Bombshell Report Reveals Team Trump Is Rewarding Key Trial Witnesses

Talia Jane
Mon, June 3, 2024 

Donald Trump’s campaign and the Trump Organization paid off nine witnesses called to testify in criminal cases against Trump, an explosive new report from ProPublica reveals. Witnesses who testified in defense of Trump for his numerous criminal cases received massive raises, new jobs, cushy severance packages, and more, all conveniently coinciding with being called to testify or after providing testimony favorable to Trump—and the excuses from Team Trump couldn’t be weaker.

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told ProPublica witness tampering is often difficult to prove because the gimmick is often not done explicitly. But the trend could assist prosecutors in their efforts to call into question the credibility of witnesses testifying in Trump’s defense for his innumerable legal battles.

In response to queries by ProPublica, team Trump claimed the nine witnesses who all saw big raises and flashy new jobs simply took on more work. The campaign also insisted Trump, who notoriously insists on controlling every facet of his organizations, has no say in who gets promoted or how much they’re paid. “The president is not involved in the decision-making process,” a Trump campaign official told ProPublica. “I would argue Trump doesn’t know what we’re paid.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, questionably asserted in a statement to ProPublica that “the 2024 Trump campaign is the most well-run and professional operation in political history.” Cheung continued, “Any false assertion that we’re engaging in any type of behavior that may be regarded as tampering is absurd and completely fake.” ProPublica also reports the outlet received a cease-and-desist from David Warrington, Trump’s attorney, against publishing its findings, promising that “President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.” According to ProPublica’s findings, those legal remedies seem to conveniently trend toward doling out big payments to people called to testify on Trump’s behalf.

According to records reviewed by ProPublica, monthly payments from Trump’s campaign to Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn’s company—which appears to be just a one-man show—more than doubled after Trump was indicted—jumping from $26,000 a month to $53,500 a month. The Trump campaign told ProPublica the increase was due to Epshteyn’s workload increasing, even though Epshteyn has continued taking contracts for other campaigns and landed a job as a managing director at a financial securities firm elsewhere.

Susie Wiles, senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign who allegedly witnessed Trump showing off classified documents, also saw a big bump in pay after being called to a grand jury and before Trump’s indictment in that case. Her pay jumped from $25,000 a month to $30,000 a month and her consulting firm received a hefty $75,000, according to ProPublica. Team Trump claims payments to the consulting firm were simply backpay and her raise was because she “redid her contract.” Her daughter Caroline was hired by the Trump campaign a few months later, receiving a salary of $222,000 and becoming the fourth-highest-paid campaign staffer. Caroline told ProPublica she got the job “because I earned it,” telling ProPublica, “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie,” referring to her mother. Meanwhile, her mother stated she directly hired her nepobaby daughter and that Trump had no influence in that decision.

Dan Scavino, a political adviser and Trump’s former chief of staff, was given a seat on Truth Social’s board, Trump’s social media company. His appointment landed between him being subpoenaed and giving testimony to Congress about Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Scavino also received a $600,000 retention bonus and “a $4 million ‘executive promissory note’ paid in shares” at some point, according to ProPublica. Conveniently, Scavino’s testimony around the Capitol riot produced no “significant new information,” according to ProPublica.

Allen Weisselberg, a retired Trump Organization chief financial officer who was recently convicted of lying for Trump, received a $2 million severance agreement four months after New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump for real estate fraud. The agreement included a clause preventing Weisselberg from cooperating with investigators unless forced to do so. According to court records, prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money trial raised the agreement for why they wouldn’t call him to testify, noting, “The agreement seems to preclude us from talking to him or him talking to us at the risk of losing $750,000 of outstanding severance pay.”

Witness payoffs are nothing new for team Trump, which has a history of campaign staff getting convicted for federal witness tampering: Roger Stone, Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser, directed a witness to lie to a Senate committee. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, was convicted for colluding with Russia after previously being convicted for witness tampering. Trump pardoned both, as well as Jared Kushner’s father, in his final days in office.

FASCIST ZIONIST IN LIBERTARIAN CLOTHING

President Milei's surprising devotion to Judaism and Israel provokes tension in Argentina and beyond

ISABEL DEBRE and ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
Updated Mon, June 3, 2024 
 

Argentina Israel's Biggest Fan
 Argentine President Javier Milei prays at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Feb. 6, 2024. Although born and raised Roman Catholic, Milei has increasingly shown public interest in Judaism and even expressed intentions to convert.

 (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — At the base of the sacred Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, President Javier Milei of Argentina appeared to be in a spiritual trance.

With head and hands pressed against the ancient stone, he prayed with the Orthodox rabbi who introduced him to Judaism three years ago. Although born and raised Roman Catholic, Milei has increasingly shown public interest in Judaism and even expressed intentions to convert.

Stepping back from the wall, Milei broke down. He hugged Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish close, sobbing onto his shoulder.


“In that moment, I felt proud that we have such a determined leader, with such deep spiritual values,” Wahnish told The Associated Press in a recent interview, recalling their state trip to Israel in February.

For many Argentines, that pride was fraught with peril.

