Scott

For years the headlines have covered the controversies over advanced Russian air defence systems heading to Iran. But now the arms traffic is very much in the other direction, writes Jonathan Marcus of the Strategy and Security Institute, University of Exeter. Iranian-supplied drones are being used by Moscow to terrorise Ukrainian civilians and to strike at the country's electricity generating and distribution system. Russia's predicament in Ukraine has prompted Moscow to turn to Tehran for stocks of precision-guided weapons. Its own arsenals are fast running out. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63328274

Rishi Sunak is close to reaching the 100 MP nominations needed to enter the race to be the next Conservative leader and prime minister. The ex-chancellor has 93 endorsements from Tory MPs so far, though a campaign source said he had already reached 100. Former leader Boris Johnson, second with 44 backers, is poised to enter the contest to succeed Liz Truss and is flying back from a Caribbean holiday. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63353097

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The committee issued the subpoena to try to compel Trump to sit for a deposition under oath and to provide documents. The panel is ordering Trump turn over documents by November 4 and either appear in person or virtually for “one or more days of deposition testimony beginning on or about November 14.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/21/politics/january-6-committee-subpoena-donald-trump/index.html

CNN — Sen. Lindsey Graham asked the Supreme Court on Friday to block a subpoena from the Atlanta-area special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The South Carolina Republican filed the emergency request at the high court after the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower-court judge on Thursday that the grand jury could seek his testimony. Graham maintains that his efforts in Georgia after the 2020 election were legislative activities protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the US Constitution. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/21/politics/lindsey-graham-supreme-court-appeal/index.html

New York CNN Business — Dozens of federal officials made lucrative stock and mutual fund trades in early 2020 as the government was preparing for the onslaught of Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. In January of that year, while the public was broadly unaware of the scale and severity of the threat posed by the virus, US government agencies were mobilizing for a public health nightmare. Many of the officials behind those efforts also made well-timed trades in industries that stood to gain or lose mightily from the pandemic, according to the report. “Nearly 400 officials across 50 agencies reported owning stocks in airline, resort, hotel, restaurant and cruise companies in early 2020,” the Journal wrote. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/21/business/stock-trades-officials-wsj/index.html

Ethan Crumbley, the teenager accused of fatally shooting four students and injuring seven others at a Michigan high school last year, is expected to plead guilty to murder charges next week, prosecutors said Friday. Crumbley, who was 15 when the shooting took place, is set to plead guilty to all 24 charges against him, including one count of terrorism causing death and four counts of first-degree murder, for killing four students at Oxford High School in November, according to Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor David Williams “We can confirm that the shooter is expected to plead guilty to all 24 charges, including terrorism and the prosecutor has notified the victims,” Williams told CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/21/us/ethan-crumbley-plea-oxford-shooting/index.html

London CNN — Liz Truss quit her post as Britain’s prime minister just 45 days into the job, but she will be able to claim expenses of up to £115,000 ($129,000) a year for the rest of her life. Truss, who presided over failed fiscal plans and a deeply polarized ruling party during her disastrous six-week term in office, is set to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history after announcing her resignation on Thursday. Her speech triggered a leadership race that will see the appointment of the UK’s fifth Conservative prime minister in just over six years. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/21/uk/liz-truss-resignation-allowance-intl-gbr/index.html

Bannon defended his decision not to comply with the Jan. 6 committee's subpoena and said the notion that he thinks he is above the law "is an absolute and total lie." Speaking outside the courthouse following his sentencing, the former Trump adviser said that there will be "multiple areas of appeal" by his legal team. "On November 8, they're gonna have a judgment on the illegitimate Biden regime and quite frankly, and quite frankly, that Nancy Pelosi and the entire committee, and we know which way that’s going," https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/live-blog/steve-bannon-sentencing-live-updates-rcna53012

Lara Logan, formerly a CBS News reporter and more recently a frequent Fox News guest, went so off-field on former Fox News host Eric Bolling's Newsmax show Wednesday night, Newsmax said she is no longer welcome on the right-wing network. Bolling brought her on to talk about immigration, and she ended up "pushing QAnon tropes, invoking blood libel, and fear-mongering about a 'global cabal' planning to 'dilute the pool of patriots' in the United States," The Daily Beast reports. "Newsmax condemns in the strongest terms the reprehensible statements made by Lara Logan and her views do not reflect our network," Newsmax told The Daily Beast on Thursday. "We have no plans to interview her again." https://news.yahoo.com/newsmax-drops-lara-logan-comments-035014647.html

Off-topic posts and replies reported and removed. Stay on topic.

