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  • Trump hits campaign trail as indictment roils 2024 race | CNN Politics

    Trump hits campaign trail as indictment roils 2024 race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump is set to return to the campaign trail Saturday, traveling to Georgia and North Carolina for speeches at a pair of state Republican conventions as news of his federal indictment roils the party’s 2024 presidential race.

    The pre-planned stops come the day after the Justice Department unsealed its indictment laying out the government’s case that Trump and aide Walt Nauta mishandled classified national security documents.

    Trump’s speeches will mark his first public outings since he was indicted for a second time in less than three months, with probes into election interference efforts in Georgia and his actions surrounding January 6, 2021, in Washington threatening to pose further legal troubles.

    The visits will give Trump a chance to respond to the charges in a campaign-style as he mounts battles on both the political and legal fronts. The former president is scheduled to appear Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Miami, where he will be read the charges against him.

    So far, Trump has cast his prosecution as a politically motivated effort to stop his bid for the presidency. He has described special prosecutor Jack Smith as “deranged” and the case against him as a “hoax,” while accusing President Joe Biden of similarly mishandling classified documents.

    “I had nothing to hide, nor do I now. Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said Friday on his social media platform Truth Social.

    Trump released a four-minute video Thursday evening repeating many of his past claims, including that the Justice Department is being weaponized and that the investigations into him represent “election interference.”

    “I am an innocent man. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said in the video.

    News of the former president’s indictment Thursday was met at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey with a belief that he would benefit politically as conservatives rallied around him.

    Trump spent Friday morning in Bedminster playing golf with Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez as his allies made rounds of phone calls to shore up support for the former president.

    After the indictment was unsealed Friday, concern began to settle in, a source familiar with the mood at Bedminster told CNN, as Trump aides began to acknowledge the legal implications. His team still thinks Trump will likely benefit politically – at least in the short term – the source said, but aides have grown more wary of how the indictment will play out legally.

    Trump has long avoided legal culpability in his personal, professional and political lives. He has settled a number of private civil lawsuits through the years and paid his way out of disputes concerning the Trump Organization. As president, he was twice impeached by the Democratic-led House but avoided conviction by the Senate.

    But after leaving office, the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the alleged retention of classified information at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election cast dark clouds over the former president. Smith’s investigation into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the election is still ongoing.

    In March, the Manhattan district attorney in New York indicted Trump on charges related to hush-money payments to a former adult star. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to announce in August whether there are any charges in her investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

    On the campaign trail, many of Trump’s Republican 2024 presidential rivals responded to the news of his indictment by attacking the Justice Department – another indication that they see advantage among conservative primary voters in defending a former president who remains popular with the party’s base.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday accused the DOJ of “weaponization of federal law enforcement” while vowing, if elected president, to “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all.”

    Former Vice President Mike Pence had called on the Justice Department to release the indictment against his former boss. After it did so, he did not comment on its contents while campaigning in New Hampshire.

    Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations ambassador, characterized the indictment as “prosecutorial overreach” in a statement Friday, adding that it was time to move “beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who entered the GOP race earlier this week, said Saturday that Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is not something voters want to spend their time on.

    “When we’re on the road in Iowa the last two days and here in New Hampshire talking about the economy, energy policy, national security – those are the things that are hitting every American every single day,” Burgum told Fox News.

    Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another onetime ally and close adviser to Trump who has emerged as his chief critic in the 2024 race, described the details of the indictment as “damning.”

    “This is irresponsible conduct,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, adding that “the conduct that Donald Trump engaged in was completely self-inflicted.”

    “The bigger issue for our country is, is this the type of conduct that we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?” Christie said.

    Another Trump critic, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said the former president should drop out of the race “for the good of the country.”

    “This is unprecedented that we have a former president criminally charged for mishandling classified information, for obstruction of justice. This obviously will be an issue during the campaign,” Hutchinson told Tapper on Friday in a separate interview.

    “For the sake of the country, he doesn’t need this distraction. The country doesn’t need this distraction, as well.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Right-wing media wages war on U.S. justice system after Trump’s historic federal indictment | CNN Business

    Right-wing media wages war on U.S. justice system after Trump’s historic federal indictment | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The attacks on the rule of law have begun.

    Moments after news broke on Thursday that disgraced former President Donald Trump had been indicted on federal charges, Fox News and the rest of the MAGA Media universe revved up into attack mode, denigrating the U.S. justice system and characterizing it as prejudiced against conservatives.

    The assault on the American justice system was swift and savage.

    On Fox, the historic legal action was portrayed as President Joe Biden weaponizing the Justice Department to target his political opponent.

    “BIDEN ADMIN INDICTS A PRESIDENTIAL RIVAL,” one on-screen banner read.

    “Yes, it is a dark day in America,” Sean Hannity declared. “We have said it often. There is no equal justice, there is no equal application of our laws. There is one set of rules for Democrats and another set of rules for Donald Trump and conservatives and anybody especially in his orbit.”

    Despite the indictment not being made public, Hannity went on to tell his audience that the “system of justice” in the U.S. has “been weaponized beyond belief” and that the country is “in serious trouble.”

    Throughout the night, Fox welcomed guests who echoed the Trump talking points and disparaged the justice system.

    In effect, Fox News is once again platforming those who are leading vicious and irresponsible attacks on the country’s criminal justice system.

    The defense of Trump, of course, was not just limited to Fox News.

    Across the right-wing media ecosystem, the narrative that a sinister deep-state was unfairly targeting Trump to knock him out of the 2024 presidential contest was pervasive.

    “PEAK WITCH HUNT,” the homepage banner on the right-wing Breitbart blared, adding “POLITICAL PERSECUTION INTENSIFIES.”

    Elsewhere, on the far-right Gateway Pundit blog, more than a half-dozen stories were published Thursday night defending Trump.

    The coverage harkened back to the years after the 2016 election, when Trump aimed to discredit and destroy institutions such as the FBI for investigating him.

    News organizations covered the story by delivering fact-based reporting and analysis, while propaganda outfits such as Fox News disseminated hyperbolic commentary to their audiences.

    Thursday night’s coverage did serve as a good reminder that outlets like Fox News can quickly fall under Trump’s hypnosis and snap into MAGA mouthpiece mode.

    While Rupert Murdoch might personally hold great contempt for Trump, documents revealed as part of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit showed that he is terrified that airing critical coverage of Trump will result in his supporters abandoning the channel.

    And at the end of the day, that is what motivates such outlets. Their business models are not designed to provide fact-based news to audiences.

    And that means giving voice to dangerous, dishonest commentary — despite knowing, after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the real-world violence that it has the potential to incite.

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  • Takeaways from CNN’s town hall with Mike Pence | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from CNN’s town hall with Mike Pence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence staked out a series of clear differences with boss-turned-2024 rival Donald Trump, and needled other Republican contenders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a CNN town hall in Iowa on Wednesday night.

    Hours after he launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Pence broke with the former president on immigration policy, entitlement spending, US support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and more.

    He said he would not reinstate the policy of separating migrant families at the border – a widely criticized practice that Trump didn’t rule out reviving in his own CNN town hall last month.

    Pence also said that other Republican rivals were wrong to put changes to Social Security off the table, telling the crowd at Grand View University in Des Moines that seriously reducing federal spending will require changes to entitlement programs.

    He sharply rebuked Trump for describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “genius” for his invasion of Ukraine, while casting DeSantis as naive on the issue. And he continued to criticize the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    Pence said he and Trump don’t just disagree about the past; the two have “a different vision for our party.”

    “I’m somebody who believes in American leadership in the world. Our party needs to lead on fiscal responsibility and stand without apology for life. We’ll have those debates,” he said.

    Still, Pence said, he will “support the Republican nominee in 2024,” a pledge he said he felt comfortable making because he doubted Trump would win the primary.

    “Different times call for different leadership,” Pence said. “The American people don’t look backwards; they look forward. … I don’t think my old running mate is going to be the Republican nominee for president.”

    Here are six takeaways from Pence’s CNN town hall:

    Pence urged the Justice Department not to indict his onetime boss, saying such an indictment would fuel division inside the country and “send a terrible message to the wider world.”

    While Pence said that “no one is above the law,” he said the DOJ could resolve its investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents without resorting to an indictment, just as the department informed Pence’s attorney last week that there would be no charges brought in the case of the classified documents discovered in his home.

    But in Pence’s case, the former vice president immediately contacted the National Archives and the FBI to return his documents, while Trump resisted handing over his classified material and failed to return all classified documents after receiving a subpoena last May.

    Pence’s response underscores the tightrope the former vice president is walking when it comes to the numerous probes into his former boss. CNN reported Wednesday that the Justice Department had informed Trump he’s a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents and possible obstruction, a sign that prosecutors may be moving closer to indicting the former president.

    While Pence criticized Trump for his actions on January 6 at his campaign kickoff Wednesday and at the town hall, he sought to distinguish those actions from the documents probe, protesting that there were “dozens” of better ways that the FBI could have handled Trump’s case before resorting to an unprecedented search the former president’s residence.

    So far, Pence’s sharpest criticism of Trump came when he was asked about the United States’ role in helping Ukraine in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.

    After arguing that the US should accelerate its support for the Ukrainian military, Pence pointed to Trump’s description of Putin in a February 2022 radio interview as a “genius” for his invasion of Ukraine.

    “I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal, and I know who needs to win the war in Ukraine,” Pence said. “And it’s the people fighting for their freedom and fighting to restore their national sovereignty in Ukraine. And America – it’s not our war, but freedom is our fight. And we need to give the people of Ukraine the ability to fight and defend their freedom.”