Breaking decades of policy precedent, Milei has gone further in his support of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government than perhaps any other world leader as Israel faces growing isolation over its bombardment and invasion of Gaza that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians and pushed the enclave to the brink of famine.

His posture could not stand in starker contrast to most of Latin America — where Bolivia and Colombia have severed ties with Israel and at least five regional countries, most recently Brazil, have pulled ambassadors from Tel Aviv.

“Among great nations that should be pillars of the free world, I see indifference in some and fear in others about standing on the side of truth,” Milei told Jewish community leaders at an event last month commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It was a veiled swipe at Western powers — including the United States — for criticizing Israeli military conduct.

The crowd leapt to its feet in applause.

The president's supporters insist his newfound Jewish fervor has no bearing on his foreign policy. But Milei's infatuation with Judaism and outspoken support for Israel has generated fears and exposed fissures within Argentina’s Jewish community, among the biggest in the world, and roiled relations with its neighbors.

Argentine Jews remain deeply scarred by a pair of lethal bombings targeting Israel's embassy in 1992 and the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association, a community center known by its Spanish acronym AMIA, in 1994. Authorities allege Iran plotted the attacks and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group carried them out. No one has been held responsible. Argentina's investigation has been mired in controversy.

“Milei has a messianic mind, and this is quite dangerous,” said Diana Malamud, whose husband was among the 85 people killed in the AMIA attack. “His policies can not only stoke conflicts at the international level ... but also generate anti-Semitism within our country."

Milei's curiosity about Judaism began as a kind of penitence in 2021, when he faced accusations of harboring pro-Nazi sympathies and wanted to prove in speech that he bore no animus toward Jews. He connected with Sephardic leader Rabbi Wahnish to have “a chat that was supposed to last 10 minutes and ended two hours later,” Wahnish said.

As Milei evolved from TV pundit to “anarcho-capitalist” president, Wahnish guided him through the study of Torah. Seeking common ground between his vision of radical libertarianism and the prophecy of the Old Testament, Milei's casual interest morphed into a regular religious practice.

Wahnish, recently appointed Argentina's ambassador to Israel, declined to comment on Milei's conversion.

“In Judaism and Moses, Milei sees a cultural and spiritual revolution toward freedom,” Wahnish said. Since childhood, he added, Milei “felt Moses was his idol, his hero.”

Milei, who owns four clones of his dead dog Conan, has never been the most conventional occupant of Argentina's highest office. Still, his foray into Judaism has come as a particular surprise.

On the campaign trail, Milei quoted the Torah, made multiple Brooklyn pilgrimages to the tomb of influential Hasidic leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson and sounded the shofar, the ram’s-horn trumpet blasted during the Jewish High Holy Days, to close his electoral campaign.

Ahead of Milei’s victory, nearly 4,000 Argentine Jewish intellectuals signed a petition voicing concern over Milei’s “political use of Judaism.”

“It’s perverse ... to use the shofar, which is played during religious ceremonies, to announce himself,” said Pablo Gorodneff, secretary-general of the progressive Argentine Jewish Appeal group. “It makes me very frustrated, very sad.”

As fighting raged in Gaza, Milei flew to Israel for his first foreign visit and praised Netanyahu without reservation. Following in the footsteps of former U.S. President Donald Trump, he pledged to move Argentina’s Embassy from a beachfront bastion near Tel Aviv to the contested capital of Jerusalem — aggravating an emotional issue at the heart of the conflict. Netanyahu called Milei “a great friend." Hamas called him “a partner of the Zionist occupier.”

Last month, Milei's government upended Argentina’s traditional recognition of Palestinian statehood, joining the U.S. and Israel to vote against Palestinian membership at the U.N.

His foreign policy shift has thrilled Jewish community leaders, but also left them on edge.

“If Milei’s supposed defense of Israel is an attack on Palestinian rights, it puts the Jewish community in Argentina at risk,” said Héctor Shalom, director of Argentina's Anne Frank Center. “The decades of impunity for past attacks show our vulnerability."

The 1994 bombing, Argentina's most notorious cold case, still spreads unease. After Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, the mood in the Jewish community went from worried to alarmed.

Jewish high schools requested that students stop wearing their uniforms, so as not to identify as Jewish. Authorities jacked up security at synagogues. Two bomb scares emptied out the AMIA building.

“Security levels have always been high but now there is a much greater sensitivity,” said Amos Linetzky, head of AMIA.

Government officials have also grown anxious, lashing out at Iran and warning that the Israel-Hamas war has stoked the embers of Islamic militancy and blown them all the way to Latin America.

Upon news of the first Iranian assault on Israeli territory April 14, local media reported Milei's pro-Israel stance had made him a target. He cut his state visit to Denmark short and flew home to convene a crisis committee alongside the Israeli ambassador.

Milei's hardline security minister, Patricia Bullrich, singled out left-wing neighbors Bolivia and Chile as Islamist hotbeds, ordering reinforcements to Argentina's northern border.

“We are on high alert,” Bullrich said, alleging that Bolivia — which last year struck a defense agreement with Iran — teems with Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives. “Politically correct messages like calling for peace are not Argentina’s position."

