CharlieH

We ar not going to go through every Nationality with this question. CLOSED

A Nevada grand jury has indicted six individuals who acted as fake electors in a scheme intended to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, according to the state’s attorney general. The indictments make Nevada the third state – joining Michigan and Georgia – to bring charges against those who served as fake pro-Trump electors after the 2020 election. The six Nevadans charged are fake electors: Michael McDonald, Jesse Law, Jim DeGraffenreid, Durward James Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice. They face felony charges of “offering a false instrument for filing” and “uttering a forged instrument.” None of the fake electors have responded to requests for comment from CNN. Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office said in a short statement that “we cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged,” adding: “Today’s indictments are the product of a long and thorough investigation, and as we pursue this prosecution, I am confident that our judicial system will see justice done.” As part of the effort to help then-President Donald Trump be reelected, six Republicans in Nevada signed false Electoral College votes in December 2020 for Trump, who lost the state to Biden, according to special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment, the House select committee that investigated January 6, 2021, and the Nevada attorney general’s office. Nevada is among at least five states that have launched criminal investigations into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Two of those states – Michigan and Georgia – have already brought criminal charges against some of the people who signed onto the alternative slates of fake electors, and more charges could be brought soon. FULL STORY

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly told his supporters he will serve as their “retribution” if he is elected again in 2024. But pressed by Fox host Sean Hannity in a Fox News town hall Tuesday about whether he would abuse his power or seek retribution against his political enemies as president, Trump first sidestepped the question –and then seemed to minimize its seriousness, responding on a second round that he would only be a “dictator” on Day One of his presidency to address the border and domestic oil production. “I’m going to be, you know he keeps, we love this guy, he says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling.’ After that I’m not a dictator,” Trump said. The former president’s comments came days after former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who lost her seat to a Trump-backed primary challenger last year after she participated in the House commission that probed the January 6, 2021, insurrection, said the nation would be “sleepwalking into a dictatorship” if Trump wins next year. “Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever if reelected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?” Hannity initially asked. Trump did not directly answer that question and instead pointed to his own four indictments and dismissed the 91 criminal charges he faces as “made up charges.” Later, Hannity again pressed Trump, asking, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” “Except for day one. I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump replied. FULL STORY

Another thread descends into a bickeringfest. CLOSED.

UN secretary general says situation ‘fast deteriorating into catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications’ Israel-Hamas war – live updates Israeli forces and Hamas are fighting house-to-house battles along the length of the Gaza Strip, with devastating consequences for the civilian population amid a complete collapse in humanitarian relief. As the war intensified on Wednesday, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, invoked a rarely used clause in the UN charter to raise the issue on his own initiative before the security council, to warn that the conflict “may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security”. “We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system,” Guterres wrote in a letter to the council. “The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.” He added: “Amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces, and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions, rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible. “An even worse situation could unfold, including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries.” As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been fighting their way through badly bomb-damaged urban areas in northern and southern Gaza, Hamas has increasingly relied on improvised bombs to inflict casualties and slow down the assault. Gaza’s hospitals have reported a flood of civilian dead and injured, many of them women and children, as medical supplies dwindle, while the spread of ground combat to the south has stopped any delivery of humanitarian aid much farther than the Rafah crossing point with Egypt. FULL STORY

Congress unlikely to approve more funding for Ukraine before end of year after GOP demanded stricter border regulations The Senate has blocked a supplemental funding bill that included financial aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as provisions aimed at bolstering border security. The vote, which fell mostly along party lines, increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more funding for Ukraine before the end of the year, as the White House has warned that Kyiv is desperately in need of more aid. The vote was 49 to 51, as every Senate Republican opposed advancing the legislation. Sixty votes were needed to take up the bill. Republicans in both chambers of Congress had demanded stricter border regulations in exchange for their support, and they said the bill failed to meet their requirements. The vote came one day after Senate Democrats formally unveiled the $111bn supplemental security bill, reflecting the funding request that Joe Biden issued in October to provide assistance to the US’s allies abroad. Ahead of the vote, Biden delivered an address to urge Congress to pass the bill, warning that a failure to act would only benefit Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in the war against Ukraine. “Who is prepared to walk away from holding Putin accountable for this behavior? Who among us is really prepared to do that?” Biden said. “I’m not prepared to walk away, and I don’t think the American people are either.” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed leaders of the G7 group of nations and called on them to confound Vladimir Putin by winning “the battle of motivations” and not showing weakness. The G7 leaders met by video at short notice in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian leader that included trying to breathe new life into the sanctions against Russia. FULL STORY