    Pence’s comments align him with Nikki Haley, Trump’s United Nations ambassador and a 2024 rival, and against their former boss and DeSantis, who entered the GOP race last month. The former vice president echoed Haley’s veiled shot at DeSantis – who described the war as a “territorial dispute” – casting such characterizations as naive.

    “Anybody that thinks Vladimir Putin will stop if he overruns Ukraine has what we say back in Indiana, another thing coming,” Pence said. “He has no intention of stopping. He’s made it clear that he wants to recreate that old Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.”

    Pence participates in a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall on Wednesday.

    Pence repeatedly highlighted his support for “parents’ rights,” especially when it comes to schools. But he said the judgment of those same parents should not apply to situations when a minor is seeking gender transition care.

    “I strongly support state legislation, including, as we did in Indiana, that bans all gender transition, chemical or surgical procedures, under the age of 18,” he said – even when parents support their child’s decision to go forward.

    Republican presidential candidates have all railed against what Pence on Wednesday described as “radical gender ideology,” language that by definition falsely suggests there is a movement of people seeking to convince young people to change their gender identities.

    “However adults want to live, they can live,” Pence said. “But for children, we’re going to protect kids from the radical gender ideology and say no chemical or surgical transition before you’re 18.”

    Pressed on the age question, Pence compared gender transition to body art, saying, “There’s a reason why you don’t let kids get a tattoo before they’re 18.”

    When Bash asked what he would say to children and families who feel targeted by his position and those of his ideological allies, Pence offered an olive branch of sorts.

    “I’d put my arm around them and tell them I love ‘em,” he said, “but (tell them) ‘Just wait.’”

    Pence speaks during a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN's Dana Bash at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 7.

    Pence has been a fierce anti-abortion advocate his entire adult life. On Wednesday night, he made clear he would not deviate from that position.

    “I couldn’t be more proud to be vice president in an administration that appointed three of the justices that sent Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history,” Pence said, “and gave America a new beginning for life.”

    On the question of a federal ban on the procedure, Pence said he supported exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. But he did not tap dance around the fundamental question, even as voters around the country – in the midterms and in referendums – have registered their anger over the Supreme Court’s decision and the subsequent passage of state laws to sharply restrict abortion rights.

    “We will not rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the country,” Pence said.

    Still, the former vice president acknowledged that his side had a “long way to go to win the hearts and minds of the American people” and encouraged his allies to show both “principle and compassion.”

    To that end, he offered qualified support for social spending programs to help support newborns and new parents.

    “We have to care as much about newborns and mothers as we do about the unborn,” Pence said. But he stopped short of specifically endorsing paid family leave for all Americans or subsidized child care.

    Pence said he would “take a step back” from the approach of the Trump-era landmark sentencing reform law, known as the First Step Act.

    “We need to get serious and tough on violent crime, and we need to give our cities and our states the resources to restore law and order to our streets. And I promise you, we’ll do that, if I’m your president,” Pence told Bash.

    Under the First Step Act, thousands of federal inmates, most of them serving sentences for drug offense and weapons charges, were released from prison early, either for good behavior or through participation in rehabilitation programs. The law also eased mandatory minimum sentencing for certain drug offenders.

    Asked about DeSantis’ promise to repeal the First Step Act if elected president, Pence again conceded that he would take a different approach than the First Step Act.

    “We ought to be thinking about how we make penalties tougher on people that are victimizing families in this country,” he said.

    Pence repeated the criticism he has leveled at his former boss for more than a year, insisting that Trump was wrong to ask his second-in-command to overturn some states’ 2020 Electoral College votes in his ceremonial role presiding over Congress as it counted those votes on January 6, 2021.

    Pence said he “frankly hoped the president would come around” since early 2021. Though he said he agreed that some states inappropriately changed their election procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

    “But at the end of the day, I think the Republican Party has to be the party of the Constitution,” he said.

    Pence also broke with Trump over the legal fates of those who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6 – and have since faced criminal charges and convictions. Trump said he would consider pardoning many of those rioters, who he said were being treated “very unfairly.”

    Pence, though, said the United States “cannot ever allow what happened on January 6 to happen again in the heart of our democracy.”

    “I have no interest or no intention of pardoning those that assaulted police officers or vandalized our Capitol. They need to answer to the law,” he said.

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  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan Fast Facts | CNN

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, current president and former prime minister of Turkey.

    Birth date: February 26, 1954

    Birth place: Istanbul, Turkey

    Birth name: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

    Father: Ahmet Erdogan, coastguard and sea captain

    Mother: Tenzile Erdogan

    Marriage: Emine (Gulbaran) Erdogan (July 4, 1978-present)

    Children: Two daughters and two sons

    Education: Marmara University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 1981

    Religion: Muslim

    Active in Islamist circles in the 1970s and 1980s.

    Before his political career, Erdogan was a semi-professional football (soccer) player.

    Erdogan is considered a polarizing figure: supporters say he has improved the Turkish economy and introduced political reform. Critics have accused Erdogan of autocratic tendencies, corruption and extravagance.

    Erdogan has also been heavily criticized for failing to protect women’s and human rights, curbing freedom of speech and attempting to curb Turkey’s secular identity.

    Under Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey has lifted restrictions on public expression of religion, including ending the ban on women wearing Islamic-style headscarves.

    Has called social media “the worst menace to society.”

    1984 – Elected as a district head of the Welfare Party.

    1985 – Elected as the Istanbul Provincial Head of the Welfare Party and becomes a member of the central executive board of the party.

    1994-1998 – Mayor of Istanbul.

    1998 – The Welfare Party is banned. Erdogan serves four months in prison for inciting religious hatred after reciting a controversial poem.

    August 2001 – Co-founds the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

    2002-2003 – Erdogan’s AKP wins the majority of seats in parliamentary elections, and he is appointed prime minister.

    2003-2014 – Serves as prime minister.

    June 2011 – AKP wins by a wide margin in the parliamentary elections, securing a third term for Erdogan.

    June 2013 – Anti-government demonstrations target Erdogan’s policies, including his plan to turn a park into a mall, and call for political reforms. Thousands are reported injured in the clashes.

    December 2013 – Corruption probe begins which investigates more than 50 suspects, including members of Erdogan’s inner circle. The following month, the government dismisses 350 police officers amid the investigation. Ten months later, the prosecutor drops the inquiry.

    March 2014 – After Erdogan threatens to “eradicate” Twitter at a campaign rally, Turkey bans the social media site, and a two-week countrywide blackout ensues.

    August 10, 2014 – Erdogan is elected president during the first-ever direct elections in Turkey.

    November 2014 – At a summit hosted by a women’s group in Istanbul, Erdogan says that women and men are not equal “because their nature is different.” It’s not the first time the Turkish leader has made controversial comments about women: previously, he told Turkish university students that they shouldn’t be “picky” when choosing a husband and has called on all Turkish women to have three children.

    June 7, 2015 – In Turkey’s parliamentary elections, AKP wins 41% of the vote.

    July 15-16, 2016 – During an attempted coup by a faction of the military, at least 161 people are killed and 1,140 wounded. Erdogan addresses the nation via FaceTime and urges people to take to the streets to stand up to the military faction behind the uprising. He blames the coup attempt on cleric and rival Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

    April 16, 2017 – A vote is held on a constitutional amendment expanding Erdogan’s presidential powers. Turkish state media report that about 51% of people voted yes on the referendum, which abolishes the country’s parliamentary system and would potentially allow for Erdogan to remain in office until 2029. International election monitors question whether the election was free and fair, citing last-minute rule changes, the muzzling of opposition voices and the dominance of the “yes” campaign in the media. Opposition leaders in the Republican People’s Party say that they plan to challenge the election results in court.

    May 16, 2017 – Erdogan meets US President Donald Trump at the White House. During a joint news conference, Erdogan praises Trump’s electoral victory and vows to help the United States fight terrorism. After the two men speak, demonstrators protest outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador. Nine people are injured when Turkish security guards rush into a line of protestors and kick people on the ground. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that some of the men involved in the fight were Erdogan’s bodyguards.

    October 12, 2017 – Erdogan accuses the United States of sacrificing its relationship with Turkey in a speech made days after the arrest of a US consular staff member and the announcement that he refuses to recognize the authority of US Ambassador John Bass. Erdogan blames Bass and other officials left over from the Obama administration for sabotaging relations between the two countries.

    December 2017 – In response to Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Erdogan declares the move to be null and void and announces Turkey’s intention to open a Turkish embassy in Jerusalem.

    June 24, 2018 – Is reelected president.

    November 2, 2018 – The order to kill Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi came “from the highest levels of Saudi government,” Erdogan writes in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. The friendship between Turkey and Saudi Arabia “doesn’t mean we will turn a blind eye to the premeditated murder that unfolded in front of our very eyes,” he writes.

    January 8, 2019 – After backing the decision that the United States will begin pulling troops from Syria, Erdogan claims US National Security Adviser John Bolton made “a serious mistake” telling reporters that the United States would only pull out of Syria if Turkey pledged not to attack its Kurdish allies there. “Bolton’s remarks in Israel are not acceptable. It is not possible for me to swallow this,” Erdogan says during a speech in parliament. “Bolton made a serious mistake. If he thinks that way, he is in a big mistake. We will not compromise.”

    January 14, 2019 – Trump and Erdogan discuss “ongoing cooperation in Syria as US forces begin to withdraw” during a phone call just one day after Trump threatened to “devastate Turkey economically” if the NATO-allied country attacks Kurds in the region.