Without providing evidence, Bullrich also claimed that Chile — home to the largest Palestinian population outside the Arab world — hosts Hezbollah.

The accusations, decried as baseless by Bolivia and Chile, prompted both governments to pull their ambassadors from Buenos Aires.

On Saturday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a 57-member group describing itself as “the collective voice of the Muslim world,” issued a furious denunciation of what it described as Milei’s anti-Islamic rhetoric.

For years, U.S. and Argentine intelligence services have subjected the Triple Frontier, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, to intense surveillance, scouring the large population of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants for Islamist sympathies.

“One of the things I don’t think gets enough attention is how long Hezbollah has had a presence in our hemisphere,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee this spring.

Washington claims Hezbollah funds its activities through drug traffickers in the area. The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned dozens of individuals in South America over alleged ties to Hezbollah, most recently last fall. Authorities have reported thwarting attacks, with Israel's Mossad spy agency helping Brazil arrest alleged Hezbollah recruits last November.

Hezbollah denies running operations in the region.

“What would Hezbollah want with Latin America?” the group's spokesperson, Rana Sahili, asked the AP. She accused Milei of playing loose with facts to score points in a “political game.”

Experts say the true threat lies somewhere in the middle.

“Some say Hezbollah's presence in Latin America is a complete fabrication, while others say the group uses the region as a base and we're doomed,” said Fernando Brancoli at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

“Neither is correct."

Biden to sign executive order on immigration as early as this week: Sources

RACHEL SCOTT and LUKE BARR
Mon, June 3, 2024 
President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on immigration as early as this week, according to sources familiar with the decision.

The long-awaited executive order would limit the number of migrants that would be allowed to claim asylum at the southern U.S. border. It would immediately send them back to Mexico to wait until the daily average goes down and, once it goes down, they would be able to claim asylum. The exact number that would trigger a pause on claiming asylum is still under deliberations, the sources said.

In recent days, members of Congress have been briefed on the executive action, according to sources familiar with the briefings.

Any executive order, administration officials caution, would be challenged in court.

"I anticipate that if the president would take executive action, and whatever that executive action would entail, it will be challenged in the court," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters last month at Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

Mayorkas and other members of the administration have urged Congress to pass the bipartisan border bill that was negotiated and proposed earlier this year.

MORE: Unaccompanied minors are representing themselves in immigration court, alarming advocates

A spokesperson for Brownsville, Texas, Mayor John Cowen confirmed to ABC News that the White House invited him to a meeting at the White House on Tuesday for an immigration-related announcement, and he will be attending.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser also confirmed he is attending. He told ABC News in a statement: "El Paso is a welcoming community, and that makes me very proud, but no community can continue the effort and resources we've expended on this humanitarian crisis endlessly. We are appreciative of the funding we have received from the federal government so that our efforts don't fall on the backs of El Paso taxpayers, but our immigration system is broken, and it is critical that Congress work on a bipartisan long-term plan to work with other countries in order to create a more manageable, humane and sustainable immigration system for our country.

"I look forward to hearing more about the president's plan on Tuesday, and we stand ready to work with our partners at the local, state and federal level on this effort," he added.

ABC News' Armando García contributed to this report.

White House expected to unveil sweeping immigration order

Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington
Mon, June 3, 2024 

The number of migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border has been steadily falling in 2024. [Getty Images]

President Joe Biden is expected to issue a sweeping new executive order aimed at curbing migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border as early as Tuesday.

Under the planned order, US officials could swiftly deport migrants who enter the US illegally without processing their asylum requests once a daily threshold is met, according to CBS.

That, in turn, will allow border officials to limit the amount of migrant arrivals, three unnamed sources briefed on the expected order told CBS, the BBC's news partner.

More than 6.4 million migrants have been stopped crossing into the US illegally during Joe Biden's administration - a record high that has left him politically vulnerable as he campaigns for re-election.

Migrant arrivals have plummeted this year, however, although experts believe the trend is not likely to be sustainable.

CBS - the BBC's US partner - and other US news outlets have reported that Mr Biden has been mulling use of a 1952 law that allows access to the American asylum system to be restricted.

The law, known as 212(f), allows the US president to "suspend the entry" of foreigners if their arrival is "detrimental to the interests" of the country.

The same regulation was used by the Trump administration to ban immigration and travel from several predominantly Muslim countries and to bar migrants from asylum if they were apprehended crossing into the US illegally, provoking accusations of racism.

Asylum processing at ports of entry is expected to continue under the order. About 1,500 asylum seekers go through the process at official crossings each day, mostly after setting up appointments using a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app known as CBP One.

Mayors of several border towns - including Brownsville and Edinburg, both in Texas - were expected to be in Washington for the president's announcement.

Democratic lawmakers have also been reportedly briefed on the plan.

The proposal, however, is likely to be challenged in court, either from immigration advocates or from Republican-led states.

A White House official told the BBC on Friday that no final decisions had been made on possible executive actions.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson noted that a bipartisan border security deal failed earlier this year as a result of opposition from Republicans in Congress.