PHOENIX — After a chief investigator of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office announced Friday that two activists behind the election conspiracy movie “2,000 Mules” never provided them promised evidence of fraud, Arizona legislators who gushed praise for the duo are silent. Several contacted by 12News for comment since Friday have not responded. Meanwhile, Arizona Republican candidate for Governor Kari Lake said Monday night she stands by her belief the movie is credible. https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/arizona-republican-legislators-2000-mules-law-enforcement-movie/75-31c18ef3-25f7-4932-a238-03fa670df933

Dame Judi Dench is the latest high-profile figure to call for a disclaimer to be added to The Crown to make clear the series is not necessarily true. The actress said Netflix "seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism". Dame Judi said there was a risk that "a significant number of viewers" would take its events as historical truth. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63326250

In a victory for Kevin Spacey, a New York jury on Thursday afternoon found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. Jurors deliberated for about an hour, and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of Rapp. Judge Lewis Kaplan formally dismissed the case. Attorneys seated on either side of Spacey immediately put their hands on his back when the verdict was read. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/entertainment/kevin-spacey-civil-trial-closing/index.html

A new leadership contest will take place within a week, Liz Truss said in her resignation speech outside Downing Street on Thursday. Graham Brady, the Conservative official responsible for the process, announced the candidates to replace Truss will need at least 100 nominations from Conservative MPs. If more than one candidate meets that threshold, they will be put to the Conservative members in an online ballot, with the new prime minister to be announced on Friday October 28. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/20/uk/liz-truss-possible-successors-intl-gbr/index.html

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Liz Truss resignation here:

Covered here on BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-63309400

Liz Truss will become Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister ever, after announcing her intention to resign just six weeks into a disastrous term that pitched Britain deep into political and economic turmoil. Truss said Thursday that she would step aside for a new leader to be chosen within the next week, after a growing number of her own Conservative Party’s lawmakers said they could not support her any longer. It brings to an ignominious end a catastrophic tenure in Downing Street, which appeared doomed ever since Truss’s flagship economic agenda sent markets into panic and led to a fall in the value of the pound. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/20/uk/liz-truss-government-crisis-thursday-gbr-intl/index.html

Troll post removed.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured a highly detailed snapshot of the so-called Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that’s speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed “iconic” by space observers. The fact that new stars are brewing within the eerie columns of cosmic dust and gas is what earned the area its name. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/world/webb-telescope-pillars-of-creation-scn/index.html

Liz Truss became the United Kingdom's new prime minister in September, succeeding Boris Johnson, who resigned in July after a series of scandals. Truss, 47, defeated rival Rishi Sunak in the Conservative Party leadership contest, and she follows Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May as Britain's third female premier. Throughout her political career, Truss has been compared to Thatcher, who, for many on the right, remains the benchmark for Conservative leaders. Like Thatcher, Truss has come from relatively humble beginnings to dominate a world inhabited largely by men. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/uk/gallery/liz-truss/index.html

Paris CNN — “She’s wearing white jeans,” the girl’s mother posted on Facebook, “a white hoodie and her grey backpack.” “Help us to find her,” she pleaded. Beneath Delphine Daviet’s message, two pictures completed the post. In one, a young girl, 12-year-old Lola, smiles at the camera, in the other, a pixelated snapshot from security camera footage shows a woman in a doorway. In a case that has gripped France, Lola’s body was found mutilated and stuffed into a plastic box, just hours after her mother posted this message on October 14. Caught on camera, her mother said, is the woman with Lola that last time she was seen alive, in the building where the family lives. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/18/europe/france-girl-killing-plastic-box-intl/index.html

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of emails from John Eastman, a former Donald Trump attorney, to House investigators, saying the communications were made in furtherance of a crime related to Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election. “The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Judge David O. Carter wrote. “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States,” he added. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/politics/eastman-house-trump-documents/index.html

Here's a little about one company's plans: SUSTAINABLE ENERGY EV maker Lucid to accelerate plans with its Saudi Arabia factory, its first outside the U.S. U.S. electric vehicle maker Lucid Group will set up its first overseas factory in Saudi Arabia, the company has announced. The manufacturing facility will be able to produce 155,000 vehicles a year, and will initially serve the local market, the luxury car maker said in a press release Wednesday. The vehicles will later be exported to global markets. Lucid’s factory in Arizona can produce 350,000 units a year. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/19/lucid-group-to-build-first-factory-outside-the-us-in-saudi-arabia.html