    October 9, 2019 – Turkey launches a military offensive into northeastern Syria, just days after Trump’s administration announced that US troops would leave the border area. Erdogan’s “Operation Peace Spring” is an effort to drive away Kurdish forces from the border, and use the area to resettle around two million Syrian refugees.

    October 22, 2019 – Erdogan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi and the men announce a wide-ranging agreement on Syria, announcing that Russian and Turkish troops will patrol the Turkish-Syrian border. Kurdish forces have about six days to retreat about 20 miles away from the border.

    January 2, 2020 – The Turkish parliament gives Erdogan authorization for one year to deploy military to address Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar’s offensive against the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, Libya.

    December 20, 2021 – Erdogan unveils a plan to prop up the Turkish lira with a raft of new unorthodox economic measures, including compensating Turkish savers worried about the tumbling value of their nest eggs by compensating them for the impact of the depreciation of the lira on their deposits. A few days before, Erdogan announced a nearly 50% hike in the country’s minimum wage, hoping it would provide relief to suffering workers.

    February 5, 2022 – Erdogan announces on Twitter that he and his wife had contracted the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and were experiencing mild symptoms.

    February 7, 2023 – Erdogan declares a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces following a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6.

    May 28, 2023 – Erdogan wins Turkey’s presidential election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and stretching his rule into a third decade.

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  • The remains of a Medal of Honor recipient killed in the Korean War will be buried in Georgia today | CNN

    The remains of a Medal of Honor recipient killed in the Korean War will be buried in Georgia today | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The remains of a soldier killed in the Korean War and posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor will be laid to rest in Georgia, 73 years after his death.

    Army Cpl. Luther H. Story “displayed conspicuous bravery” during a large-scale attack by the North Korean People’s Army near the Naktong River in South Korea on September 1, 1950, according to a joint statement from The White House and The Republic of Korea.

    When he was last seen, Story, 19, a member of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, was firing every weapon available to protect his comrades, despite being wounded himself, so his team could advance to the next position and escape further fire, according to the National Medal of Honor Museum.

    “Story distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action,” the National Medal of Honor Museum said. “Story’s extraordinary heroism, aggressive leadership, and supreme devotion to duty reflect the highest credit upon himself and were in keeping with the esteemed traditions of the military service.”

    On June 21, 1951, Gen. Omar Bradley gave Story’s Medal of Honor to his father, Mark Story, at a ceremony at the Pentagon, according to the National Medal of Honor Museum.

    In the months following the combat, Story’s remains could not be found or identified and he was not recorded as a prisoner of war, the joint statement said. In 1954, Story was declared unrecoverable.

    More than 7,500 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, according to the Army. It is estimated more than 81,500 Americans remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf Wars and other conflicts combined, according to The US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

    In October 1950, 11 sets of remains were recovered near Sangde-po, South Korea, and eight were identified. One set, labeled X-260 Tanggok, was thought to be Story, but investigators did not have enough data to positively identify the remains, according to the agency.

    The unidentified remains were transported and buried as Unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the agency said.

    In July 2018, the agency disinterred 652 Korean War Unknowns from the Punchbowl and in the third phase, the agency disinterred X-260 and sent the remains to its laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis, the agency said.

    Scientists used dental and anthropological analysis and mitochondrial DNA to identify Story, the agency said.

    On April 26 President Joe Biden announced the discovery joined by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

    “Today, we can return him (Story) to his family and to his rest, with all the honors he deserves, because we never forget our heroes,” Biden said in April.

    For decades, Story’s family wondered about his whereabouts and believed he would never be found, Judy Wade, Story’s niece and closest surviving relative told The Associated Press. Wade’s mother was Story’s younger sister.

    “I don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Wade said. “I’m just glad he’s home.”

    Story will be buried at Andersonville National Cemetery in Andersonville, Georgia and will receive full military burial honors, according to his obituary.

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  • Dutch police arrest over 1,500 people at Extinction Rebellion protest in The Hague | CNN

    Dutch police arrest over 1,500 people at Extinction Rebellion protest in The Hague | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Dutch police arrested over 1,500 people after Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked a motorway in The Hague on Saturday.

    Hundreds of police were deployed to “maintain public order” during the climate protest, Dutch police said in a press release Saturday.

    According to police, shortly before midday local time, the activists descended upon the Utrechtsebaan (A12) motorway, after riot police prevented them for reaching “the underpass that they wanted to block.”

    The activists then began protesting in front of the police line, prompting police to “directly” and “repeatedly” ask them to leave, according to the press release.

    Extinction Rebellion Netherlands said that police deployed water cannons within 15 minutes of protesters blockading the A12 despite, according to the group, there being “no question of a dangerous or threatening situation.”

    Activists are arrested after blocking the A12 motorway in The Hague.

    Videos of the protest posted in social media showed protesters dressed in swimsuits and raincoats, prepared for the water cannons.

    Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, Raki Ap said in the statement that thousands of people had protested “on and next to the A12 with one demand: stop fossil fuel subsidies.”

    Dutch actress Carice van Outen, best known for her role as Melisandre in hit TV show, “Game of Thrones,” was reportedly hit by a water cannon and arrested by police at the protest, according to Dutch public broadcaster, NOS. Earlier on Saturday, van Outen posted a video on her Instagram page of musicians playing Beethoven, calling it a “peaceful and musical protest.”

    “Most of the activists, 1,539 people, were arrested for violating the Public Demonstrations Act,” the press release said, adding that the Public Prosecution Service will not be pursuing criminal action as it is only a minor criminal offense under Dutch law.

    Forty people were arrested for other criminal offenses including obstructing, blocking, vandalism, and insulting, according to the press release. One person was arrested for resisting arrest resulting in injury. These cases remain under review, according to the police.

    The arrests in the Netherlands come after Germany’s authorities this week conducted a series of raids against the comparable climate activist group Last Generation.

    A total of 15 properties in seven German states were searched as part of the raids conducted on behalf of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the Munich General Public Prosecutor’s Office, authorities said.

    The Prosecutor General’s Office in Munich said it had initiated a preliminary investigation “due to numerous criminal complaints from the population” against a total of seven defendants aged 22 to 38 years, “on the charge of forming or supporting a criminal organization.”

    On Germany’s right, political figures were approving of the authorities’ crackdown on the climate group.

    The leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party, Friedrich Merz, wrote on Twitter that causing “mass damage to property, graffiti or memorial plaques, or gluing oneself to the streets or cars are quite simply criminal offenses.”

    He added, “It is correct that police and prosecutors are taking action against the Last Generation and those who finance it.”

    Some, though, questioned the move. Die Linke (The Left) Member of Parliament Lorenz Gosta Beutin told Bavarian broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk prosecutors were “putting themselves above our judiciary and courts.”

    A member of parliament for Germany’s Green Party, Helge Limburg, agreed that the “blanket assumption” of the group as criminal was legally questionable in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).

    The UK in 2020 threatened to class Extinction Rebellion as an organized crime group, which would have seen activists face jail terms of up to five years, although the plans did not come to fruition.

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  • Investigation launched after death of Navy Seal candidate prompts overhaul of how ‘Hell Week’ training course is monitored | CNN Politics

    Investigation launched after death of Navy Seal candidate prompts overhaul of how ‘Hell Week’ training course is monitored | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Inadequate medical screening and uninformed medical staff contributed to the death of a Navy SEAL candidate hours after he had completed a brutal part of the training course known as “Hell Week,” a Navy investigation found.

    The investigation prompted an overhaul of how the Navy monitors one of the military’s most brutal and demanding processes.

    It found that the medical support for the Basic Underwater Demolition/Sea Air and Land course was “poorly organized, poorly integrated, and poorly led,” wrote Rear Adm. Peter Garvin, the commander of Naval Education and Training Command. The lack of proper medical care “put candidates at significant risk.”

    Garvin also said that additional accountability measures are necessary in the wake of the failures that contributed to Mullen’s death. According to a Navy official, Garvin recommended considering accountability actions against approximately 10 people. A Navy regional legal service office is reviewing the investigation and will make recommendations about accountability, the official said, after which the command will decide what actions to take.

    The training and selection course is designed to push SEAL candidates to the limit and beyond, creating an environment where only the most qualified and capable will finish, but Garvin said there must still be “effective risk management” to prevent injuries and illness during the high-risk training.

    In February 2022, Navy SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen had just completed Hell Week and underwent a final medical check before he went to rest at his barracks. The investigation found Mullen had suffered respiratory issues during the arduous training, but information about the symptoms was not passed on to the Navy’s medical clinic, leading them to conclude he was not at risk.

    Eight hours later, Mullen was pronounced dead.

    In the hours before his death, Mullen was coughing up an “orange-red fluid” and having trouble breathing, according to the investigation. Even as he repeatedly refused advanced medical care, he appeared to be choking on his words and gasping for air as if he was drowning. But the personnel assigned to check on Mullen and other SEAL candidates, known as watch standers, had no medical or emergency care training.

    Candidates going through Hell Week are normally given a form of penicillin called Bicillin at the start of the course to reduce the risk of bacterial pneumonia. But the investigation found Mullen never received the preventative medicine, likely because there was a shortage at the time.

    In the end, the investigation found “failures across multiple systems” that put candidates at a high risk of serious injury, Garvin wrote.

    “Our effectiveness as the navy’s maritime special operations force necessitates demanding, high-risk training,” said Rear Adm. Keith Davids, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, at the conclusion of the investigation. “While rigorous and intensely demanding, our training must be conducted with an unwavering commitment to safety and methodical precision.”