"While Congressional Republicans chose to stand in the way of additional border enforcement, President Biden will not stop fighting to deliver the resources that border and immigrational personnel need to secure our border," the spokesperson said.

"As we have said before, the administration continues to explore a series of policy options and we remain committed to taking action to address our broken immigration system," the spokesperson added.

Republicans criticised the Biden border plan as an election-year ruse and argued that US laws already exist to prevent illegal immigration, but they were not being duly enforced by the Democratic president.

News of the potential executive order comes as numbers of migrant detentions at the US-Mexico border fall.

Recently released statistics from CBP show that about 179,000 migrant "encounters" were recorded in April.

In December, by comparison, the figure spiked to 302,000 - a historic high.

Officials in the US and Mexico have said that increased enforcement by Mexican authorities is largely responsible, although many experts have cautioned the reductions are unlikely to be permanent.

The decline in migrant crossings at the US border comes at a politically fraught time for President Biden.

Polls show that immigration is a primary electoral concern for many voters in the presidential election in November.

A Gallup poll at the end of April found that 27% of Americans view immigration as the most important issue facing the country, topping the economy and inflation.

A separate poll conducted in March by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of Mr Biden's handling of the border, including about 40% of Democrat voters.

Biden prepares a tough executive order that would shut down asylum after 2,500 migrants arrive a day

SEUNG MIN KIM, STEPHEN GROVES and COLLEEN LONG
Mon, June 3, 2024 

President Joe Biden arrives on Marine One at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Del., Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is telling lawmakers that President Joe Biden is preparing to sign off on an executive order that would shut down asylum requests to the U.S.-Mexico border once the number of daily encounters hits 2,500 between ports of entry, with the border reopening once that number declines to 1,500, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

The impact of the 2,500 figure means that the border could be closed to migrants seeking asylum effectively immediately, because daily figures are higher than that now.

The Democratic president is expected to unveil his actions — which mark his most aggressive unilateral move yet to control the numbers at the border — at the White House on Tuesday at an event to which border mayors have been invited.

Five people familiar with the discussions confirmed the 2,500 figure on Monday, while two of the people confirmed the 1,500 number. The figures are daily averages over the course of a week. All of the people insisted on anonymity to discuss an executive order that is not yet public. Other border activity, such as trade, is expected to continue.

Senior White House officials have been informing lawmakers on Capitol Hill of details of the planned order ahead of the formal rollout on Tuesday.

Biden has been deliberating for months to act on his own after bipartisan legislation to clamp down on asylum at the border collapsed at the behest of Republicans, who defected from the deal en masse at the urging of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Biden continued to consider executive action even though the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico.

Biden admin quietly dismisses over 350K asylum applications from immigrants since 2022: TRAC

Greg Wehner

FOX NEWS/AP
Sun, June 2, 2024 

As the White House finalizes plans for a U.S.-Mexico clampdown that would shut off asylum requests and automatically deny entrance to migrants once a threshold is met, the Biden administration has continued to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants to remain in the U.S. with what amounts to amnesty, according to a report.

A report released last month by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan data gathering organization that tracks immigration cases and backlogs shows that since 2022, over 350,000 asylum cases filed by migrants were closed by the U.S. government on the basis that those who filed did not have a criminal record or were not deemed a threat to the U.S.

Once cases are terminated without a decision on the merits of their asylum claim, the migrants are removed from the legal system, and they are not required to check in with authorities.

It also means the migrants can legally go anywhere they want inside the U.S. without having to worry about being deported.

JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 20: Border patrol agents process asylum seekers at an improvised camp near the US-Mexico border on February 20, 2024 in Jacumba Hot Springs, California.

The New York Post reported that a memo sent out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) principal legal advisor Kerry Doyle in 2022 told agency prosecutors to dismiss cases for migrants who do not pose a threat to national security.

TRAC’s data shows that in the same year, there were 173,227 applications for asylum filed. Of those applications, immigration judges ordered 36,250 of the applicants be removed from the U.S., granted asylum to 31,859 applicants. The other 102,550 applications were reportedly dismissed or taken off the books.

In 2023, there were 248,232 asylum applications filed, of which 52,440 applicants were ordered to be removed, 43,113 were granted asylum, and 149,305 were dismissed or taken off the books.

People, mainly from West African countries, line up outside the former St. Brigid School to apply for shelter, in New York City on December 7, 2023. There are approximately 66,000 asylum seekers currently housed in shelters in New York, which Mayor Eric Adams says is "managing a national migration crisis virtually single-handedly."More

So far in 2024, there have been 175,193 asylum applications and 113,843 applications dismissed.

The numbers are much higher than under the Trump administration, when in 2019 – before the pandemic – there were 87,018 asylum applications filed with 52,223 applicants removed from the country, 24,109 granted relief and 4,746 applications dismissed.

When cases are closed, migrants are no longer faced with deportation or removal proceedings. They are also not obligated to leave the U.S. as they are no longer being monitored by ICE.



June 2, 2022: ICE agents conduct an enforcement operation in the U.S. interior.

