide have crafted comprehensive strategies on how to nurture blockchain startups. 

Some, including Britain and Singapore, have allowed such firms limited freedom to experiment with innovative applications of blockchain in the financial sector.

Other smaller jurisdictions, notably Malta and Gibraltar, have tried to lure young companies by creating laws designed to encourage the growth of such firms.

(Reporting by Christian Kraemer and Tom Wilson, writing by Vera Eckert, editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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SUV careens into California gym, injures man on treadmill in shocking video

This man's workout nearly killed him -- and it had nothing to do with exercise.

Samuel Kiwasz was at an "Anytime Fitness" gym in Culver City, California on March 29 when an SUV smashed through a window and struck him as he was on a treadmill warming up before a group training class.

"It's a miracle that I'm alive," he told FOX11. "All of a sudden there was this loud crash and the glass came flying and I got hit, and I got shoved back and I went flying and rolled to the side so I wouldn't get crushed."

2 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS KILLED IN CRASH IN NEW MEXICO AFTER CHASE INVOLVING BORDER PATROL; 9 APPREHENDED

Security cameras at the gym captured the moment that Kiwasz was on a treadmill at 5:49 a.m., before the Mercedes SUV slammed into the building through a window, ramming the treadmill into a back wall.

Samuel Kiwasz was nearly killed after an SUV slammed through a window at a gym as he was on the treadmill.

Samuel Kiwasz was nearly killed after an SUV slammed through a window at a gym as he was on the treadmill. (FOX11)

"All of a sudden there was this loud crash and the glass came flying and I got hit here by the treadmill," he told FOX11. "And I got shoved back. And I went flying. And I rolled to the side so I wouldn't get crushed."

CALIFORNIA MOTORCYCLE OFFICER INVOLVED IN CRASH DIES

Others in the gym, including trainers, rushed to help get Kiwasz off the floor.

The woman behind the wheel claimed her brake pedal didn't work, according to FOX11.

The woman behind the wheel claimed her brake pedal didn't work, according to FOX11. (FOX11)

"I ran over here and saw blood coming out of his mouth. And I remember picking him up and sitting him down, wiping the blood off his face," said trainer Cruz Cueva. "And the first thing he told me was 'I'm sorry for ruining everybody's workout.' And I was like 'you don't get to apologize!'"

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

The driver, a woman who wasn't wearing shoes, then got out of the SUV before trying to get back in -- but an undercover police officer who happened to be working out stopped her.

Employees told FOX11 the woman, who has yet to be identified, told police her brake pedal didn't work.

Source: Fox News National

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U.S. top court buttresses company power to arbitrate disputes

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington
FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 24, 2019

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON – In a decision that could further help companies limit damages in employment disputes, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against a California man who was the victim of an online scam targeting his employer and sought to bring claims on behalf of a group of workers instead of just himself.

In a 5-4 decision with conservative justices in the majority, the court overturned a lower court ruling that had allowed for the collective arbitration of the workers’ claims. The justices agreed with the man’s employer, lighting retailer Lamps Plus, Inc, which had argued that the arbitration must be conducted on an individual basis only.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: OANN

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U.S., McKinsey & Co reach $15 million settlement over bankruptcy case disclosures

The logo of consulting firm McKinsey + Company is seen in Zurich
FILE PHOTO: The logo of consulting firm McKinsey & Company is seen at an office building in Zurich, Switzerland September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

February 19, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and McKinsey & Company have reached a $15 million settlement over allegations that the global consulting company did not make proper disclosures in bankruptcy cases, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement on Tuesday.

The department’s U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) alleged that McKinsey “made insufficient disclosures about its clients and investments in certain entities” connected to debtors that had hired the consulting firm for financial advice, the department said in a statement.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by David Alexander)

Source: OANN

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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.

CLICK HERE FOF THE FOX NEWS APP

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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