    In October, following a separate investigation that focused specifically on Mullen’s death, the Navy took administrative actions against the former commanding officer of Basic Training Command, Capt. Bradley Geary; the commander of Naval Special Warfare Center, Capt. Brian Drechsler; and senior medical staff under their command. An administrative action is typically in the form of a letter to the service member instructing them on correcting deficient performance.

    Earlier this month, Drechsler was removed from his job two months early.

    Following Mullen’s death, the Navy revamped how it handles medical screening during the training and selection process. The Navy bolstered medical oversight during and after the Hell Week course, requiring medical screenings every 24 hours.

    Candidates now recover from the course in a center located very close to the medical clinic, allowing more thorough observation at a critical time, and the leading watch stander is a qualified high-risk instructor. In addition, a medical officer must be at the Naval Special Warfare Center Medical Department during all of Hell Week to evaluate candidates going through the course.

    The investigation also looked at how to handle the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the course. In September, a naval special warfare senior officer who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity said there is “beyond a reasonable doubt that a significant portion of the candidate population is utilizing a wide range of performance enhancing drugs.”

    A search of Mullen’s car after his death found packages labeled “Big Genes Recombinant Human Growth Hormone” and “Testosterone Cypionate,” a type of steroid. But Mullen was not tested after his death for the PEDs because of the need for a blood and urine sample.

    Other members of Mullen’s class told investigators they felt there was an implicit endorsement of the use of PEDs after an instructor told the candidates, “Don’t use PEDs, it’s cheating, and you don’t need them. And whatever you do, don’t get caught with them in your barracks room.”

    After Mullen’s death, the Navy received from the Defense Department an expanded authority to test Naval Special Warfare Candidates for PEDs. All candidates going through the SEALs course and the Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman course are subject to random drug testing.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

    NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A terrorist convicted of striking and killing eight people with a rented truck on a New York City bike path in an attack for ISIS is scheduled to be sentenced to serve life in prison Wednesday.

    Sayfullo Saipov effectively learned his sentence in March, when the jury in the penalty phase of his trial in Manhattan federal court told a judge it was unable to reach an undivided decision favoring the death penalty on any of the nine capital counts against him.

    The capital counts each carry a mandatory life imprisonment sentence by law after the jury didn’t unanimously vote for the death penalty.

    Saipov’s case was the first death penalty case under the Biden administration.

    About 25 surviving victims and family members of those killed in the attack are expected to give victim impact statements at the sentencing hearing Wednesday morning, according to court filings.

    Of the eight people killed in the attack, five were from Argentina, two were Americans, and one was from Belgium. The majority of those participating in the Manhattan federal court hearing are traveling from Argentina and Belgium, the prosecutors said in a memo.

    The convicted terrorist will have an opportunity to address the court before he is sentenced, but it is unclear if he will do so.

    On Halloween in 2017, Saipov drove a rented U-Haul truck into cyclists and pedestrians on Manhattan’s West Side bike path, then crashed the vehicle into a school bus, authorities said.

    After leaving the truck while brandishing a pellet gun and paintball gun, he was shot by a New York City Police Department officer and taken into custody, officials said.

    The jury convicted Saipov in January of all 28 counts against him for the fatal attack.

    Those counts included murder in aid of racketeering activity, assault with a dangerous weapon and attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, provision of material support to ISIS, and violence and destruction of a motor vehicle.

    Saipov is expected to serve his life sentence at the Federal Bureau of Prisons ADX facility in Florence, Colorado, in solitary confinement at least 22 hours a day, his attorneys said during trial.

    Federal prosecutors who say Saipov deserves no leniency want District Judge Vernon Broderick to sentence Saipov to the fullest extent of the sentencing guidelines for his 28-count conviction; eight consecutive life sentences, a consecutive term of 260 years’ imprisonment and two concurrent life sentences.

    “Because Saipov deliberately committed the most abhorrent crime imaginable for which he has expressed no remorse, he deserves no leniency. Only the maximum punishment on each count of conviction will reflect the unimaginable harm inflicted and send the appropriate message that terrorist attacks on innocent civilians will be punished as harshly as the law allows,” prosecutors said in a pre-sentencing court filing.

    The harshest sentence, prosecutors wrote, would be “an exercise of such discretion to hold the defendant fully accountable for his crimes, and to send the appropriate message to the defendant, the public, and any others who might contemplate an attack on U.S. soil.”

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  • Opposition parties deliver surprise challenge to military leaders in Thai election | CNN

    Opposition parties deliver surprise challenge to military leaders in Thai election | CNN

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    Bangkok, Thailand
    CNN
     — 

    Thai voters have dealt a surprise blow to the ruling military-backed government in the country’s general election, throwing their support behind progressive anti-establishment parties that could change the course of the kingdom’s politics after years of military rule.

    With 97% of votes counted before an unexplained pause at almost 2 a.m. local time Monday, the Move Forward party was projected to win 148 seats, with Pheu Thai party in second place with 138 seats.

    In the early hours of Monday, Move Forward’s leader Pita Limjaroenrat, who rode a wave of youth support on social media, tweeted his readiness to assume the leadership: “We believe that our beloved Thailand can be better, and change is possible if we start today … our dream and hope are simple and straightforward, and no matter if you would agree or disagree with me, I will be your prime minister. And no matter if you have voted for me or have not, I will serve you.”

    But it’s not clear who will take power.

    The junta-era constitution gives the establishment-dominated upper house a significant say in who can ultimately form a government.

    The Secretary General of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) will hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. local time Monday to explain progress with the vote count.

    Before counting paused, the Bhumjai Thai party was in third position, projected to win around 70 seats, while Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s party potentially would grab about 12 seats.

    Prayut’s rise from military coup leader to prime minister has been marred with controversy, growing authoritarianism and widening inequality. Hundreds of activists have been arrested during his leadership under draconian laws such as sedition or lese majeste.

    His military government’s mismanagement in handling of the coronavirus pandemic and economy also amplified calls for Prayut to step down and continued well into 2021.

    He survived several no-confidence votes in parliament during his term which attempted to remove him from power.

    The election is the first since youth-led mass pro-democracy protests in 2020 and only the second since a military coup in 2014 ousted an elected government, restoring a conservative clique that has pulled the strings in the kingdom’s turbulent politics for decades.

    Before the weekend vote, Pheu Thai had topped opinion polls, campaigning on a populist platform that includes raising the minimum wage, welfare cash handouts and keeping the military out of politics.

    It’s the party of the billionaire Shinawatra family – a controversial political dynasty headed by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

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  • Thai opposition take on kingdom’s conservative cliques as voting begins | CNN

    Thai opposition take on kingdom’s conservative cliques as voting begins | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Millions of Thais are heading to the polls on Sunday for a general election where opposition parties are hoping to ride a wave of frustration over the military’s stranglehold on the levers of power and its handling of the economy.

    The election is the first since youth-led mass pro-democracy protests in 2020 and only the second since a military coup in 2014 ousted an elected government, restoring a conservative clique that has pulled the strings in the kingdom’s turbulent politics for decades.

    Polls opened at 8 a.m. Bangkok time (9 p.m. ET Saturday), with election authorities expecting a high turnout.

    This year’s election will see some 52 million eligible voters elect 500 members to the House of Representatives in Thailand’s bicameral system which was heavily rejigged through a new constitution written by the military that seized power nine years ago.

    Each voter has two ballots, one for a local constituency representative and one for their pick of candidates for the national party, known as party-list MPs.

    The junta-era constitution gives the establishment-dominated upper house a significant say in who can ultimately form a government so opposition parties must win by a strong margin.

    Leading that charge is a young generation of Thais yearning for change and willing to tackle taboo topics such as the military’s role and even, for some of them, royal reform.

    The country’s powerful conservative establishment is relying on its own influential voter base that supports parties connected to the military, monarchy and the ruling elites, many of them in the capital Bangkok.

    Lined against them are more progressive and populist leaning opposition parties campaigning for democratic reforms that have a history of attracting more working class voters in the city and rural regions as well as a new generation of politically awakened young people.

    Topping opinion polls is the opposition Pheu Thai party which is fielding three candidates for prime minister and campaigning on a populist platform that includes raising the minimum wage, welfare cash handouts and keeping the military out of politics.

    It’s the party of the billionaire Shinawatra family – a controversial political dynasty headed by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

    Thaksin, a former policeman turned billionaire telecoms tycoon, and his sister Yingluck ran governments that were ousted in military coups. Both also live in exile, with Thai courts sentencing them to prison on corruption charges in their absence.

    Thaksin’s youngest daughter, 36-year-old Paetongtarn is standing as a prime ministerial candidate.

    Paetongtarn only entered politics three years ago but has presented herself as hailing from a new generation to connect with young Thais. She regularly attended rallies while pregnant and went back to campaigning days after giving birth.

    Enormously popular among the rural and urban working classes, the party is aiming for a landslide victory. Parties associated with Thaksin have won every Thai election since 2001.

    Also in the mix for Pheu Thai is Srettha Thavisin, a 59-year-old real estate tycoon who wants to focus on fixing income inequality, promoting LGBTQ+ rights including same-sex marriage and rooting out corruption while boosting the sluggish economy.

    But there is another opposition force at play called Move Forward, a party that is hugely popular among young Thais for its radical reform agenda.

    Analysts have called it “a game changer” – its candidates are campaigning on deep structural changes to how Thailand is run, including reforms to the military and the kingdom’s strict lese majeste law – which prohibits criticism of the royal family and makes any open debate about its role fraught with risk.