The applicants whose cases are dismissed are able to apply for asylum again or they can seek out other forms of legal status like a family-based or employment-based visa, or even Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The immigration court backlog has grown from 2.8 million at the end of Fiscal Year 2023 to nearly 3.6 million in FY 2024, with immigration judges being unable to keep up with the current flow of new cases into the system.

The number of new cases filed as well as the number of cases completed by immigration judges are both on pace to exceed all-time highs this year, the TRAC report notes, though the pace of completions will be unable to stem the growing backlog.


TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden speaks with US Customs and Border Protection officers as he visits the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023.

The president has been weighing additional executive action since the collapse of a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. The number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico. Still, immigration remains a top concern heading into the U.S. presidential election in November and Republicans are eager to hammer Biden on the issue.

The Democratic administration’s effort would aim to head off any potential spike in crossings that could occur later in the year, as the fall election draws closer, when the weather cools and numbers tend to rise. Four people familiar with Biden’s plans were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The move would allow Biden, whose administration has taken smaller steps in recent weeks to discourage migration and speed up asylum processing, to say he has done all he can do to control the border numbers without help from Congress.

The restrictions being considered are an aggressive attempt to ease the nation's overwhelmed asylum system, along with a new effort to speed up the cases of migrants already in America and another meant to quicken processing for migrants with criminal records or those who would otherwise be eventually deemed ineligible for asylum in the United States.

The people told the AP that the administration was weighing some of the policies directly from a stalled bipartisan Senate border deal, including capping the number of encounters at an average of 4,000 per day over a week and whether that limit would include asylum-seekers coming to the border with appointments through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. Right now, there are roughly 1,450 such appointments per day.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Original article source: Biden admin quietly dismisses over 350K asylum applications from immigrants since 2022: TRAC

China lands on far side of the moon

Mark Moran
Mon, June 3, 2024 

Technical personnel work at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, on Sunday. China's Chang'e 6 touched down on the far side of the moon and will collect samples from the surface. Photo by Jin Liwang/EPA-EFE


June 2 (UPI) -- After a month-long journey, a Chinese spacecraft has landed on the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said.

Chinese space administration officials have said they intend to collect rock and soil from this notoriously difficult-to-reach region of the lunar surface for the first time in history, the CNSA said.

"Everyone is very excited that we might get a look at these rocks no-one has ever seen before," Professor John Pernet-Fisher, who specializes in lunar geology at the University of Manchester, told the BBC.

"Applause erupted at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center" when the Chang'e landing craft touched down on the Moon early on Sunday morning, the Chinese state broadcaster said.

Chinese space scientists landed the Chang'e 6 craft in a crater known as the Apollo Basin. "The choice was made for the Apollo Basin's potential value of scientific exploration, as well as the conditions of the landing area, including communication and telemetry conditions and the flatness of the terrain," said Huang Hao, a space expert from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.

Huang said rugged terrain on the far side of the moon makes it harder to navigate than the front, or near, side, and has fewer flat surfaces that lend themselves to a successful landing. It also reduces the windows to communicate with the uncrewed craft.

The craft hovered about 300 feet above the moon's surface, scanning it with 3D technology before landing. Chinese space officials called the touchdown an "historic moment."

Chang'e 6 will now begin a three-day exploration of the lunar surface, gathering material as part of a mission that the CNSA said would include "many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty."

Most prominently, the Chang'e 6 will seek to extract some of the oldest known rocks to exist on the lunar south pole.

Pernet-Fisher said the chance to analyze rocks and other objects from a completely different part of the moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets form.

Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii, he said. But the material on the far side would have a different chemistry.

"It would help us answer those really big questions, like how are planets formed, why do crusts form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?" Pernet-Fisher said.

China is the only country to have ever landed a module on the back side of the moon, having done so the first time with its Chang'e 4 spacecraft in 2019.

Visitors to Australian gallery surged 24% after billionaire Gina Rinehart objected to her unflattering portrait, director says

Nathan Rennolds
Sun, Jun 2, 2024, 

Gina Rinehart and her portrait by Vincent Namatjira.Getty Images

Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart asked for a portrait of her be removed, reports said.


Rinehart wanted Vincent Namatjira's painting of her taken down from Australia's National Gallery.


Gallery visits have surged by 24% since the first stories on the issue emerged, its director said.

Visitors to the National Gallery of Australia have surged by 24% since reports first emerged that the country's richest person had tried to get an unflattering portrait of her taken down, the gallery's director has said.


Speaking at a Senate estimates hearing, meetings where Australian senators examine how the government is spending taxpayers' money, on Friday, gallery director Nick Mitzevich said: "We're expecting the visitor numbers to continue to be dynamic."

It comes after Gina Rinehart, 70, the billionaire mining magnate, and associates from her company, Hancock Prospecting, approached the gallery several times to try to get her portrait removed from an exhibition by the renowned Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

But their attempts to remove the painting backfired quite spectacularly, with news outlets worldwide picking up the story and sharing images of the portrait — a classic example of the "Streisand effect."

The term became popular following singer Barbra Streisand's attempt in 2003 to suppress the use of a photo showing her Malibu home.