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That identical picture is on linkedin. These type of scams etc typically harvest images from social media.

Closure removed.......Resumed Usual suspects with usual content disrupting others. Next will be removal of those people if you cany/won't stop.

MOVED to Motoring forum

Reported exchange removed. Keep it civil please NO personal attacks.

New laws designed to slash the number of migrants by 300,000 a year risk splitting up families already living in the UK. Brits could see their foreign partners told to leave the country the next time their visa comes up for renewal – if their household does not earn £38,700, No 10 said. The move is part of plans to cut net migration after it soared to nearly three-quarters of a million in 2022. Experts, however, warned the planned crackdown was causing distress for many. Downing Street defended the policy, saying it was right that “if you are bringing someone into the country you are able to support them”. Under the plans unveiled on Monday those wishing to bring their spouse to the UK will now have to earn £38,700, a significant increase on the current figure of £18,600, and what has been described as a tax on love. Former Tory minister Gavin Barwell said it was “both morally wrong and unconservative to say that only the wealthiest can fall in love, marry someone and then bring them to the UK”. As well as applying to those yet to come to the UK, No 10 confirmed the new higher figure risks affecting those already here. Asked if it would apply to partners when they came to renew their visas, No 10 said the change was “not retrospective, but it would apply to renewals in the future”. At that point, people would be expected to “meet the visa requirements of the day”. The prime minister’s official spokesperson added: “People always have a set length of time for their visas and will be aware at the conclusion of that visa time that they don’t have a guarantee that they will obviously remain in the country.” FULL STORY

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team outlined the evidence it has collected against former President Trump on Tuesday, walking through information it says will showcase his motive and knowledge of a plan to block the transfer of power. The breakdown comes in a request to introduce evidence of events both before and after the conspiracy outlined in Trump’s indictment, an effort to “establish his motive, intent, preparation, knowledge” and plans related to his efforts to stay in power. The 9-page filing shows prosecutors plan to showcase an array of Trump comments dating as far back as 2012, when he sought to cast into doubt the legitimacy of elections whose results he did not favor. That includes the multiple instances when Trump refused to commit to accept the results of either the 2016 or 2020 election. Prosecutors also plan to show evidence gathered about other Trump associates, including the encouraging of riots at a Detroit vote-counting center and the targeting of a Republican National Committee attorney who countered Trump’s claims of fraud. “The Campaign Employee encouraged rioting and other methods of obstruction when he learned that the vote count was trending in favor of the defendant’s opponent,” the filing says of a campaign employee who sought to mobilize riots at the TCF Center after President Biden took the lead in vote counts. “Thereafter, Trump made repeated false claims regarding election activities at the TCF Center, when in truth his agent was seeking to cause a riot to disrupt the count.” But much of the filing indicates prosecutors plan to bring in an array of Trump comments they argue show a longstanding refusal to accept election results and instead undermine the process, something they say all show “his motive, intent, and plan to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election results and illegitimately retain power.” FULL STORY

Israeli forces have reported the most intense day of fighting in Gaza since the ground attack began nearly six weeks ago, with offensives stepped up in northern and southern Gaza and reports of a rise in civilian deaths. Amid heavy combat in key urban areas, including around Khan Younis, Hamas said there would be no further return of hostages until Israel’s “aggression against Gaza stopped”. The UN said “some of the heaviest shelling in Gaza so far” took place between Sunday and Monday afternoons. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 349 Palestinians had been killed and 750 injured in that period. The latest fighting came as the Biden administration imposed a visa ban on Israeli settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, in one of toughest measures on Israel by the White House in recent memory. “The United States has consistently opposed actions that undermine stability in the West Bank, including attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and Palestinian attacks against Israelis,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday. FULL STORY

Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms Many of the gravest threats to humanity are drawing closer, as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels, scientists have warned. Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial temperatures. Triggering these planetary shifts will not cause temperatures to spiral out of control in the coming centuries but will unleash dangerous and sweeping damage to people and nature that cannot be undone. “Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,” said Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse.” The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic. Unlike other changes to the climate such as hotter heatwaves and heavier rainfall, these systems do not slowly shift in line with greenhouse gas emissions but can instead flip from one state to an entirely different one. When a climatic system tips – sometimes with a sudden shock – it may permanently alter the way the planet works. Scientists warn that there are large uncertainties around when such systems will shift but the report found that three more may soon join the list. These include mangroves and seagrass meadows, which are expected to die off in some regions if the temperatures rise between 1.5C and 2C, and boreal forests, which may tip as early as 1.4C of heating or as late as 5C. FULL STORY

President spoke about risks Trump poses to democracy at event amid fears a second term would be far more autocratic The US president, Joe Biden, said on Tuesday that he is not sure he would be seeking re-election in next year’s election if he were not likely facing Republican Donald Trump. “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside Boston. “We cannot let him win.” The remarks came towards the end of his remarks as Biden spoke about the risks former President Trump poses to democracy, amid fears a second Trump term would be far more autocratic than the first. Biden also talked about Trump’s renewed calls to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and how America is “the only nation built on an idea”. In the past, Biden has spoken about how it was Trump’s remarks after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that there were “fine people on both sides” that inspired him to challenge Trump in 2020. “In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime,” Biden said in a 2019 video announcing his run for president. Last month senior Democrats sounded the alarm after an opinion poll showed Biden trailing the Republican frontrunner Trump in five out of six battleground states exactly a year before the presidential election. Biden turned 81 earlier this month while Trump is 77, and polls show voters have concerns that both are too old to run again for the White House. FULL STORY

The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks. WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE Several people involved in collecting and identifying the bodies of those killed in the attack told us they had seen multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears, and that the victims ranged from children and teenagers to pensioners. Video testimony of an eyewitness at the Nova music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim. Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers. Few victims are thought to have survived to tell their own stories. Their last moments are being pieced together from survivors, body-collectors, morgue staff and footage from the attack sites. Police have privately shown journalists a single horrific testimony that they filmed of a woman who was at the Nova festival site during the attack. She describes seeing Hamas fighters gang rape a woman and mutilate her, before the last of her attackers shot her in the head as he continued to rape her. FULL STORY

Earlier this year, Mr Kim pulled off a seemingly impossible escape from North Korea. He fled by sea with his entire family - his pregnant wife, his mother, his brother's family, and an urn containing his father's ashes. They are the first people to have fled the country this year and make it to the South. When Covid struck, North Korea's government panicked and sealed the country off from the rest of the world, closing its borders and cutting off trade. Defections, once fairly common, virtually ceased. Mr Kim told the BBC how he masterminded such a remarkable escape, in the first interview with a defector to have got out since the pandemic. He revealed new details about life in the country, including cases of people starving to death and increasing repression. He asked us not to use his full name, to help protect his family here and back in the North. The BBC cannot independently verify all of Mr Kim's account, but much of the detail tallies with what we have been told by other sources.   The night of the escape was a turbulent one. Fierce winds swept up from the south, bringing a storm in their wake. This was all part of Mr Kim's plan. The rough seas would force any surveillance ships to retreat, he hoped.   He had been dreaming of this night for years, planning it meticulously for months, but this did little to temper his fear.  His brother's children were asleep, knocked out by sleeping pills he had fed them. He and his brother now had to carry them through a minefield in the dark, to where their getaway boat was secretly moored. They inched along, careful to avoid the beams from the guards' searchlights. FULL STORY RELATED ARTICLE : North Korea: Residents tell BBC of neighbours starving to death

Reported post with misinformation and the replies to it have been removed.