    Heading the party is Pita Limcharoenrat, 42, a Harvard alumni with a background in business. His eloquent campaign speeches and reform platform have earned him a massive following and he is one of the top picks for prime minister in opinion polls.

    Also gunning for the top job is incumbent Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha – this time with a new political party, the United Thai Nation. The former army chief who masterminded the 2014 coup has now been in power for nine years.

    While his party lost out to Pheu Thai in the number of seats won in the 2019 election, Prayut still became Prime Minister after gathering enough support from coalition parties to form a government.

    But despite his poor performance in opinion polls, analysts have cautioned against underestimating him given his links to the country’s elites.

    His rise from military coup leader to prime minister has been marred with controversy, growing authoritarianism and widening inequality.

    Hundreds of activists have been arrested during his leadership under draconian laws such as sedition or lese majeste.

    His military government’s mismanagement in handling of the coronavirus pandemic and economy also amplified calls for Prayut to step down and continued well into 2021.

    He survived several no-confidence votes in parliament during his term which attempted to remove him from power.

    If elected again, Prayut can only serve two years as the constitution limits a term in office to a maximum eight years.

    Another candidate who could see his fortunes rise in any post-election wrangling is former army chief Prawit Wongsuwan, first deputy prime minister and former brother in arms with Prayut.

    Prawit, a political veteran, is now leader of Prayut’s old party Palang Pracharat.

    The Bhumjaithai party’s Anutin Charnvirakul could also prove influential in any post-election deals. Health Minister Anutin steered the country through the pandemic and was behind landmark legislation that decriminalized cannabis in the country last year.

    The head of the biggest party may not necessarily lead Thailand, or even form a government, because the country’s electoral system is heavily weighted in favor of the conservative establishment.

    Parties winning more than 25 seats can nominate their candidate for prime minister. Those candidates will be put to a vote, with the whole 750-seat bicameral legislature voting.

    To be prime minister, a candidate must have a majority in both houses – or at least 375 votes.

    However, the 250-seat member Senate is likely to play a key role in deciding the next government of Thailand and, because it is chosen entirely by the military, it will likely vote for a pro-military party.

    That means an opposition party or coalition need almost three times as many votes in the lower house as a military party to be able to elect the next leader.

    Polls are scheduled to close at 5 p.m. Bangkok time (6 a.m. ET) and vote counting will begin shortly after. Observers say that early results can be expected at midnight in Bangkok – but it could be weeks or even months until Thailand sees a new prime minister.

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  • Wagner boss steps up his online tantrum as Bakhmut battle rages. What does it mean? | CNN

    Wagner boss steps up his online tantrum as Bakhmut battle rages. What does it mean? | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    What’s eating Yevgeny Prigozhin?

    In recent days, the boss of the Russian private military company Wagner seems to have gone into social-media meltdown, flooding his Telegram channel and other accounts with ever-more outrageous and provocative statements.

    Among other things, Prigozhin revealed an apparently humiliating battlefield setback for Russia, fulminating this week that a Russian brigade had “fled” around eastern city of Bakhmut, threatening his troops with encirclement by the Ukrainian forces.

    “The situation on the western flanks is developing according to the worst of the predicted scenarios,” Prigozhin complained in an audio message released Thursday. “Those territories that were liberated with the blood and lives of our comrades … are abandoned today almost without any fight by those who are supposed to hold our flanks.”

    Earlier in the week, Prigozhin marred Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations with public and profanity-laced criticisms of the country’s top military brass.

    “Today they [Ukrainians] are tearing up the flanks in the Artemovsk [Bakhmut] direction, regrouping at Zaporizhzhia. And a counteroffensive is about to begin,” he said Tuesday. “Victory Day is the victory of our grandfathers. We haven’t earned that victory one millimeter.”

    And then there was a more cryptic comment that raised eyebrows on social media. Continuing a longstanding public complaint that Russia’s uniformed military was starving his troops of shells, Prigozhin suggested that the higher-ups were dithering while Wagner fighters died.

    “The shells are lying in warehouses, they are resting there,” he said. “Why are the shells lying in the warehouses? There are people who fight, and there are people who have learned once in their lives that there must be a reserve, and they save, save, save those reserves. … No one knows what for. Instead of spending a shell to kill the enemy, they kill our soldiers. And happy grandfather thinks this is okay.”

    That begged the question: Whom, exactly, is Prigozhin referring to? After all, “grandfather in the bunker” is one of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s favorite monikers for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who inhabits an almost cartoonishly extreme security bubble.

    So what, exactly, was Prigozhin driving at? Is he flirting with defenestration? Or is he simply at the end of his tether, after spending months on the front lines?

    Prigozhin quickly backpedalled on his “grandfather” comment, recording a subsequent voice memo clarifying that he might be referring to the former Defense Minister Deputy Mikhail Mizintsev or Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov (or, more bizarrely, pro-war blogger Nataliya Khim).

    “I spoke about a ‘grandpa’ in the context of the fact that we are not given shells which are kept in warehouses, and who can be a grandpa?” Prigozhin said in a Telegram voice memo. “Option number one, Mizintsev, who was fired for giving us shells and therefore now he cannot give shells. The second is the General Chief of Staff, Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov, who is supposed to provide shells, but we do not receive enough shells, and we receive only 10%.”

    A bit of context is in order here. For months, the boss of the Wagner private military company has seen his political star rise in Russia as his fighters seemed to be the only ones capable of delivering tangible battlefield progress in the grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. And he has used his social-media clout to lobby for what he wants, including those sought-after ammunition supplies.

    But amid those successes — particularly in the meatgrinder of Bakhmut — Prigozhin has revived and amplified a feud with Russia’s military leadership. A canny political entrepreneur, Prigozhin has cast himself as a competent, ruthless patriot — in contrast with Russia’s inept military establishment.

    It may seem surprising in a country where criticizing the military can potentially cost a person a spell in prison that Prigozhin gets away with strident criticism of Putin’s generals. But Putin presides over what is often described as a court system, where infighting and competition among elites is in fact encouraged to produce results, as long as the “vertical of power” remains loyal to and answers to the head of state.

    But Prigozhin’s online tantrums to be crossing the line to open disloyalty, some observers say.

    In a recent Twitter thread, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said, “If the Kremlin does not respond to Prigozhin’s escalating attacks on Putin it may further erode the norm in Putin’s system in which individual actors can jockey for position and influence (and drop in and out of Putin’s favor) but cannot directly criticize Putin.”

    Speculation then centers on whether Prigozhin is politically expendable, whether his outbursts are a sort of clever deception operation — or, more troublingly for Putin, whether the system of loyalty that keeps the Kremlin running smoothly is starting to break down.

    “This isn’t meant to happen in Putin’s system,” said Cold War historian and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Sergey Radchenko in a recent Twitter thread. “Putin’s system allows for minions to attack each other but never undermine the vertical. Prigozhin is crossing this line. Either Putin responds and Prigozhin is toast or — if this doesn’t happen — a signal will be sent right through. A signal that the boss has been fatally weakened. And this is a system that does not respect weakness.”

    That theory will be tested in the coming days, as the battles continue to rage around Bakhmut.

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  • Hundreds of rockets fired at Israel amid deadly IDF airstrikes in Gaza | CNN

    Hundreds of rockets fired at Israel amid deadly IDF airstrikes in Gaza | CNN

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    Gaza and Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Israel’s army and Palestinian militants exchanged heavy cross-border fire on Wednesday, with hundreds of rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out deadly strikes on what it says are Islamic Jihad organization targets along the strip.

    The latest violence came after Israeli military airstrikes earlier in the week killed three leaders of the Palestinian militant group and 10 other Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza and led to threats of retaliation.

    In a new update early Thursday, the IDF said it had targeted another Islamic Jihad commander who was a “central figure” in the Palestinian militant group.

    “We just targeted Ali Ghali, the commander of Islamic Jihad’s Rocket Launching Force, as well as two other Islamic Jihad operatives in Gaza,” the IDF said in a tweet, adding that Ghali was “responsible for the recent rocket barrages launched against Israel.”

    Israel has been bombarding the Islamic Jihad’s operatives and infrastructure, using unmanned drones for surveillance as it monitors militant preparations to propel rockets, IDF chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Wednesday.

    At least six Palestinians were killed in Wednesday’s airstrikes, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said, revising down its earlier count.

    Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, issued a statement Wednesday strongly suggesting that its forces were releasing rockets towards Israel, shortly after the IDF said firmly it believed Hamas was not doing so.

    “The Palestinian resistance with all its factions, led by the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, is participating now in a unified manner by teaching the enemy a lesson that it will not forget and confirming that Palestinian blood is not cheap,” said the statement, issued by Muhammad al-Buraim, an official in the joint resistance committees in Palestine.

    The statement appeared designed to reject an assertion by IDF chief spokesman Hagari that the IDF saw only Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, firing rockets.

    Nearly 500 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel in the recent barrage, according to the IDF, as of 9:30 p.m. local time. Of those, 153 were intercepted by Israeli missile defenses and 107 fell short, landing in Gaza.

    The IDF said fighter jets and helicopters targeted over 40 rocket and mortar shells launchers belonging to Islamic Jihad terrorist across the Gaza Strip, adding that it is continuing to target launchers and additional posts belonging to the militant organization.

    Civilians in Israel have been asked to act according to the special instructions posted on the National Emergency Portal.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials Wednesday downplayed the idea that a ceasefire with Islamic Jihad was imminent, with Netanyahu saying: “The campaign is not over yet.”

    National Security Council chair Tzachi Hanegbi said that rumors of a ceasefire were “premature,” while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant struck a slightly more optimistic note, saying: “I hope we’ll bring it to an end soon, but we’re ready for the option that it will be prolonged.”