Streisand filed a lawsuit against the photographer behind the image, which was one of around 12,000 photos he had posted on www.californiacoastline.org.

But the case was eventually dismissed, with Streisand having to pay $177,000 in legal fees and see the photo garner far more attention than it otherwise would have had she not taken legal action.

Chairman of Hancock Prospecting group Gina Rinehart.Jason Reed / Reuters

According to the National Gallery of Australia's website, Namatjira is known for "producing paintings laden with dry wit" and "has established himself in the past decade as a celebrated portraitist and a satirical chronicler of Australian identity."

In a statement shared by the gallery, Namatjira said: "People don't have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, 'Why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people?'" he wrote. "'What is he trying to say?'"

"Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny, but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too," he added.

The estimates hearing was called to discuss Rinehart's donation of an approved portrait of herself to Australia's National Portrait Gallery.

The Portrait Gallery's director, Bree Pickering, told the hearing that the portrait was not hanging in the gallery because Rinehart had attached conditions relating to how it should be displayed, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

When asked whether Australia's richest woman was happy with this portrait, Pickering added, "The gift came from her, so she's quite happy with it."

She did not disclose the nature of the conditions laid out by Rinehart.

Rinehart is the daughter of iron ore magnate Lang Hancock. Following his death in 1992, Rinehart became the executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting.

She has a net worth of $20.2 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

One of the company's main assets is the Roy Hill iron ore mining project.

The project is located in Western Australia's Pilbara region and currently delivers "60 million tonnes per annum of iron ore to international markets," according to the official website.

Read the original article on Business Insider

RIP

Artur Chilingarov, Russian polar scientist and member of parliament, dies at 84

Reuters
Sat, June 1, 2024


Victory Day Parade in Moscow

(Reuters) - Artur Chilingarov, a Russian polar scientist and explorer and veteran member of parliament, died on Saturday, the speaker of the state Duma lower house said. He was 84.

Chilingarov was born in the city then known as Leningrad to Russian and Armenian parents and spent much of his childhood in Russia's North Caucasus region.

From the early 1970s he was in the forefront of Russian scientific achievements in the Arctic and Antarctic, a participant in missions to both poles and a proponent of emphatically staking Russia's claim to the Arctic.

Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Chilingarov's achievements were "an example to us all." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been friends with the scientist for years and offered his condolences.

In 1999, Chilingarov was in charge of an extended helicopter flight in the Arctic to prove it was a viable means of transport. He led a 2007 Arctic expedition in a submersible to a depth of 4,261 metres (13,979 feet), planting a Russian tricolor titanium flag on the sea bed near the North Pole.

Named a Hero of the Soviet Union and Russia, the country's highest honour, he first was elected to the Duma in 1993.

A senior member of Putin's United Russia party and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, he served several terms in both houses of parliament, remaining a Duma member until his death.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Chris Reese)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

US breeder Envigo pleads guilty for mistreating beagles, gets largest-ever fine

REUTERS
Mon, June 3, 2024 


Owners of Envigo beagles meet up for a reunion in Charlottesville

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Research animal breeder Envigo pleaded guilty to animal welfare and environmental crimes on Monday, resolving a two-year U.S. Justice Department probe into its mistreatment of thousands of beagles, a department official said.

Envigo agreed in federal court in the Western District of Virginia to pay $22 million in fines, plus an additional $13.5 million to support animal welfare and environmental projects, cover law enforcement expenses and improve its own facilities.

That includes the largest-ever fine in an animal welfare case imposed by the Justice Department, $11 million, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia said.

Envigo made headlines in 2022 when it forfeited some 4,000 beagles, some of which were adopted by celebrities including Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. It pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and one felony count of conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act, after it refused to fix its wastewater treatment equipment and allowed excess animal feces to be discharged into a nearby creek.

The company is also required to retain an independent corporate monitor, and to make a statement expressing contrition.

Envigo, which was acquired by Inotiv in November 2021, is one of the leading suppliers of animals for medical research in the United States. Its clients include major pharmaceutical companies, universities and the federal government.

The guilty plea over the Clean Water Act violation could lead the Environmental Protection Agency to debar Envigo as a federal contractor.

Federal investigators in May 2022 executed a search warrant at Envigo's facility in Cumberland, Virginia amid concerns about its mistreatment of thousands of beagles.

The seizure of the beagles came after inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service repeatedly documented dozens of violations at Envigo in 2021 and 2022.

Problems included dangerous flooring, failing to provide veterinary care, unsanitary conditions, euthanizing dogs without anesthesia, under-feeding mothers nursing puppies and failing to document the cause of death for hundreds of puppies.

In court filings, prosecutors said on Monday that the company refused to fire a veterinarian referred to only as "AV," despite repeated complaints by employees - including concerns that AV mishandled the surgeries of five dogs.

"Staff rejection of AV’s authority paired with AV’s inadequate veterinary skills led to multiple additional improper and inadequate veterinary practices at the Cumberland Facility," prosecutors wrote in the charging documents.

The company ceased operations at the Cumberland facility on Jan. 24 and is no longer breeding or selling dogs.