The new deal represents a four per cent increase on the previous agreement TNT Sports retain rights for 12.30pm kick-offs and get two midweek slates Man City are vulnerable, but come the spring they will put on the afterburners. Leaders Arsenal must seize their moment now - Listen to It's All Kicking Off The Premier League has confirmed its status as the richest league in the world by agreeing a new domestic TV deal with Sky Sports and TNT Sports worth £6.7billion over four years between 2025 and 2029. In an outcome predicted by Mail Sport when the auction began last month Sky are the biggest winners having bought the rights to 215 matches-per-season, while TNT have held on to the primetime Saturday lunchtime slot which will give them 52 live games each year. Mail Sport also revealed the other main elements of the new domestic rights deal earlier this year, which will see all Premier League matches that do not kick off at 3pm on Saturdays televised live from 2025 and the BBC continue to show highlights through Match of the Day for another four years. The Premier League are thrilled with the new deal having secured a four per cent increase in the value of their live rights, which no other European competition has achieved, despite limited competition. Amazon have lost their Premier League matches after six years of providing live coverage and there was only a modest bid from ambitious streaming platform DAZN, and none at all from Apple TV. FULL STORY

Covid inquiry expected to be told former PM was open to ‘military options’ to obtain ‘impounded’ jabs from factory in Leiden Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Covid-19 inquiry is not until Wednesday but it is already making headlines in the Netherlands amid a mixture of amusement and alarm at claims he asked for British spies to plan a “raid” on a Dutch vaccine plant. The operation – according to sources who briefed Johnson’s employer, the Daily Mail – would have taken place against the backdrop of a tit-for-tat row in March 2021 between the then prime minister and the EU, which was moving towards restricting exports of vaccines across the Channel. An “enraged” Johnson asked security services to draw up “military options” to obtain “impounded” doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from a plant in Leiden after Britain had negotiated a deal with the company. But while Britain’s security services were spared their biggest debacle on Dutch soil since Operation Market Garden, the claim has been widely reported on front pages in the Netherlands. Elsewhere, Russian state media generated a po-faced report on the claims, interspersing clips of Johnson with footage of British special forces and overlaying them with a sinister backing track. The Dutch ministry of foreign affairs confirmed it was “aware” of the report but declined to comment. Johnson is expected to refer to the episode, potentially in a written statement accompanying his evidence to the inquiry, which will take place over the course of Wednesday and Thursday. Figures close to Johnson have been busily briefing the media before his appearance, advising that he will reject claims that he was not sufficiently engaged in policy during the 10-day period. The former Conservative leader will reject claims that he did not concentrate on the looming threat of the pandemic during the half-term break in February 2020 because he was supposedly writing a biography about William Shakespeare. A spokesperson for Johnson previously rejected reports that he was focused on the book during the critical period in question but Downing Street also did not deny that Johnson had worked on the book, for which he received a £88,000 advance from his publisher Hodder & Stoughton UK in 2015, since becoming prime minister in July 2019. FULL STORY

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned there could be bad news coming out about Ukraine, as fears grow of a stalemate with Russia and allies such as the U.S. debate whether to send more aid to the country. “Wars develop in phases. We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times. We should also be prepared for bad news,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with German broadcaster ARD on Saturday, according to Politico Europe. Stoltenberg said Ukraine’s small victories are important in ending the war, despite Ukraine’s recent counter-offensive not resulting in major headway. However, Ukrainian troops secured a victory last month by pushing Russian forces back on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. “These are big victories even though they haven’t been able to move the front line,” Stoltenberg said. The NATO chief also urged allies to continue sending support to Ukraine in the interview. “The more we support the Ukraine, the faster the war will end,” he said. Stoltenberg’s comments come just as the White House issued a warning Monday saying it will run out of funds to provide weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russia without congressional action by the end of the year. Additional aid for Ukraine has hit a wall in the House, while Senate Republicans are looking to tie support for Kyiv with border security changes. FULL STORY