    Over half a million Israelis were in or near shelters, the IDF spokesman Hagari said just after 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) on Wednesday.

    Medics transport a victim to Shifa Hospital following the deadly Israeli airstrikes launched into Gaza on Tuesday.

    International leaders have condemned the hostilities. The United Nations Secretary-General urged all parties to exercise “maximum restraint” over the escalation of violence in Gaza, a statement by Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the Secretary-General, said on Wednesday.

    “The Secretary General condemns the civilian loss of life, including that of children and women, which he views as unacceptable and must stop immediately,” the statement said.

    “Israel must abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the proportional use of force and taking all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations. “

    The statement continued to say the Secretary-General also condemns the “indiscriminate launch” of rockets from Gaza into Israel, adding it “violates international humanitarian law and puts at risk both Palestinian and Israeli civilians.”

    Qatar has been engaged in “intensive and continuous calls” to stop Israel’s “brutal aggression” on the Gaza Strip to avoid “more losses,” the spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Majed Al-Ansari said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Meanwhile, Egyptian state-affiliated XtraNews said there are “intensive efforts” to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, citing Egyptian sources, without clarifying which parties have been communicated with. The news was carried on Egyptian state newspaper’s Al Ahram’s online website.

    Hamas said in a statement that the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniya, spoke with officials from Egypt, Qatar and the UN.

    Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel streak across the sky on Wednesday.

    The Ministry of Health in Gaza said one person was killed in Wednesday’s attack. It named him as Muhammad Yusuf Saleh Abu Ta’ima, 25, and said he was killed in the bombing east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

    A CNN producer in Gaza reported explosions in Khan Younis, Rafah and northern Gaza.

    Shortly after, he saw at least six rockets fired from Gaza towards Israel. Sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in the southern Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon and the Lachish area, all near the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said. Sirens later sounded in Tel Aviv, Israel’s main city on the Mediterranean coast, warning of potential incoming rocket fire.

    Several locations in Israel suffered direct hits by rockets from Gaza, authorities said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. A rocket landed near buildings and caused extensive damage in Ashkelon, pictures distributed by Israel Fire & Rescue Authority showed. A building in Kibbutz Nir Am also was hit, and a rocket landed in the garden of a house in Sderot.

    One of the three Islamic Jihad commanders killed on Tuesday was working on capabilities to launch rockets from the West Bank toward Israel, IDF chief spokesman Hagari said at the time.

    Rockets have never been fired from the West Bank into Israel.

    Islamic Jihad confirmed three of its commanders were killed in the overnight operation along with their wives and children.

    The commanders killed were Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, secretary of the Military Council in the al Quds Brigades; Khalil Salah al Bahtini, commander of the Northern Region in the al Quds Brigades; and Ezzedine, one of the leaders of the military wing of the al Quds Brigades in the West Bank, the group said.

    Hagari said the operation had been planned since last Tuesday, when Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets toward Israel following the death of its former spokesman while on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.

    But, the IDF did not have the “operational conditions” until overnight Tuesday.

    The IDF launched a further strike on Tuesday, saying its air force targeted “a terrorist squad” belonging to Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

    The Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza said two people were killed and two others injured in that attack east of Khan Younis, although they have yet to identify them, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 15 on Tuesday.

    Gaza is one of the most densely packed places in the world, an isolated coastal enclave of almost two million people crammed into 140 square miles.

    Governed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the territory is largely cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007. Egypt controls Gaza’s southern border crossing, Rafah.

    Israel has placed heavy restrictions on the freedom of civilian movement and controls the importation of basic goods into the narrow coastal strip.

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  • Ukraine targeted Putin in an attempted drone attack on the Kremlin, Russia claims | CNN

    Ukraine targeted Putin in an attempted drone attack on the Kremlin, Russia claims | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Moscow alleged Wednesday Ukraine flew two drones toward the Kremlin overnight in what it claimed was an attempt to kill President Vladimir Putin.

    The Russian president was not in the building at the time, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

    The Kremlin said the attack was foiled and the alleged drones destroyed. “No one was injured as a result of their fall and scattering of fragments,” state media RIA Novosti reported.

    Ukraine says it had no knowledge of any attempted drone strike on the Kremlin, that it did not attack other countries. “We do not have information on so called night attacks on Kremlin,” the spokesman for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Sergiy Nykyforov, told CNN on Wednesday.

    “As President Zelensky has stated numerous times before, Ukraine uses all means at its disposal to free its own territory, not to attack others,” Nykyforov added.

    A social media video appears to show a flash and some smoke in the vicinity of the Kremlin, but the source of the smoke is unclear. CNN has not been able to independently verify the Moscow’s claims.

    The Kremlin Press Service called the purported drone attack an “attempt on the President’s life.” “Russia reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,” it added.

    Russia referred to the incident as an “act of terrorism,” blaming Ukraine.

    Kyiv said that accusation an accusation was better directed at Russia.

    “A terror attack is destroyed blocks of residential buildings in Dnipro and Uman, or a missile at a line at Kramatorsk rail station and many other tragedies,” said Nykyforov, the Ukrainian presidential spokesman. “What happened in Moscow is obviously about escalating the mood on the eve of May 9.” That day is known as “Victory Day” inside Russia, commemorating the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II.

    “It’s a trick to be expected from our opponents,” he said.

    Kyiv is approximately 862 kilometers (about 535 miles) from Moscow. Russia has accused Ukraine of multiple attempted drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, including one earlier this year when the governor of the Moscow region claimed a Ukrainian drone had crashed near the village of Gubastovo, southeast of the capital.

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  • US Army orders aviation safety stand down following deadly helicopter crashes | CNN Politics

    US Army orders aviation safety stand down following deadly helicopter crashes | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The chief of staff of the US Army has grounded all Army aviators not involved in critical missions following two recent helicopter crashes that left 12 soldiers dead.

    The order from Army Chief of Staff James McConville grounds the aviators “until they complete the required training,” according to the Army.

    “The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” McConville said in a statement.

    Army pilots, at McConville’s direction, “will focus on safety and training protocols to ensure our pilots and crews have the knowledge, training and awareness to safely complete their assigned mission.”

    The safety stand down comes after Thursday’s mid-air collision of two AH-64 Apache helicopters near Fort Wainwright, Alaska, that killed three soldiers and wounded another. Two of the soldiers died at the scene and the third died while being transported to a hospital, according to a release from the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division.

    The crash occurred about 100 miles south of Fort Wainwright, where the helicopters are based as part of the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment.

    “This is an incredible loss for these soldiers’ families, their fellow soldiers, and for the division,” Maj. Gen. Brian Eifler, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division, said in the release. “Our hearts and prayers go out to their families, friends and loved ones, and we are making the full resources of the Army available to support them.”

    That deadly collision came just weeks after nine soldiers were killed when two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed during a nighttime training mission near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the Army said.

    The medical evacuation helicopters were conducting a routine training mission when they crashed at approximately 10:00 pm local time in an open field across from a residential area. All nine of the service members aboard the two aircraft were killed.

    The incidents are under investigation, according to the Army, but “there is no indication of any pattern” between the two.

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  • 3 soldiers dead, 1 injured after Army Apache helicopters collide midair while returning from a training flight in Alaska | CNN

    3 soldiers dead, 1 injured after Army Apache helicopters collide midair while returning from a training flight in Alaska | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three soldiers were killed and another was injured when two AH-64 Apache helicopters collided Thursday as they were flying back from a military training flight near Healy, Alaska, US Army officials said.

    Two of the soldiers died at the scene and the third died while being transported to a hospital, according to a release from the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division.

    The names of the deceased are being withheld until 24 hours after their families have been notified, the release said.

    The crash occurred about 100 miles south of Fort Wainwright, where the helicopters are based as part of the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment.

    “This is an incredible loss for these soldiers’ families, their fellow soldiers, and for the division,” Maj. Gen. Brian Eifler, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division, said in the release. “Our hearts and prayers go out to their families, friends and loved ones, and we are making the full resources of the Army available to support them.”

    US Army officials said Friday that the surviving soldier is in stable condition at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

    The deadly collision comes less than a month after nine soldiers were killed when two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed during a nighttime training mission near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the Army said. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

    “The Fort Wainwright community is one of the tightest military communities I’ve seen in my 32 years of service. I have no doubt they will pull together during this exceptional time of need and provide comfort to our families of our fallen,” Eifler added.

    Fort Wainwright’s Emergency Assistance Center is available to “provide support for families, friends and fellow soldiers of those involved in the crash,” the release said.

    The crash will be investigated by an Army Combat Readiness Center team, the release said.

    Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy took to Twitter on Friday to send “thoughts and prayers” to the soldiers involved in the incident.

    “My heart breaks for the family of the 3 soldiers who were killed. We pray for the injured soldier to be treated and return home safely,” he wrote.

    Correction: A previous version of this story misstated where the crash happened. It was near Healy, Alaska.

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  • Eleven people killed in suspected Maoist militant attack in central India | CNN

    Eleven people killed in suspected Maoist militant attack in central India | CNN

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Ten policemen and a civilian were killed in blast as they were returning from an operation against insurgents in India’s central Chhattisgarh state, its chief minister said Wednesday.

    Rebel Maoist militants are believed to be responsible for the attack, Bhupesh Baghel told reporters, expressing his grief over the deaths.

    Indian prime minister Narendra Modi “strongly condemned” the attack in a statement Wednesday.

    “I pay my tributes to the brave personnel we lost in the attack. Their sacrifice will always be remembered. My condolences to the bereaved families,” he wrote on Twitter.