The veterinarian resigned from the company in April 2022, according to the court filings.

Prosecutors also said the company conspired with others to avoid spending money to upgrade its wastewater system, while it continued to breed and sell beagles despite being unable to manage the waste disposal.

The Justice Department previously subpoenaed U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors and managers to appear before a grand jury to question them about why the agency took no enforcement action against Envigo despite the history of violations.

Two of the top managers who oversaw the inspections have since left the USDA and no one from the agency has been charged with wrongdoing. (This story has been refiled to fix a typo in paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)

GSK Plunges as Drugmaker Must Face Zantac Cases in Delaware

Ashleigh Furlong and Jef Feeley
Mon, Jun 3, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- GSK Plc shares plunged in the wake of a court ruling that the UK drugmaker, alongside others including Sanofi, must face trials over whether the former heartburn treatment Zantac causes cancer.

The stock fell as much as 10% in London trading, wiping about £7 billion ($8.9 billion) from GSK’s market value. The drop is the worst since another Zantac-related rout in August 2022.

The selloff erased roughly half of the stock’s gains this year, just as the company was finally showing signs of progress.

The ruling is “a big, fat fly in the ointment of an otherwise improving story,” Wolfe Research’s Tim Anderson said in a note to clients.

Investors were alarmed by the prospect of an overhang from drawn-out litigation, which has weighed on pharmaceutical companies including Bayer AG. The German company has been fighting cases relating to the weedkiller Roundup, and its shares have slumped roughly 70% since it acquired the herbicide’s maker, Monsanto, in 2018.

However, GSK has already settled several lawsuits relating to Zantac, raising the expectation that it would do the same before significant cases went to trial.

Read More: GSK Turned Feared Investor Into Ally With Timely Vaccine Success

The ruling paves the way for multiple trials in Delaware state court. Zantac, a once-popular antacid, has drawn a flurry of US personal-injury lawsuits.

Sanofi has said it faces about 25,000 cases in Delaware — significantly fewer than the roughly 69,000 in which GSK is named as a defendant. The French drugmaker’s shares fell about 1% in Paris trading.

Unlike a federal judge in Florida who rejected the cancer evidence as unreliable in 2022, Superior Court Judge Vivian Medinilla on Friday concluded that consumers weren’t relying on flawed science to support allegations that Zantac caused a variety of cancers.

A settlement would cost around $3 billion, Citi analyst Peter Verdult wrote in a note. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Holly Froum put the total settlement value at $5 billion to $7.5 billion, with GSK bearing about 40-50% of the risk.

Read More: GSK, Pfizer, Peers Zantac Legal Risk Rises by Billions on Ruling

GSK is set to appeal the ruling, it said. The drugmaker emphasized that the decision “does not mean that the court agrees with plaintiffs’ experts’ scientific conclusions, and it does not determine liability.” GSK has consistently denied that Zantac causes cancer.

The decision was a “considerable surprise,” said Redburn Atlantic’s Simon Baker. However the analyst believes that GSK’s appeal will be successful as it runs “against clear legal precedent.”

Another Rout

Under Chief Executive Officer Emma Walmsley, GSK has successfully rolled out of the first vaccine for a common respiratory virus and fended off activist investor Elliott Investment Management, but Zantac litigation has posed a continued threat.

Since Walmsley took the helm in 2017, the stock has dropped around 3%. Much of that poor performance can be attributed to initial concerns around Zantac in August 2022 that sparked a selloff that wiped out gains made since Walmsley took charge. It took the stock more than a year to recover.

Plaintiffs have argued drugmakers knew ranitidine — Zantac’s active ingredient — turned into the potential carcinogen NDMA under certain conditions. In 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration asked companies to remove all ranitidine-based drugs from the US market. Medinilla cited the FDA recall in her decision to allow consumers’ experts to testify.

The companies and consumers will get a chance for their experts to present to juries, who will make the final call on Zantac’s cancer risks, the judge noted. “This dispute presents a classic battle of the experts,” Medinilla wrote. The companies “can take up their challenges” to plaintiffs’ scientific evidence on cross-examination at trial, she added.

Zantac hit the US market as a prescription drug in 1983 before transforming into an over-the-counter heartburn treatment in 1995. GSK and Warner Lambert developed it as part of a joint venture, and the drug was owned by several companies through the years before Sanofi acquired it in 2017.

--With assistance from Lisa Pham and Paul Jarvis.

SANDY HOOK PARENTS MAKE ALEX JONES CRY

Sandy Hook families ask bankruptcy judge to liquidate Alex Jones' media company

DAVE COLLINS
Mon, June 3, 2024 

 Infowars founder Alex Jones appears in court to testify during the Sandy Hook defamation damages trial at Connecticut Superior Court, Sept. 22, 2022, in Waterbury, Conn. Relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are asking a bankruptcy judge to liquidate Jones' media company including Infowars instead of allowing him to reorganize his business, as they seek to collect on $1.5 billion in lawsuit verdicts against him. 

(Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File)More

Relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are asking a bankruptcy judge to liquidate conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' media company, including Infowars, instead of allowing him to reorganize his business as they seek to collect on $1.5 billion in lawsuit verdicts against him.