In letter to Congress, White House urges lawmakers to support Ukraine White House Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young said the U.S. will run out of approved money for Ukraine at the end of the year. Young said it was urgent that Congress act on President Biden’s $61 billion request to support Ukraine. “We are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight,” Young wrote, warning a failure to pass aid soon would “kneecap” the embattled country on the battlefield. Congress has failed to pass a bill for Ukraine all year, largely because the GOP-controlled House has struggled to muster enough support for Kyiv. More conservative House Republicans have expressed skepticism about Ukraine, which is now approaching two years of its fight with Russia. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has expressed support for Ukraine but tied any legislation approving new aid with GOP border security efforts. Johnson on Monday accused the White House of failing to answer Republicans’ concerns on Ukraine. “The Biden Administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers,” he wrote on X. The Ukraine request is part of Biden’s $106 billion ask to also support Israel, the border and the Indo-Pacific region. The president requested Congress act in October, shortly after the Israel-Hamas war broke out. FULL STORY

Headlines blaring warnings about how a second Trump presidency could slip toward dictatorship on Monday prompted a stiff pushback from allies of the ex-president, who is topping GOP primary polls just weeks before the Iowa caucuses. The Washington Post, The Atlantic and The New York Times each published stories referencing a “Trump dictatorship” in recent days, arguing a new Trump presidency posed a threat to democracy. The Times wrote a second Trump term likely would be more radical than his first. “All of these articles calling Trump a dictator are about one thing: legitimizing illegal and violent conduct as we get closer to the election,” Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), a Trump ally, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Everyone needs to take a chill pill.” “It’s August 2016 all over again. Skyrocketing cost of health care has millions worried. President Trump’s Dem. opponent off the campaign trail & hiding from the press,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller wrote on X. “Dems & their media allies have given up on debating issues & have shifted to name-calling & rhetorical fearmongering,” he added. The Atlantic announced Monday the magazine’s January/February issue would be dedicated to what a second Trump term would mean for immigration, civil rights, the Justice Department, climate and more. The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote an editor’s note titled, “A Warning,” to introduce the series. The New York Times on Monday published its latest piece in a series focused on what a second Trump term might mean for the country. In it, the reporters noted Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail “has attracted growing alarm and comparisons to historical fascist dictators and contemporary populist strongmen.” And a Washington Post opinion column penned by editor-at-large Robert Kagan headlined, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” made an extensive case that Trump’s reelection could feasibly set the U.S. on a path to becoming a dictatorship. FULL STORY

A former Tesla employee has told the BBC he believes the technology powering the firm's self-driving vehicles is not safe enough to be used on public roads. Lucasz Krupski leaked data, including customer complaints about Tesla's braking and self-driving software, to German newspaper Handelsblatt in May. He said attempts to highlight his concerns internally had been ignored. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, has championed its self-driving technology. "Tesla has by far the best real-world AI," Mr Musk said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. But, in his first UK interview, Mr Krupski told the BBC's technology editor, Zoe Kleinman, he was concerned about how AI was being used - to power Tesla's autopilot service. Its autopilot feature, for example, includes assisted steering and parking - but, despite its name, it does still require someone in the driver's seat with their hands on the wheel. "I don't think the hardware is ready and the software is ready," he said. "It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments in public roads. So even if you don't have a Tesla, your children still walk in the footpath." Mr Krupski said he had found evidence in company data which suggested that requirements relating to the safe operation of vehicles that had a certain level of autonomous or assistive-driving technology had not been followed. He added that even Tesla employees had spoken to him about vehicles randomly braking in response to non-existent obstacles - known as "phantom braking". This also came up in the data he obtained around customer complaints. Mr Krupski said he had felt compelled to share what he had found with data protection authorities. FULL STORY