    India’s government has been embroiled in a decades-long conflict with Maoist rebel groups, also known as Naxals, who launch attacks on government forces in an attempt to overthrow the state and usher in a classless society. Maoists are largely active in central India, in remote regions mainly populated by tribal peoples.

    According to a 2019 report by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, 90 districts across 11 states are affected by some form of Naxal or Maoist militancy. More than 2,100 civilians in India have been killed in the Maoist insurgency since 2010.

    The government has responded with a security crackdown in areas in which the groups are active – an approach that while appearing to reduce the threat level has been criticized by some observers as heavy-handed and prone to abuse.

    Villagers who live in Maoist territory are largely cut off from the country’s rapidly growing economy, and many live in fear both of rebels taking their children as recruits and violent government raids.

    Some villagers in Chhattisgarh previously told CNN that they were forced to pay taxes to the Maoists, or face abuse or even torture. But if they did pay up, they risked being labeled Maoist sympathizers by government forces.

    At least 22 Indian security force members were killed and 31 injured in 2021 during a four-hour gun battle with Maoist insurgents, officials said. In 2017, 25 police officers were killed and six others injured when hundreds of suspected Maoist rebels attacked a convoy in central India.

    Suspected Maoists also struck during India’s elections in 2019, allegedly gunning down a polling supervisor in the eastern state of Odisha. In another incident in the same district that year, alleged Maoists approached a vehicle heading towards a polling center and forced officials to disembark before setting fire to it.

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  • Tucker Carlson out at Fox News | CNN Business

    Tucker Carlson out at Fox News | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the right-wing extremist who hosted the network’s highly rated 8pm hour, have severed ties, the network said in a stunning announcement Monday.

    The announcement came one week after Fox News settled a monster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over the network’s dissemination of election lies. Fox News said that Carlson’s last show was Friday, April 21.

    Carlson was a top promoter of conspiracy theories and radical rhetoric at the network. Not only did he repeatedly sow doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, but he also promoted conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccines and elevated white nationalist talking points.

    Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, praised Fox News’ decision, saying it is “about time” and that “for far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions.”

    Tucker Carlson was a key figure in Dominion Voting Systems’ mammoth defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties settled last week on the brink of trial for a historic $787 million.

    In some ways, Carlson played an outsized role in the litigation: Only one of the 20 allegedly defamatory Fox broadcasts mentioned in the lawsuit came from Carlson’s top-rated show. But, as CNN exclusively reported, he was set to be one of Dominion’s first witnesses to testify at trial. And his private text messages, which became public as part of the suit, reverberated nationwide.

    Dominion got its hands on Carlson’s group chat with fellow Fox primetime stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and a trove of other messages from around the 2020 presidential election.

    These communications revealed that Carlson told confidants that he “passionately” hated former President Donald Trump and that Trump’s tenure in the White House was a “disaster.” He also used misogynistic terms to criticize pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and reject her conspiracies about the 2020 election – even as those wild theories got airtime on Fox News.

    The lawsuit exposed how Carlson privately held a wholly different view than his on-air persona. A Dominion spokesperson did not comment on Carlson’s departure from Fox.

    Carlson was also one of the biggest promoters of conspiracy theories in right-wing media, sowing doubt about the 2020 presidential election, the January 6 insurrection, and Covid-19 vaccines.

    In the two years since the attack on the US Capitol, the Fox primetime host used his huge platform to amplify paper-thin theories that the attack was a false-flag operation orchestrated by the FBI and government agents because they loathed Trump, and that the criminal rioters were themselves the victims.

    The baseless theory originated from a right-wing website, and Carlson catapulted it into the mainstream by repeatedly featuring it on his show. He routinely suggested that Capitol rioter and Trump supporter Ray Epps was actually an FBI provocateur who sparked the deadly riot.

    In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night, Epps had this to say about Carlson’s lies: “He’s obsessed with me. He’s going to any means possible to destroy my life and our lives.”

    Carlson’s disinformation campaign about January 6 reached its apex just a few months ago, with an assist from the newly installed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.

    The top-rated Fox host obtained and aired never-before-seen footage from Capitol security cameras, but the clips were cherry-picked and selectively edited. He said on his program that he ran the tapes by the US Capitol Police before airing the material, but they disputed his claim.

    Abby Grossberg, the ex-Fox News producer who has since disavowed the network, claimed in recent lawsuits that there was rampant sexism and misogyny among Tucker Carlson’s show team.

    Grossberg, who joined Carlson’s team after the 2020 election, said in her lawsuit that after her first day on the job that “it became apparent how pervasive the misogyny and drive to embarrass and objectify women was among the male staff at TCT,” referring to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

    Fox News is aggressively fighting two lawsuits from Grossberg. A Fox spokesperson previously said the lawsuits were “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.”

    In a lawsuit filed last month, Grossberg said Carlson “was very capable of using such disgusting language about women in the workplace.” She cited some of Carlson’s private texts, where he used the phrase “c-nt” to refer to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, a top 2020 election denier.

    Her lawsuits also describe seeing sexually suggestive posters that were visible in the workplace, facing “uncomfortable sexual questions” about her former Fox News boss Maria Bartiromo, and witnessing internal debates on which women politicians were “more f–kable.”

    In a TV interview, she said the sexual harassment was so bad that she considered suicide.

    Carlson’s departure at Fox News comes after the network also severed ties with right-wing bomb thrower Dan Bongino, who had been a regular fixture on the network’s programming, in addition to hosting a weekend show.

    “Folks, regretfully, last week was my last show on Fox News on the Fox News Channel,” Bongino said on Rumble, chalking up the exit to a contract dispute.

    “So the show ending last week was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s not, there’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some, like, WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension. And that’s really it.”

    Fox News responded in a statement, “We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavors.”

    Shares of Fox Corp.

    (FOXA)     fell 5% on the news. The stock had been up slightly before the announcement. Carlson did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.

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  • These Iranian activists fled for freedom. The regime still managed to find them | CNN

    These Iranian activists fled for freedom. The regime still managed to find them | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Iranian dissident Massi Kamari felt helpless when she found out about her elderly parents being harassed by the authorities back home.

    She called her mother’s phone in late December, but the person on the other end was a man whose voice she didn’t recognize.

    Her parents were inside the offices of Iran’s intelligence service in Tehran. And she was in the French capital, Paris, where she lives.

    Kamari knew that the government agents who had been intimidating her family for months wanted only one thing: to speak directly to her about her activism abroad.

    “I was thinking: ‘What can I do about this?’ So, I decided to try to record this phone call,” she recalled.

    In the recording of the phone call in late December that was obtained by CNN, Kamari can be heard arguing for almost 20 minutes with a man she believes is a member of Iran’s shadowy intelligence service.

    “Whatever actions you take against the Islamic Republic, there in France, is a crime,” the man is heard saying. “And your family will answer for it.”

    “Sir, my family is only responsible for its own actions,” she responds.

    “Listen,” he says. “Your mother will be taken to Evin Prison, at her age. Your sister and your father (will) also be taken to Evin prison too. They will be interrogated.”

    “Okay,” she answers calmly. “Take them for interrogation. They have done nothing wrong.”

    The 42-year-old is among many Iranians now living in the West who say that Tehran’s terrorizing repression is reaching beyond its borders, to faraway places previously assumed to be safe, in order to crush dissent.

    CNN’s request for comment to Iran’s authorities has gone unanswered.

    Last year, the country was rocked by a popular uprising that was first ignited in September by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in custody after being detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly.

    Months on, the demonstrations have fizzled out amid a growing wave of repression.

    Through the end of January, hundreds of protesters have been killed, including at least 52 children, according to Human Rights Watch. At least four young men have been executed at the order of Iranian courts that the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran has called “lynching committees.”

    Dissidents abroad have played a key role in Iran’s protest movement, carrying stories of abuse and oppression from the streets of Iran to international news channels and the halls of foreign governments. That bridge to the outside world has been crucial for the protesters amid a near total shutdown of internet services in the country and tight regime control on local media.

    Successful lobbying campaigns are credited, in part, with ramped-up sanctions against the Tehran regime from Western governments and international organizations. In an unprecedented move, for example, United Nations member states removed Iran from a key UN women’s rights group in December – which was condemned by Iran.

    “Our efforts to promote and protect women’s rights are driven by our rich culture and well-established Constitution,” reads an Iranian government statement.

    “The Iranian women and girls are most informed, dynamic, educated and capable in our region and the world, have always strived for their progress and will continue to strive in the same direction despite continued US chronical hypocrisy.”

    The organizing power and political sway of the diaspora is exactly why Tehran is expanding the crackdown beyond its own borders, Nazila Golestan, an activist of three decades and co-founder of the opposition organization HamAva, told CNN.

    “They are the government. But we are the opposition, and we are numerous,” she explained. “We are everywhere, everywhere and with the internet we have a bridge from the people inside to the people outside.”

    Massi Kamari fled Iran for France about four years ago, fearing for her life due to her activism back home.

    “When I got here, I thought I can freely express my feelings now. I tried to be the voice of my (suffering) people in Iran,” she explained. “I tried to participate as much as I can in protests.”

    But as the protests started picking up steam late last year, she found herself being intimidated again. Her parents in Iran, she said, received repeated calls from the intelligence service for a summoning to their local headquarters.

    “I told them, please don’t answer these calls, and please don’t go there,” she said of her conversation with her parents at the time. “But unfortunately, because these threats got worse and worse and because my parents are older, I could not expect them to listen to me and not go. I understood they are under pressure, and it might happen.”

