DETROIT – An Illinois man and his son have been charged in Michigan in an investigation of diseased body parts used for research and education.
Federal prosecutors say researchers paid to use cadavers without knowing they had tested positive for infectious diseases. The latest charges are related to an investigation of a Detroit-area man who was sentenced last year to nine years in prison.
Donald Greene Sr. is charged with wire fraud. His son, Donald Greene II, is charged with knowing about the scheme but failing to report it. They were associated with Biological Resource Center of Rosemont, Illinois, which provided the remains to medical professionals for a fee.
The charges were filed last week as a criminal information, which means a guilty plea is expected. The names of lawyers representing the Greenes weren't immediately known.
Evangelical Pastor Ramón Rigal and his wife Ayda Expósito were both sentenced to prison after engaging in and promoting homeschooling in the communist country of Cuba.
“Homeschooling is illegal in Cuba, as it is considered a “capitalist” practice and prevents the state from indoctrinating children in Marxist atheism in public schools. Rigal has been homeschooling his children for years, forcing him into consistent confrontations with the Castro regime, and began helping other Christian families homeschool following his arrest in 2017.”
Rigal and Expósito, who are from Guatemala, were detained last week over their refusal to send their children to government-run schools.
In two previous cases against the couple, journalist Yoe Suarez reported, “the prosecutor indicated that education at home is ‘not permitted in Cuba because it has a capitalist foundation’ and that only [the government] teachers are prepared ‘to instill socialist values’.”
On Monday, the judge presiding over their cases found them guilty of “illicit assembly and incitement to delinquency” for helping other families interested in homeschooling.
Cuban state security wouldn’t let friends or family attend the sentencing and they got violent with attorney and journalist Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces.
“They punched me in the mouth, my shirt is bloody, and I am detained here now, I don’t know why,” Quiñones told a Cuban reporter.
Before the couple was arrested, they were planning on leaving the country for a nation that respects their right to freely educate their children.
Watch Rigal explain his situation in the video below that was released days before his arrest.
The case took place amid rising tension in Cuba after the country adopted a new constitution earlier this year that was met with opposition from religious leaders who say it weakens protections for freedom of religion.
A man stands in a doorway during heavy rain near the security cordon surrounding St. Anthony's Shrine, days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
April 26, 2019
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Muslims in Sri Lanka were urged to pray at home on Friday and not attend mosques or churches after the State Intelligence Services warned of possible car bomb attacks, amid fears of retaliatory violence for the Easter Sunday bombings.
The U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka also urged its citizens to avoid places of worship over the coming weekend after authorities reported there could be more attacks targeting religious centers.
Sri Lanka remains on edge after suicide bombing attacks on three churches and four hotels that killed 253 people and wounded about 500. The attacks have been claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.
Nearly 10,000 soldiers are being deployed across the Indian Ocean island state to carry out searches and provide security for religious centers, the military said on Friday.
Fears of retaliatory sectarian violence has already caused Muslim communities flee their homes amid bomb scares, lockdowns and security sweeps.
The All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ullama, Sri Lanka’s main Islamic religious body, urged Muslims to conduct prayers at home on Friday in case “there is a need to protect family and properties”.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith also appealed to priests not to conduct mass at churches until further notice.
“Security is important,” he said.
Police have detained least 76 people, including foreigners from Syria and Egypt, in their investigations so far.
Islamic State provided no evidence to back its claim that it was behind the attacks. If true, it would be one of the worst attacks carried out by the group outside Iraq and Syria.
Islamic State released a video on Tuesday showing eight men, all but one with their faces covered, standing under a black Islamic State flag and declaring their loyalty to its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
The Sri Lankan government said there were nine homegrown, well-educated suicide bombers, eight of whom had been identified. One was a woman.
Authorities have focused their investigations on international links to two domestic Islamist groups – National Thawheed Jama’ut and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim – they believe carried out the attacks.
