List of All Articles with Tag 'politics'

Six people were charged Friday in an alleged scheme to divert tens of thousands of dollars in public funds to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign months before his election. The indictment announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg does not implicate Mr Adams or any other city employees. Rather, it describes a straw donor scheme orchestrated by individuals with business before the city who hoped to maximize their donations to the future mayor in exchange for political favors. “We allege a deliberate scheme to game the system in a blatant attempt to gain power,” Mr Bragg said in a statement. “The New York City Campaign Finance Board program is meant to support our democracy and amplify the voices of New York City voters. When the integrity of that program is corrupted, all New Yorkers suffer.” Prosecutors said the scheme was led by Dwayne Montgomery, a former NYPD inspector currently listed as the director of integrity for the Teamsters Local 237, which represents municipal workers. According to the indictment, Mr Montgomery recruited friends and relatives to take advantage of the city’s generous matching funds system, which provides an eight-to-one match for the first $250 donated by a city resident. In addition to Mr Montgomery, the indictment names as defendants Shamsuddin Riza, Millicent Redick, Ronald Peek, Yahya Mushtaq, and Shahid Mushtaq. According to prosecutors, between 2020 and 2021, those who made donations in their own name were reimbursed by Mr Montgomery, who provided more than $40,000 of his money. He worked with a string of co-defendants to help recruit donors, including Mr Riza, who indicated he was hoping to secure work from the city. “FYI ! This is the one I want , Safety , Drywall , and Security one project but we all can eat,” Mr Riza wrote in a July 2021 email to Mr Montgomery, sending along the information for a construction project called Vital Brooklyn, prosecutors allege. Mr Montgomery also worked alongside a campaign representative to organize a virtual fundraiser for Mr Adams in August, 2020, prosecutors contend. The representative is not named in the indictment. None of the defendants could immediately be reached for comment. Mr Adams' campaign released a statement denying any involvement in the alleged scheme. “There is no indication that the campaign or the mayor is involved in this case or under investigation,” a spokesperson for Mr Adams’ campaign, Evan Thies, said in a statement. “The campaign always held itself to the highest standards and we would never tolerate these actions.” The defendants each face charges of conspiracy, attempted grand larceny, and offering a false instrument. Read More NYC Mayor Eric Adams accused of doctoring photo of police officer friend killed in the line of duty Ex-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio and wife are separating – but will still live with each other New York City's Rikers Island, facing possible federal takeover, found violating safety standards NYC mayor accused of doctoring photo of murdered police officer friend Ex-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio and wife are separating – but will still live together

The Scottish government has proposed decriminalizing possession of all drugs for personal use to tackle one of Europe’s highest overdose death rates. The suggestion was almost instantly blocked by the Conservative U.K. government in London, which said it had “no plans” to soften drug laws. The semi-autonomous Edinburgh government, led by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, said Friday that removing criminal penalties for drug possession would “allow for the provision of safe, evidence-based harm reduction services.” Scotland’s death rate from drug overdoses is three times the rate in the U.K. as a whole and the highest in Western Europe. Last year there were almost 1,100 drug-related deaths in Scotland, which has a population of 5.5 million, according to government figures. “The war on drugs has failed,” Scottish drugs minister Elena Whitham said at a news conference alongside former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and ex-Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss, both advocates of drug law reform. “Our current drug law does not stop people from using drugs, it does not stop people from experiencing the harm associated and, critically, it does not stop people from dying,” Whitham said. The Scottish government said decriminalization would free “individuals from the fear of accessing treatment and support, reducing drug-related harms and, ultimately, improving lives.” It cited the example of Portugal, which ditched criminal penalties for drug possession more than two decades ago and focused on treatment. Whitham said the government also wanted to change the law so it could create supervised drug consumption rooms and would consider introducing the regulated supply of drugs. She said the crisis would worsen without radical change. She said Scotland was “facing down the barrel of a storm in terms of synthetic opioids and new and novel street benzodiazepines that are heading to our shores.” “If we are not prepared for that arriving here, with 21st century drug laws in place, I’m terrified as to what that could look like," she said. But Russell Findlay, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said “essentially legalizing heroin, crack and other class-A drugs” would not solve Scotland’s drug deaths problem. Scotland already allows people caught with illegal drugs to be given a police warning rather than being prosecuted, but decriminalizing drugs would require support from the U.K. government. Max Blain, spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said that was not going to happen. “There are no plans to alter our tough stance on drugs,” he said. The Scottish government has often taken more liberal positions on social issues than the Conservative administration in London. Last year a law passed by the Scottish parliament that would make it easier for people to officially change gender was blocked by Sunak’s government. The governing SNP uses such disagreements to bolster its argument that Scotland would be better off leaving the United Kingdom and becoming an independent country.

The special counsel overseeing all Department of Justice investigations related to former President Donald Trump has seemed to focus in particular on an infamous Oval Office meeting after Trump lost the 2020 election and before the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. In that meeting, unofficial advisers presented Trump with unlikely ways to overturn the election.

