List of All Articles with Tag 'it'

(Reuters) -Saudi Arabia is in early talks with U.S. electric automaker Tesla to set up a manufacturing facility in the

By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK Options on the newly listed shares of SoftBank's Arm Holdings, the year's

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON The U.S. Justice Department on Monday questioned a Verizon executive about the company's decision

Jens Haaning was given about €67,000 by a Danish museum to create art, but sent it blank canvasses.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with X owner Elon Musk on Monday, where he is widely expected to confront Musk on his social media platform's handling of antisemitism.

The husband of iconic adult star Sophie Anderson has announced that she’s alive days after starting rumours about her “death”. Fans of the 35-year-old actress were left grief-stricken by reports on social media that she had passed away following a drug overdose. The devastating claim was made by Anderson’s partner and fellow OnlyFans performer Damian Oliver, who doubled down when he was accused of fabricating the whole thing. Screenshots and messages shared online show Oliver telling friends and admirers of the adult entertainer that she had “died unfortunately”, and even providing details of her funeral. In one X/Twitter reply, he insisted that he “hadn’t lied” about the “bad news”, adding that people could pay their respects at a crematorium in Bromley, southeast London, last Tuesday. However, on the evening of Sunday 10 September, Anderson’s one-time 'C**k Destroyers' collaborator Rebecca More reassured the concerned community that the 35-year-old was alive and well. Writing on X/Twitter, More said that the Metropolitan Police “have spoken to Sophie and she is [OK]”. The update was met with a collective sigh of relief from hordes of loyal supporters, while many shared their confusion and revulsion at the rumours. Meanwhile, Oliver responded to More’s claim, writing: “Not the case so cringe. More is out for herself. [It’s] funny to see sheep still believe her lies.” However, on Wednesday, the former Crystal Palace Youth footballer tweeted a lengthy statement, revealing that he had “20 hours in a cell because of the stupid hoax”. He continued: “I cannot say anything more as part of my bail conditions but it was just a silly drunken joke.” Oliver then lashed out at More, insisting she was “not a friend” of Anderson. “Sophie hates her. Sophie loves me.” He then dropped two bombshells, writing: “We are having a baby. We are also now married. We are unbreakable.” His message was swiftly followed up by a photo showing him standing beside Anderson, apparently during their wedding, which he claimed took place at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas. Oliver also ominously insisted that he had “saved Sophie many times” and that he had had to do “nasty s**t” to cover her surgery.” It comes just weeks after one of Anderson’s 32JJ-sized breast implants exploded while she was in the shower, days after she’d suffered sepsis for the fourth time in a year. The blue movie legend has undergone major breast reconstruction surgery and told M.E.N back in July that the ongoing issues had seriously impacted her work. In the interview with the local news outlet, she credited Oliver with helping her get through her “darkest days”, saying that she and her beau had been “inseparable” since they met on set together two-and-a-half years ago. “I honestly couldn’t have asked for anyone better to be by my side during all of this,” Sophie said. “He’s been my total support when I've not felt good.” At the time of writing, there had been no word from Anderson herself about her wellbeing, with her last X/Twitter posts shared last month. On 12 August, the 35-year-old uploaded a video of herself in a nightclub in Clapham, followed by a series of emotional tweets. In them, she wrote: “Wish my [Damian Oliver] was here. “I miss him so much.” Indy100 has contacted Damian Oliver, Sophie Anderson and Rebecca More for comment. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Francesco Canepa and Balazs Koranyi FRANKFURT (Reuters) -European Central Bank policymakers want to soon start discussing how to tackle

Today's Premier League rumors include Scott McTominay being linked with Bayern Munich. Newcastle are interested in signing Lucas Paqueta and Chris Wilder could be set for a sensational return to Sheffield United.

Following a five-year federal investigation, a grand jury has indicted President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on three charges connected to a gun purchase in 2018, a time period during which the president’s son has admitted to using drugs. Federal law prohibits people who use drugs from buying firearms, but questions surrounding the constitutionality of that law could throw the case into jeopardy following a landmark US Supreme Court decision that opened a wave of litigation under the court’s expansive Second Amendment lens. That’s if the case survives the political maelstrom targeting the Biden family, with congressional Republicans eager to prosecute the president’s son and impeach his father in parallel probes separate from a US Department of Justice special counsel investigation facing GOP pressure. That partisan scrutiny comes as the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination for president faces four sprawling criminal trials of his own, including charges for serious crimes allegedly committed while serving as 45th president. Republican officials and campaigns are eager to draw a false equivalence and dominate airtime with investigations surrounding the younger Biden instead. Ironically, a Supreme Court decision celebrated by Republicans last year may have set a precedent that could protect Hunter Biden from prosecution. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits people who use drugs from possessing firearms, a ban that applies to people who have admitted to using illegal drugs within 12 months before buying a gun, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Violating that provision could land an offender with a 15-year prison sentence. But the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen – decided by the court’s six conservative justices – argues that such restrictions be historically consistent with the Second Amendment. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition.” The decision created an absurdly high new burden to test the constitutionality of restrictions and other safety measures to combat the proliferation of high-powered firearms and keep them out of the hands of people who could be a danger to themselves or others in the American era marked by daily mass shootings and surging rates of gun violence, analysts and advocates have argued. President Biden has said the decision “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.” Within a year after that decision, more than a dozen state and federal gun laws have been challenged, with 30 per cent of civil cases and nearly 4 per cent of criminal cases citing the Bruen decision in challenges that have invalidated gun control measures, according to research in Duke Law Journal. This year, federal judges in several cases have ruled that banning someone who uses drugs from owning a firearm is “inconsistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” “In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage,” Ronald Reagan-appointed US District Judge Jerry Smith wrote for a federal appeal courts panel in August. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.” Hunter Biden is charged with illegally owning a gun as a drug user, and with allegedly lying on a form when he bought the firearm. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though it is highly unlikely he would face such a sentence. Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law and a constitutional law scholar focusing on the Second Amendment, said Mr Biden’s attorneys likely have a viable Second Amendment case. It might be more difficult to challenge federal law against lying on a firearms form, which is not directly tied to Second Amendment rights, “so it’s possible that an appeals court or the Supreme Court would agree with the defense on both of the questions, and say it’s unconstitutional, and since it’s unconstitutional, you also can’t be punished for lying about the other category,” Mr Charles told The Independent. Essentially: if one count is on unconstitutional grounds, there’s a chance the other counts wouldn’t stand up either. “It’s not always the case that the higher profile the defendant, the more likely you’re going to get Supreme Court review,” he said. “Sometimes it seems to happen lately. But there are other cases that are farther along in the process that are challenging this same law, that if the court really wanted to answer this question, it wouldn’t have to use the Hunter Biden vehicle to do it.” Mr Charles says the case has underscored the “disruptive effects of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen” and the chaotic new landscape for the nation’s myriad gun laws, which now have an apparent historical analogy regardless of the urgency for such laws in the first place. This year, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a major Second Amendment test that further magnifies the chasm between the new historical test and current realities, when justices will hear a case involving a man who possessed firearms and allegedly repeatedly shot at people while subject to a domestic violence restraining order. It is also unclear what evidence prosecutors are reviewing to determine that Hunter Biden was using drugs at the time; those details are publicised in his memoir, in which he describes his struggle with abuse and his relapse in 2018, the year he bought the gun. Mr Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell believes the case will be tossed out altogether. “The only change that has occurred between when they investigated [this alleged crime] and today is that the law changed,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America on 15 September. “But the law didn’t change in favour of the prosecution. The law changed against it.” ‘I’ve never heard of this charge. Never’ Mr Lowell and others have also questioned the timing of the case, parallel to growing threats of impeachment from far-right members of Congress against President Biden and adjacent investigations from House Republicans seeking criminal prosecutions against the president and his family. “The US Attorney’s Office has known about this for years,” Mr Lowell said. “What changed? Not the facts, not the law, but all the politics that have now come into play.” The younger Biden was prepared to plead guilty to charges stemming from the firearms purchase as well as separate tax-related misdemeanours earlier this year, though a plea agreement appeared to fall apart under scrutiny from a federal judge. Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who as US Attorney for Delaware has been investigating Hunter Biden for roughly five years, said he would seek a grand jury indictment in the case by the end of September. Mr Weiss was appointed by Mr Trump and initially requested by congressional Republicans to lead a special counsel probe. Following the collapse of that plea deal, Mr Lowell stressed to CBS Face the Nation that Mr Weiss is “a Republican US attorney appointed by a Republican president and attorney general who had career prosecutors working this case for five years looking at every transaction” in which Hunter Biden was involved. “If anything changes from his conclusion,” he added, “the question should be asked, what infected the process that was not the facts in the law?” Outside of the constitutional scrutiny in Mr Biden’s case is the unusual stand-alone charge for lying on a form, which is typically charged in connection with a more serious underlying crime. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 – supported by then-Senator Joe Biden as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee – made a federal form for firearms purchases a key part of a package of anti-crime legislation. According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden lied on the form when he was asked whether he is an “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.” But the chance of being prosecuted for lying on that form is exceedingly rare among the millions of background checks performed each year. Within the fiscal year that Mr Biden bought the gun and filled out that paperwork, federal prosecutors received 478 referrals for charges – and filed cases in roughly half of them. Mr Biden likely did receive so-called “special treatment” from federal prosecutors, as Republican officials have claimed. But it was in the opposite direction. His prosecution appears especially more severe than that facing a typical defendant. “Can anyone tell me how many people have been federally indicted for purchasing a gun while dealing with substance abuse issues?” asked Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former senior adviser to President Biden. “I don’t know the answer, but in my over 29 years as an attorney, I have never heard of it.” According to former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich, these kinds of charges simply do not happen. “I’ve been involved in law enforcement both as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer for 40 years. I’ve never heard of this charge being brought. Never,” according to Mr Bromwich, who served as Justice Department inspector general from 1995 to 1999 and previously served as a federal prosecutor in New York. He is currently a senior counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP. “I think it’s extremely unusual to bring, if not unprecedented to bring, this set of charges,” he told The Independent. “These charges were brought as a result of the unrelenting political pressure brought by Republicans in Congress to bring a heavy hand down on Hunter Biden as a way of trying to get to Joe Biden, and I think the prosecutor, Mr Weiss … has succumbed to political pressure,” he said. A plea agreement like the one reached this summer “is much more in keeping with what an ordinary prosecutor would do,” according to Mr Bromwich. Should Mr Weiss seek a plea arrangement like the one prosecutors sought earlier this year, his office is “going to invite criticism from the very Republicans who will put the pressure on him right now who now feel great that there are these very serious charges against Hunter Biden,” he told The Independent. “Given all the forces at play, all the political pressure exerted from the Republican members of Congress, it’s very hard to predict where this is going to go, and how.” Read More Trump denies pushing for Biden impeachment inquiry in secret meetings with MAGA Republicans Hunter Biden indicted: What are the charges and what could happen next? Will House Republicans put up or shut up on Hunter Biden? Should domestic abusers have the right to be armed? The Supreme Court could upend protections for survivors Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained

By Stephen Nellis UltraSense Systems, a Silicon Valley startup that makes a chip that can replace mechanical buttons,

The Oklahoma City Thunder are transitioning out of their rebuilding phase, and have a roster full of talent and versatility for the 2023-24 NBA season. There are a lot of different ways they can line up to start games.

Russell Brand has always prided himself on ruffling feathers. Indeed, the ruffle-haired, one-time-winklepicker-championing anti-establishment icon even uses a crow (farting), as the logo for his website and podcast. And yet, his preferred platforms have changed over the years: from London’s stand-up circuit to prime spots on British radio and terrestrial TV, to the Hollywood red carpet, and now to the favourite of every cash-hungry rebel – social media. Yes, the 48-year-old has become a darling of the self-styled “free-speakers” of the internet, with the likes of Andrew Tate, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson name-checking him as a mainstream-fighting compadre. But really, it seems as though his great talent lies not in speaking truth to power, but in speaking so much and at such speed that you no longer remember what the truth was in the first place. Oh, and he also knows how to write a headline that will whet even a great sceptic’s appetite. With this in mind, indy100 has taken a look at some of the most attention-grabbing titles on his YouTube channel, to see what exactly he’s been peddling: 'Covid Tsar Admits Lockdowns Were NEVER About Science'; 'So, Trump Just Said THIS about Vaccines And it Changes EVERYTHING'; 'The Queen’s Funeral – the HIDDEN Truth THAT NOBODY’s TALKING ABOUT'; 'Bill Gates Has Been HIDING This And It's ALL About To Come Out'. Brand is, evidently, a master of clickbait and adoring followers or, as he likes to call them, his “awakening wonders” – who have helped contribute to him having more than 6 million followers on YouTube alone. His articulately spun monologues, which prance along with rhetorical acrobatics and comic asides at the expense of “big business, big media and big government”. And yet, while he’s railing against world powers’ alleged propensity to mislead and deceive the public, he’s showing off his own skills at influencing others. He boasts that he wouldn’t dare tell his viewers what to think, yet in the same breath – or in the same headline – declares that he’s discussing the “truth” – which, by traditional definitions, should refer to objective, irrefutable fact. In one episode, titled, ‘Joe Rogan UNMASKS CNN’s True Agenda’, which is about the US broadcaster’s relationship with Pfizer, he says: “You can decide for yourself whether you think there's a connection between the stance of particular media organisations and the kind of financial partnerships that they have.” However, after playing a reel showing programmes on the network which are “sponsored by Pfizer”, he stresses: “But once you've seen that bloody montage, it's like the scales fall from your eyes surely, don't they?” Oh, but then he quickly adds: “But that's just what I think. What do you think?” Most recently, Brand proved he’d secured the unfaltering loyalty of his fanbase by openly addressing the allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him. In a video titled ‘So, This Is Happening’ and delivered in his usual no-pause-for-breath style, the presenter announced: “This isn't the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption because in this story, I am the news. “I've received two extremely disturbing letters or a letter and an email, one from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn't be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel. “But amidst this litany of astonishing rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute. These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time when I was in the movies, and as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. “Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that. Then almost too transparent, and I'm being transparent about it now as well, and to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play?” He then went on to describe previous “coordinated media attacks” targeted at the likes of Joe Rogan. Then, channeling Andrew Tate’s “Matrix” narrative, he continued: “I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, ‘Watch out, Russell, they're coming for you. You're getting too close to the truth.” Finally, after suggesting that a “serious and concerted agenda” had been launched to “control” voices and platforms such as his, he urged his followers to “stay close, stay awake” and, most importantly, “stay free”. His statement was met with an instant flood of support, with one writing: “We support you, [it's] obvious this was going to happen, in fact inevitable.” The only real inevitability here is that his legions of admirers would respond in this way. Birds of a feather flock together, as they say. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.