Government officials have acknowledged a major lapse in not widely sharing an intelligence warning from India before the attacks. Defense Secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned over the failure to prevent the attacks.
The Easter Sunday bombings shattered the relative calm that had existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka since a civil war against mostly Hindu ethnic Tamil separatists ended 10 years ago.
Sri Lanka’s 22 million people include minority Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Until now, Christians had largely managed to avoid the worst of the island’s conflict and communal tensions.
Most of the victims were Sri Lankans, although authorities said at least 38 foreigners were also killed, many of them tourists sitting down to breakfast at top-end hotels when the bombers struck.
They included British, U.S., Australian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch and Portuguese nationals. Britain warned its nationals on Thursday to avoid Sri Lanka unless it was absolutely necessary because there could be more attacks.
(GRAPHIC: Sri Lanka bombings – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Xy02BA)
(GRAPHIC: A decade of peace shattered – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W4wZoU)
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Paul Tait)
BERLIN – German media report that two men have died after a shooting in Munich.
Police in the Bavarian capital said Thursday the situation is "under control" and there is currently no danger to the public.
The Munich daily tz reported the shooting happened on a building site. It quoted an unnamed police spokesperson as saying authorities are working on the assumption that one man shot dead another and then killed himself.
In this photo provided by the Missile Defense Agency, the lead ground-based Interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in a "salvo" engagement test of an unarmed missile target Monday, March 25, 2019. (Missile Defense Agency via AP)
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Monday successfully shot down a dummy Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) in space during a highly complex test of the U.S. military’s capabilities to counter incoming missiles from foreign adversaries.
Two interceptor missiles, launched from an Air Force base in California, shot down the ballistic missile – launched from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific 4,000 miles away – supposedly meant to resemble missiles used by North Korean or Iranian militaries.
The first interceptor hit and destroyed the re-entry vehicle. The second interceptor hit a secondary object.
The agency said that during the test, ground and sea-based Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) sensors successfully provided data to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication (C2BMC) system, which then prompted the launch of two interceptor missiles.
“This was the first GBI salvo intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target, and it was a critical milestone,” MDA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves said in a statement.
“The system worked exactly as it was designed to do, and the results of this test provide evidence of the practicable use of the salvo doctrine within missile defense. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.”
The test on Monday was the first of its kind missile defense test, which came amid the Iranian and North Korean governments' efforts to develop the ICBM technology.
Earlier this year, Iran tried to launch two satellites that the government said was for the purposes of monitoring the environment, prompting objections from the U.S. as the satellite launch vehicles were reportedly used the same technology as ICBMs.
“Iran plans to fire off Space Launch Vehicles with virtually same technology as ICBMs. The launch will advance its missile program. US, France, UK & Germany have already stated this is in defiance of UNSCR 2231. We won't stand by while the regime threatens international security,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in a tweet.
North Korea, amid the breakdown of talks with the U.S., has been accused of rebuilding a missile launch site.
Satellite images show that efforts to rebuild some structures at the Tongchang-ri launch site started between Feb. 16 and March 2, citing 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies.
Harry Kazianis, Director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest, and a Fox News contributor, said: "The facility in question, Sohae Satellite Launching Station or sometimes called Tongchang-ri, has seen activity in the last few days which suggests the North Koreans are rebuilding their capability to potentially test space launch vehicles and can place satellites into orbit.
"There is also evidence to suggest Pyongyang might be rebuilding at the same facility an engine testing stand that is likely used to measure the capabilities of motors that would go into the North’s long-range missiles (ICBMs) that can hit the United States with a nuclear payload.”
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report
KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan official says at least seven people have been killed as heavy rains and flooding swept through the country's western Herat province.
Heavy snowfall across Afghanistan this winter had cut off many areas, raising fears of severe floods in the spring. So far this year, 63 people have died as heavy rains and flooding swept away their homes.
Said Hamid Mubarez, the federal disaster and humanitarian director in Herat, says the flash floods on Thursday evening swept away eight people riding in two cars in the district of Karukh. Seven died while one survivor was injured.
In March, seven people, including five children, died elsewhere in Herat as a result of flooding. Hundreds of homes have been damaged and hundreds of cattle killed.
FILE PHOTO - An employees of a foreign exchange trading company works as he is seen between British Union flag and an EU flag in Tokyo, Japan, June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato
April 18, 2019
By Tetsushi Kajimoto
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese businesses with links to Britain say they have no immediate plans to flee the country as its government seeks to hammer out terms of its exit from the European Union, a Reuters poll found.
Many said they would take a “wait-and-see” stance toward Brexit.
The Japanese government has been vocal about its concern over the impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom, the second-biggest destination for Japanese investment after the United States.
Tokyo warned last year that Japanese companies would have to leave Britain if trade barriers from Brexit made business unprofitable.
Britain’s decision to leave the EU has raised concern in London that Japanese companies may shift operations elsewhere if tariff-free trade ends with the rest of the European bloc.
But 89 percent of companies with business links to Britain said they would make no change in their operations and 3 percent are actually considering expanding business in the country.
Some 8 percent planned to downsize business operations in Britain, but none of the companies surveyed planned to leave the country, the April 3-15 survey showed.
However, in written comments many firms said they would watch Brexit developments “for the time being,” suggesting that they could leave if Brexit proves bad for business.
“We have a subsidiary in France so Brexit affects us. But we want to wait and see for the time being,” a manager of a precision machinery maker wrote in the survey.
“Britain still takes up an important position in Europe, and we have not completely figured out concrete effects of Brexit,” a machinery maker wrote in the survey.
The Reuters Corporate Survey, conducted monthly for Reuters by Nikkei Research, polled 478 large and mid-sized firms with managers responding on condition of anonymity. Around 240 answered the questions on Brexit.
Of those, 61 said they had business links to the United Kingdom, and responded to more detailed questions about Brexit.
At the end of 2016, Japanese business investment in Britain stood at 13.4 trillion yen (92 billion pounds). It accounted for 9 percent of Japan’s overall foreign direct investment, with successive leaders since Margaret Thatcher promising them a business-friendly base from which to trade across the continent.
After the shocking 2016 Brexit vote, Japan expressed fears about a cliff edge that could disrupt trade when Britain formally leaves the bloc.
So far, Honda said in February it will close its only British car plant in 2021 with the loss of up to 3,500 jobs.
Britain’s exit from the European Union was put off by a late night agreement in Brussels last week that gave Prime Minister Theresa May until Oct. 31 to persuade parliament to approve the terms of the country’s departure.
($1 = 0.7642 pounds)
(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Izumi Nakagawa; Editing by Malcolm Foster & Kim Coghill)
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Tom Arnold
LONDON (Reuters) – A London court case to extradite Arif Naqvi, founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, to the United States on fraud charges was adjourned until May 24, a court official said on Friday.
Naqvi was remanded in custody until that date, the official said. A former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, was released on conditional bail to appear again at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, the official said.
Under the U.S. charges, both men are accused of defrauding U.S. investors by inflating positions held by Abraaj in order to attract greater funds from them, causing them financial loss, the official said.
Vettivetpillai could not be reached for a comment.
Naqvi, in a statement released through a PR firm, has pleaded innocent.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Naqvi and his firm raised money for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund, collecting more than $100 million over three years from U.S.-based charitable organizations and other U.S. investors.
Naqvi and Vettivetpillai were arrested in Britain earlier this month. Another executive, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court on April 11.
Abdel-Wadood appeared at the Manhattan hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges.
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
April 26, 2019
By James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, said on Friday that he does not believe he treated law professor Anita Hill badly during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Biden had joined the burgeoning 2020 Democratic field a day earlier.
Biden’s conduct during those hearings, when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, became a renewed subject of controversy after the New York Times reported that Biden had called Hill earlier this month in the run-up to his presidential bid and that Hill was dissatisfied with Biden’s expression of regret.
Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden largely defended his actions as a senator almost 30 years ago, saying he believed Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment levied at Thomas and tried to derail his confirmation.
Activists have long been unhappy that Hill was questioned in graphic detail by the all-white, all-male committee chaired by Biden.
“I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated,” Biden said, but later, he asserted, “I don’t think I treated her badly. … How do you stop people from asking inflammatory questions?”
“There were a lot of mistakes made across the board and for those I apologize,” he said.
Biden praised Hill as “remarkable” and said she is “one of the reasons we have the #MeToo movement.”
Asked why he had not reached out to Hill earlier, Biden said he had previously publicly stated he had regrets about her treatment and that he “didn’t want to quote invade her space.”
That seemed to be a reference to another controversy that looms over Biden’s presidential run: allegations by several women that he made them uncomfortable by touching them at political events.
Biden also addressed that criticism, saying he was now more “cognizant” about a woman’s “private space.” But he maintained that he had been “trying to bring solace.”
He suggested he was still trying to sort out the guidelines for his conduct going forward.
“I should be able to read better,” he said. “I have to be more careful.”
Pressed by the show’s panel for an apology to his accusers, Biden would not entirely capitulate.
“So, I invaded your space,” he replied. “I mean, I’m sorry this happened. But I’m not sorry in a sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate.”
Biden, 76, served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. He is competing with 19 others for the Democratic presidential nomination and the chance to likely face President Donald Trump next year in the general election.
His first public event as a presidential candidate is scheduled for Monday in Pittsburgh.
(Reporting by James Oliphant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Noel Randewich
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s stock slumped over 4% on Friday to its lowest price in two years, rounding out a rough week that included worse-than-expected quarterly results and a pitch by Chief Executive Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.
With investors betting Tesla will soon raise capital, the stock has fallen 13% for the week to its lowest level since January 2017, before the launch of the Model 3 sedan aimed at making the electric car maker profitable.
One positive development for Tesla: a U.S. District Court judge on Friday granted a request by Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission for a second extension to resolve a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter.
On Wednesday, Tesla posted a worse-than-expected loss of $702 million for the March quarter. Musk said Tesla would return to profit in the third quarter and that there was “some merit” to raising capital.
Musk is still battling to convince investors that demand for the Model 3, the company’s first car aimed at the mass consumer market, is “insanely” high, and that it can be delivered efficiently to customers around the world.
Tesla ended its first quarter with $2.2 billion, down from $3.7 billion in the prior quarter, and the company is planning expansions including a Shanghai factory, an upcoming Model Y SUV, and other projects.
On Monday, Musk hosted a self-driving event, where he predicted Tesla would have over a million autonomous vehicles by next year. Some analysts perceived the presentation as a way to deflect attention from questions about demand, margin pressure, increasing competition and even Musk’s ongoing battle with U.S. regulators.
Tesla’s stock has now fallen 29 percent in 2019 and the company’s market capitalization has declined to $41 billion from $63 billion in mid-December.
(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s declining market cap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dwd62r)
Analysts now expect Tesla’s revenue to expand 19% in 2019, compared with 83% growth in 2018 and 68% growth in 2017, according to Refinitiv.
Following Tesla’s quarterly report, 12 analysts recommend selling the stock, while 11 recommend buying and eight are neutral. The median analyst price target is $275, up 16% from the stock’s current price of $236. Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl has the most optimistic price target, at $500, while Cowen and Company’s Jeffrey Osborne has the lowest, at $160, according to Refinitiv.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.
While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”
During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”
“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.
“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.
Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.
Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.
“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
April 26, 2019
By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.
Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.
More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.
Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.
“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.
He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.
“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.
On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.
Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.
Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.
The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.
In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.
Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.
‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’
He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.
“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.
Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.
“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.
President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.
Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.
Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Click below to consent to the use of the cookie technology provided by vi (video intelligence AG) to personalize content and advertising. For more info please access vi's website.