Major legal rulings that dismantled the use of race in college admissions, undermined protections for LGBTQ people and tossed out President Joe Biden's student debt relief program marked the end of a Supreme Court term in which the conservative supermajority continued to exert its dominance.

Former President Donald Trump has hit the 2024 campaign trail and is giving voters a preview of what a second Trump presidency could look like if he's elected. He's made many campaign promises -- many of which are often vague and lacking in details or specifics -- including ending the war in Ukraine, building 10 new cities and giving drug smugglers the death penalty.

President Joe Biden embarks on a weeklong trip to Europe on Sunday, and the stakes couldn't be higher for the future of the NATO alliance.

Russian aircraft once again harassed US MQ-9 Reaper drones over Syria Friday, the Air Force said, in a sign of increasing friction between the two countries in Middle East airspace.

In a packed barn of more than 100 attendees, Florida first lady Casey DeSantis had the crowd laughing as she recalled bringing her 5-year-old daughter with her to an event last year.

The US on Friday announced it had completed the more than three-decade process of destroying its chemical weapons stockpiles. “Today—as we mark this significant milestone—we must also renew our commitment to forging a future free from chemical weapons,” Joe Biden said in a statement. “I continue to encourage the remaining nations to join the Chemical Weapons Convention so that the global ban on chemical weapons can reach its fullest potential,” he added. “Russia and Syria should return to compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention and admit their undeclared programs, which have been used to commit brazen atrocities and attacks.” The US and Soviet Union agreed in 1989 in principle to destroy their stores of the deadly weapons, condemned following their widespread use in wartime atrocities in conflicts like World War I. Later, in 1997, the US Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. The US chemical weapons stock included cluster bombs and land mines with verve agent, mustard gas artillery shells, and poison that could be sprayed via jet, according to the New York Times. The effort to destroy the weapons was decades behind schedule and cost an estimated $42bn, according to the paper. “Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement, the AP reports. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always be a stain on history, today our nation has finally fulfilled our promise to rid our arsenal of this evil. The news of the destruction of the stockpile comes as the US offloaded some of its other controversial weapons to Ukraine. The US will be sending cluster munitions to the country as part of a $800m aid package to help its beleagured armed forces fend off the Russia invastion. More than 120 countries, including numerous US allies in Europe, have joined a convention banning the use of such rounds, because they can cause a high number of civilian casualties. Read More U.S. destroys last of its declared chemical weapons, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says Global chemical weapons watchdog says it found no evidence to back Syrian claim of 2017 gas attack US will provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, White House says The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin announced Friday that he will not run for Senate in 2024, instead choosing to seek reelection to the House.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that she will support President Joe Biden's reelection bid given the challengers he currently faces in the primary.

The United States will provide Ukraine with cluster-style artillery rounds for use on their own territory to repel Russian invading forces, the White House has said. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday that Kyiv has “provided written assurances” that it would use the controversial weapons “in a very careful way that is aimed at minimising any risk to civilians”. He said the Defence Department would provide further details on the next arms package that will be sent to Ukraine, but he pointed out that Kyiv’s forces are “firing thousands of rounds a day to defend against Russian efforts to advance and also to support its own efforts to retake its sovereign territory”. The national security adviser suggested the decision to provide Ukraine with cluster weapons already in US stocks was necessary to keep up a steady flow of arms for Kyiv’s defence. “We have provided Ukraine with a historic amount of unitary artillery rounds and we are ramping up domestic production of these rounds. We’ve already seen substantial increases in production, but this process will continue to take time, and it will be critical to provide Ukraine with a bridge of supplies. While our domestic production is ramped up,” he said. “We will not leave Ukraine defenceless at any point in this conflict period”. Mr Sullivan noted that Russia has been using their own version of cluster munitions, which are antipersonnel weapons that make use of small “bomblets” to maximise their effectiveness against massed troops, and pointed out that the Russian weapons have a high rate of failure which leaves the battlefield littered with unexploded ordinance. He added that the US-made shells that will be provisioned to Kyiv’s defence forces have a much lower failure rate, and said Ukraine’s government has committed to post-war de-mining that would prevent civilians from being harmed by unexploded submunitions, which in past conflict zones have lingered for years. While a 2008 treaty, the Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions, has been signed by more than 100 nations which have agreed to ban the use of such weapons, neither the US, Russia or Ukraine are signatories to the treaty. He also contrasted Russia’s use of the weapons on Ukraine’s territory with Ukraine’s desire to use them to defend their own land. “When we look at what Ukraine would be doing with these weapons, as opposed to what Russia is doing with these weapons, we see a substantial difference. It doesn’t make it an easy decision, and I’m not going to stand up here and say it is easy,” he said, adding that the US had deferred a decision on providing cluster munitions for quite some time because it “required a real hard look at the potential harm to civilians”. “When we put all of that together, there was a unanimous recommendation from the national security team, and President Biden ultimately decided — in consultation with allies and partners and in consultation with members of Congress — to move forward on this step,” he said. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary