List of All Articles with Tag 'im'

A Princeton doctoral student has been kidnapped in Iraq while doing field work in the country, according to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. “Elizabeth Tsurkov is still alive and we hold Iraq responsible for her safety and well-being,” Mr Netanyahu wrote in a statement. Ms Tsurkov is an Israeli-Russian dual citizen, the Israeli prime minister wrote. She is also a fellow at the Washington DC-based think tank, New Lines Institute, and is a contributor to New Lines magazine. They wrote they hadn’t heard from her since 19 March, when she said she wanted to leave the Middle East and return to Princeton to write her dissertation. They added that just over a week after hearing from her, they “learned from our sources that a pro-Iranian militia had kidnapped her in Baghdad.” The writers underscored that Ms Tsurkov’s work “poses no threat to anyone.” The magazine also wrote that Ms Tsurkov “is an outspoken critic of all three of the major likely players involved in negotiating her release: Israel, Iran and Russia.” The group said that they reached out to US and foreign officials and will continue to do so. They urged the United States to get involved in her release, because despite the fact she is not a US citizen, she “is very much a part of America,” they wrote. “She works with a Washington think tank, writes for an American magazine and studies at Princeton University. She deserves America’s every effort to bring her to safety,” New Lines magazine writers said. Ms Tsurkov’s family also confirmed details of her disappearance in a statement. “She was kidnapped in the middle of Baghdad, and we see the Iraqi government as directly responsible for her safety,” the family’s statement said. “We ask for her immediate release from this unlawful detention.” Read More Missing two-year-old’s grandmother shares ‘mental torture’ after alleged kidnapper arrested Kremlin open to talks over potential prisoner swap involving detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich Death of student, 20, outside club ‘senseless and avoidable’, court told

A California man pleaded guilty last week to hiding his mother’s death from the federal authorities for over 30 years, collecting more than $800,000 in benefits under her name. Donald Felix Zampach, 65, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of Social Security fraud, according to the Justice Department. “This crime is believed to be the longest-running and largest fraud of its kind in this district,” US Attorney Randy Grossman said in a statement. “This defendant didn’t just passively collect checks mailed to his deceased mother. This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse.” All told, beginning in 1990, the Poway man collected $830,238. He could face up to 25 years in prison, though US sentencing guidelines suggest it will more likely be a sentence of 30 to 37 months. “He is overwhelmed with regret,” Knut Johnson, Zampach’s lawyer, told The New York Times. As part of his plea deal, Zampach will forfeit the benefit, pay restitution to various lenders, and turn over the home he took possession of in his mother’s name. The benefits scheme was an elaborate one, according to the DoJ. When Zampach’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she left the US and returned to her native Japan, where she died in 1990 at age 61. Her son notified the US embassy in Tokyo of the death, but admitted to leaving blank a box for her Social Security number to avoid the government being aware of her passing, and he repeated this omission on forms for burial permits. Zampach kept up this ruse until September 2022, collecting his mother’s Social Security checks and payments from the Defense Finance Accounting Service, which pays survivors of military veterans. An audit of those over age 90 who hadn’t used their Medicare benefits helped reveal the California man’s scheme. This sort of fraud has happened in the past. In 2018, a Mexican man pleaded guilty to defrauding the government for even longer, spending 37 years collecting nearly $361,000 in government benefits after assuming the identity of a US citizen, according to The San Diego Union Tribune. In 2015, Dutch police learned that a man kept his dead mother’s body hidden for over two years and continued collecting her pension and social assistance payments. He was later caught and forced to repay 40,000 euros, according to 1 Limburg. Read More Real Housewives star Phaedra Parks reveals why she gave her son $150,000 for his 13th birthday Mastercard helping banks predict scams before money leaves customers’ accounts Vermont will pay $16.5M to settle lawsuits by foreign investors in fraudulent ski developments

There's a difference between winning games and winning the games that matter. How do the MLB standings look when reoriented around record versus winning teams?In sports, good teams beat the bad teams. Great teams beat the good teams. As we look toward the All-Star break and the second half ...

Piles of cash, weapons and a giant sledgehammer seen in pictures allegedly showing a raid on his home.

The Biden administration has approved the largest offshore wind energy project yet in US waters, to be located off the coast of New Jersey where officials say it could power hundreds of thousands of homes with clean energy.

Sweden's Prosecution Authority has charged climate activist Greta Thunberg with disobeying law enforcement after she allegedly refused to leave the scene of a climate protest in Malmö in June

A car has crashed into an elementary school in Wimbledon, southwest London, according to the city's Metropolitan Police force, who have described it as a "serious collision."

Police say the Pakistani woman learnt she could enter India via Nepal through a YouTube video.

Alexander Lukashenko says Prigozhin, who led a short-lived mutiny in Russia, is in St Petersburg.

A Chinese nationalist pundit known for his inflammatory criticism of the United States has attracted ridicule online after he was shown attending a party celebrating Independence Day at the US embassy in Beijing -- and apparently having a great time while there.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition suffered an embarrassing blow over key climate legislation after Germany’s top court stopped

BP Plc is investing in a California-based startup that will use uneaten food and other waste to make