Lawyers for the families filed an emergency motion Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, saying Free Speech Systems has “no prospect” of getting a reorganization plan approved by the court and has “failed to demonstrate any hope of beginning to satisfy" their legal claims, which relate to Jones calling the 2012 school shooting a hoax.

A hearing in Free Speech Systems' bankruptcy case was scheduled for Monday related to a dispute over the company's finances.

Jones went on his web and radio show over the weekend saying there was a conspiracy against him and he expected Infowars to be shut down in a month or two because of the families' bankruptcy court filings. The comments included profanity-laden rants, and Jones appeared to cry at points.

“There’s really no avenue out of this,” Jones said on his show Sunday. “I’m kind of in the bunker here. And don’t worry. I’ll come back. The enemy can’t help but do this attack.”

On Saturday, Jones was defiant, saying “At the end of the day, we’re going to beat these people. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but it’s been a hard fight. These people hate our children.”

A bankruptcy lawyer for Free Speech Systems did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.

Liquidation could mean that Jones, based in Austin, Texas, would have to sell most of what he owns, including his company and its assets, but could keep his home and other personal belongings that are exempt from bankruptcy liquidation. Proceeds would go to his creditors, including the Sandy Hook families. There is no agreement or court ruling yet, however, on how a liquidation would work in Jones’ cases.

Jones and Free Speech Systems both filed for bankruptcy reorganization after the Sandy Hook families won lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut claiming defamation and emotional distress over Jones' hoax claims. Jones said on his show that the school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators was staged by crisis actors in efforts to get more gun control laws passed.

Jones' lawyers have been unable to reach an agreement over the past several months with attorneys for the Sandy Hook families on how to resolve the bankruptcy cases. Jones' lawyer recently said in court that the cases appear headed to liquidation or may be withdrawn. The emergency motion filed Sunday was filed in Free Speech System's case.

If the cases are withdrawn, it would put Jones back in the same position he was in after the $1.5 billion was awarded in the lawsuits and it would send efforts to collect the damages back to the state courts where the verdicts were reached.

The families of many, but not all, of the Sandy Hook victims sued Jones and won the two trials in Connecticut and Texas.

The relatives said they were traumatized by Jones' comments and the actions of his followers. They testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, some of whom confronted the grieving families in person saying the shooting never happened and their children never existed.

According to the most recent financial statements filed in the bankruptcy court, Jones personally has about $9 million in assets including his $2.6 million Austin-area home and other real estate. He also listed his living expenses at about $69,000 for April alone, including about $16,500 for expenses on his home including maintenance, housekeeping and insurance.

Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, which employs 44 people, had nearly $4 million in cash on hand at the end of April. The business made nearly $3.2 million in April, including from selling the dietary supplements, clothing and other items that Jones promotes on his show, while listing $1.9 million in expenses.

Jones and the Sandy Hook families have offered different proposals to settle the $1.5 billion he owes them. Last year, Free Speech Systems filed a plan that would leave $7 million to $10 million a year to pay off creditors.

The families later countered with their own proposal: either liquidate Jones' estate and give the proceeds to creditors, or pay them at least $8.5 million a year for 10 years — plus 50% of any income over $9 million per year.

Alex Jones Insists Those Were Real Tears During His Meltdown Over Infowars Shutdown

Amanda Yen
Mon, June 3, 2024 

YouTube/InfoWars

Conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones on Monday defended his sobbing Saturday rant in which he claimed he was being “targeted for abuse” with the imminent shutdown of his media company.

During the InfoWars live taping on Monday, Jones insisted his Saturday meltdown was not a “publicity stunt” but a genuine cry of anger and frustration.

“The art was taken off the walls, employees took their stuff home, there were tears,” Jones said. He was considerably more subdued than in Saturday’s emergency session, in which he howled about supposed “Deep State” actors shutting down his operation and begged listeners to buy his supplements to support him.

Jones’ Monday comments came in reaction to an emergency motion filed Sunday by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, who asked a Texas bankruptcy court judge to liquidate Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, instead of allowing Jones to reorganize it. The families are seeking $1.5 billion in damages from Jones over his false claims that the 2012 elementary school shooting was a hoax.

In dour tones on Monday, Jones rambled about his money woes and claimed he was running out of options to save his platform.

“I’m out of bullets,” he said—a peculiar choice of words, given his company is being shuttered by the families of gun violence victims. “I’m out of money, and my dad’s out of money, and he would help me,” Jones lamented. “I’m out of options, and that’s where we are.”

However, Jones has been dubbed a serial exaggerator and “performance artist” by his own lawyers in the past. Randall Wilhite, who represented Jones when his ex-wife Kelly Jones sued to get custody of their children, said at a pretrial hearing that the media personality was just “playing a character” on his show.

According to recent bankruptcy filing statements, Jones holds about $9 million in personal assets, the Associated Press reported.

Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims who sued him, claiming that they were subject to unnecessary, traumatizing, and persistent harassment by Jones’ followers who readily took up the junk hoax theory.

 The Daily Beast.