    And it did happen. On December 31, Kamari said she received the call from a man she believed to be a member of Iran’s intelligence service, who used her mother’s confiscated phone to reach her. He refused to identify himself, but he made his orders and threats clear.

    “It was so hard because I did not know how far these people will go,” she said of the call. “I felt because they were putting pressure on my family and I was not there, I had to respond strongly.”

    The organizing power and political sway of the diaspora is exactly why Tehran is expanding the crackdown beyond its own borders, Nazila Golestan, an activist of three decades and co-founder of the opposition organization HamAva, told CNN.

    For now, Kamari says her parents are safe, but she barely speaks to them as a precaution.

    Other Iranian exiles with loved ones still back home tell similar stories of their families being used as pawns by the Islamic Republic in order to silence them.

    According to a 2021 report by Freedom House, an advocacy group in Washington, DC, Iran engages in transnational repression using tactics including assassinations, detentions, digital intimidation, spyware, coercion by proxy, and mobility controls, among others. The report’s authors noted that these tools have been used against Iranians in at least nine countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

    Forty-year-old Sahar Nasseri left Iran as a teenager to study in Sweden, where she now lives and continues to be an outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic. She says her family, too, is constantly harassed by Iran’s intelligence service.

    “They (the intelligence service) have created this distance between me and my family, which is mental torture,” she said through tears. “For every single thing I do, every time I appear on TV, every political act that me and my friends take, every time we speak with a government or a political representative, they call my parents.”

    Exiled Iranian dissidents say Western sanctions have not ended the campaign of repression and harassment they face for speaking out.

    Despite leaving their homeland for distant countries, many say that no place is beyond the regime’s reach. In January, the US Justice Department said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate prominent Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad near her home in Brooklyn, New York. It wasn’t the first time US authorities had foiled an alleged plot against Alinejad.

    “This is the second time in the past two years that this Office and our partners at the FBI have disrupted plots originating from within Iran to kidnap or kill this victim for the ‘crime’ of exercising the right to free speech,” the DOJ said in a statement on January 27.

    At least three men – the authorities believe are part of an Eastern European crime organization tied to Iran – have been indicted. One was charged with possessing a loaded AK-47 style rifle, found inside a suitcase in his vehicle.

    US prosecutors say that a 2021 kidnapping plot was organized by an Iranian intelligence official, an indictment alleged, but Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any involvement, calling the accusation “baseless and ridiculous,” according to the semi-official news agency ISNA.

    Appearing on “CNN This Morning” in January, Alinejad vowed to continue her activism.

    “I’m not going to give up,” she said “What scares me (is) that this is happening right now in Iran. I mean these criminals were hired by the Islamic Republic. They were a part of a criminal organization from eastern Europe. So, you see the Islamic Republic itself is a criminal organization. And killing innocent protesters inside Iran, killing teenagers every single day.”

    Nasseri and Kamari echo her determination. Three women across three different countries who have defied threats from the Islamic Republic to share their ordeal say efforts to silence them have only made their voices louder and more prominent.

    They say they are inspired by the anti-government demonstrations inside their country and by the courage of protesters there in the face of a brutal government crackdown.

    “There is nowhere you can be safe,” Kamari said from the site of an anti-Iranian regime protest overlooking the Eiffel Tower in Paris. “But even the week after I received the call (from Iranian intelligence officials), I was out doing my political work. I will not stop my activism because of threats.”

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  • Sudan’s paramilitary RSF announces 72-hour ceasefire ahead of Muslim holiday | CNN

    Sudan’s paramilitary RSF announces 72-hour ceasefire ahead of Muslim holiday | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    One of Sudan’s two warring factions has declared a 72-hour truce after nearly a week of fierce fighting, which has left more than 330 people dead and pushed tens of thousands of refugees to flee the country.

    The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced the ceasefire in a statement on Twitter early Friday morning local time. The ceasefire is due to begin at 6 a.m., the statement added.

    The ceasefire comes just ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

    “The truce coincides with the blessed Eid al-Fitr … to open humanitarian corridors to evacuate citizens and give them the opportunity to greet their families,” the RSF said.

    However it is not yet clear whether the announcement will bring fighting to a halt. The rival Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) have yet to comment on the announcement.

    World leaders and international organizations have been urging the RSF and SAF to strike a deal since clashes began on Saturday – but several temporary ceasefires have repeatedly broken down, with both sides trading blame for violating the terms.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to the heads of both factions earlier this week, and again on Thursday to urge a ceasefire through at least the end of the Eid weekend.

    UN Secretary General António Guterres also called for a ceasefire on Thursday “for at least three days marking the Eid al Fitr celebrations to allow civilians trapped in conflict zones to escape and to seek medical treatment, food and other essential supplies.”

    The pleas for a ceasefire have grown more urgent in recent days as the death toll climbs. Most hospitals in the capital Khartoum are out of operation, with many having come under attack by shelling; meanwhile, those still operating are rapidly running out of supplies to treat survivors.

    Residents have been stranded at home and in shelters without food or water, surrounded by the threat of gunfire and artillery outside.

    The fighting could force millions into hunger, the World Food Program (WFP) warned on Thursday.

    “Record numbers of people were already facing hunger in Sudan before the conflict erupted on April 15,” it said in a statement, adding that the fighting was preventing the organization from delivering emergency food to civilians.

    The ceasefire could provide a crucial window not just for aid distribution and medical care – but for foreign governments to reach their citizens stranded in Sudan.

    The US Defense Department said on Thursday it was deploying “additional capabilities” nearby Sudan to secure the US Embassy in the country and assist with a potential evacuation, if the situation calls for it. It includes hundreds of Marines who are already in nearby Djibouti, a US defense official told CNN, with aircraft capable of bringing in ground units to secure an embassy.

    US President Joe Biden had “authorized the military to move forward with pre-positioning forces and to develop options in case – and I want to stress right now – in case there’s a need for an evacuation,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.

    Officials told staffers Wednesday that there are an estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals. Roughly 500 had contacted the US Embassy since the outbreak of fighting, though only around 50 of those people had asked for help, according to the staffers.

    Some countries have already begun the evacuation process, with Japan announcing it would send its Self-Defense Forces to evacuate 60 Japanese nationals, including embassy staff, from Sudan.

    Sudan’s army also said Thursday that 177 Egyptian soldiers who had been trapped in the country were evacuated and safely returned to Egypt.

    Local residents, too, are fleeing the country in huge numbers. Eyewitnesses in Khartoum describe growing lines of people at bus stops, hoping to escape the fighting. And up to 20,000 refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region have fled to neighboring Chad in recent days, according to a statement from the UN Refugee Agency.

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  • Top US Navy admiral defends non-binary sailor amid some Republican criticism | CNN Politics

    Top US Navy admiral defends non-binary sailor amid some Republican criticism | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The top US Navy admiral ardently defended a non-binary sailor on Tuesday amid some criticism from Republican lawmakers, saying he is “particularly proud of this sailor.”

    The sailor, LTJG Audrey Knutson, had their story shared on the Navy’s Instagram page last week. In a short video, Knutson said they are proud to serve as non-binary, especially because their grandfather served in the Navy as a gay man in World War II. During a deployment last fall aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, Knutson said their highlight was reading a poem to the whole ship at an LGBTQ spoken word night. The Instagram video garnered nearly 17,000 likes.

    Subsequently, Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, tweeted a portion of the clip with the caption, “While China prepares for war, this is what they have our US Navy focused on.” On Tuesday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, continued attacking the video, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee he had “a lot of problems with the video.”

    But Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday defended the sailor, emphasizing that it’s the job of a commanding officer to build a warfighting team.

    “I’ll tell you why I’m particularly proud of this sailor,” Gilday told the hearing. “So, her grandfather served during World War II, and he was gay and he was ostracized in the very institution that she not only joined and is proud to be a part of, but she volunteered to deploy on Ford and she’ll likely deploy again next month when Ford goes back to sea.”

    Gilday used female pronouns to refer to Knutson but the Navy told CNN Knutson’s pronouns of choice are non-binary.

    “We ask people from all over the country, from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds to join us,” Gilday said, “and then it’s the job of a commanding officer to build a cohesive warfighting team that’s going to follow the law, and the law requires that we be able to conduct prompt, sustained operations at sea. That level of trust that a commanding officer develops across that unit has to be able to be grounded on dignity and respect, and so … if that officer can lawfully join the United States Navy, is willing to serve and willing to take the same oath that you and I took to put their life on the line, then I’m proud to serve beside them.”

    Some Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have attacked the military for being too “woke,” claiming it has been one of the causes of the military’s poor recruiting numbers, despite a recent Army survey showing only 5% of potential recruits were concerned about “wokeness.”

    Last month, Republican Rep. Cory Mills and several others went after the Defense Department on its diversity, equity and inclusion training at a House Armed Services Subcommittee hearing on military personnel. Mills said, “We absolutely 150% can out-pronoun every single one of our adversaries, and China and Russia I’m sure are quaking in their boots over this.”

    In response, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gil Cisneros said diversity and equal opportunity training have been a part of the military for decades.

    At another hearing in early-March with the military’s top enlisted leaders, Sgt. Maj. Of the Army Michael Grinston stressed that the military’s focus remains on combat lethality, even with additional training on diversity and inclusion.

    “There is one hour of equal opportunity training in basic training, and 92 hours of rifle marksmanship training,” Grinston said at the time. “And if you go to [One Station Unit Training], there is 165 hours of rifle marksmanship training and still only one hour of equal opportunity training.”

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