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Hunter Biden jury sworn in, will hear evidence of addiction and a gun buy

Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, departs the federal court with his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, on the opening day of his trial on criminal gun charges in Wilmington, Delaware, US, June 3, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 04 June 2024
Reuters
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Hunter Biden jury sworn in, will hear evidence of addiction and a gun buy

Updated 04 June 2024
Reuters

WILMINGTON: A jury was sworn in on Monday for the trial of Hunter Biden on gun charges, a historic criminal prosecution of a sitting president’s son with the potential to influence the 2024 presidential election.

Hunter Biden, 54, went on trial at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, four days after Republican Donald Trump, the Democratic president’s rival for the Nov. 5 US election, became the first former president found guilty of a crime.

President Joe Biden’s son is accused of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra .38-caliber revolver and of illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days in October 2018.

He has pleaded not guilty to the three felony charges.

The case, brought by US Special Counsel David Weiss, a Trump appointee, is one of Hunter Biden’s two criminal cases. He also faces federal tax charges in California.

US District Judge Maryellen Noreika ended the day by swearing in the 12 jurors and four alternates. “Your job is to find the facts,” she told them and instructed them not to discuss the case with anyone, even among themselves.

The case is expected to center on Hunter Biden’s years of crack cocaine use and addiction, which he has discussed publicly and which was a prominent part of his 2021 autobiography, “Beautiful Things.” He told Noreika at a hearing last year that he has been sober since the middle of 2019.

Republicans have seized on Hunter Biden’s troubles to try to shift attention away from Trump’s own legal woes. Trump is due to be sentenced on July 11. He has pleaded not guilty in three other pending criminal cases.

Jill Biden, Hunter Biden’s wife Melissa Cohen Biden and his half-sister Ashley Biden were in attendance. Wilmington is the Bidens’ hometown.

“Jill and I love our son and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Joe Biden said in a statement, adding that a lot of families have loved ones who have overcome addiction.

Congressional Republicans spent years in vain trying to find evidence of a corrupt link between Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, including work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and his father’s political power.

JURORS DISCLOSE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH ADDICTION

The jurors included several who disclosed personal experience with drug addiction. One impaneled juror had a friend who overdosed and another, selected as an alternate, whose uncle’s drug use led to jail time.

“I feel like it’s an everyday part of the world,” said the alternate juror of substance abuse.

Few jurors expressed strong political views but a handful said they were acquainted with members of the extended Biden family.

One potential juror said she and her husband were acquainted with Hunter Biden. “Wilmington is a small place,” the potential juror told the judge before being dismissed.

All 12 jurors must agree he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to convict.

If convicted on all charges in the Delaware case, Hunter Biden faces up to 25 years in prison, though defendants generally receive shorter sentences, according to the US Justice Department.

Hunter Biden spent the weekend with his father in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with the pair biking and attending church together on Saturday.

GUN PURCHASE

Prosecutors will seek to prove that Hunter Biden knew he was lying when he ticked the box for “no” next to a question on a federal gun purchase form asking if he was an unlawful user of a controlled substance.

Prosecution lawyers disclosed in court filings that they may use details gleaned from Hunter Biden’s phone and iCloud account, including photos of him smoking crack and messages with drug dealers. They said they may call as a witness his former wife Kathleen Buhle, who accused Hunter Biden in their 2017 divorce proceedings of squandering money on drugs, alcohol and prostitutes.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers have indicated they may try to show he had completed a drug rehabilitation program before purchasing the gun and may have considered his answer on the gun purchase form to be truthful.

A plea agreement that would have resolved the gun and tax charges without prison time collapsed last year after Noreika questioned the extent of the immunity it extended to Hunter Biden. His lawyers blamed Republican pressure for the failure of the plea agreement.

Noreika, a Trump appointee to the bench, entered multiple orders over the weekend that were requested by prosecutors and that appeared to undercut the defendant’s legal strategy.

The judge said the defense could not introduce expert testimony that people suffering from substance abuse disorders might not consider themselves an addict.

That testimony could have helped Biden show that he did not know he was lying on the background check form. The government is required to prove that Biden knowingly lied.

Topics: Hunter Biden

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More UK charter flights to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
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More UK charter flights to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

  • More than 150 British nationals and their dependents were evacuated on Wednesday
  • Many commercial airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP

LONDON: Britain will charter more flights to help citizens and dependents leave Lebanon, the foreign office said on Thursday as Israel continued to strike Beirut overnight.
More than 150 British nationals and their dependents were evacuated from the Lebanese capital on a UK government chartered flight that arrived in Birmingham, central England, on Wednesday, the ministry said.
“A limited number” of flights will depart from Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Thursday, and “will continue for as long as the security situation allows,” it added.
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was ready to support “hundreds” more to leave Lebanon in the coming days.
The statement came a day after Defense Secretary John Healey visited Cyprus, where 700 British troops and staff are stationed to prepare for the possible evacuations.
Many commercial airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut.
“Recent events have demonstrated the volatility of the situation in Lebanon,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Thursday, reiterating his message for nationals to “leave the country immediately.”
As of last week, there were around 5,000 British nationals, dual nationals and dependents in Lebanon, according to government estimates.
Israel has intensified its bombing of southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut, saying it aims to secure its northern border after nearly a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The fighting has cost more than 1,000 lives in Lebanon so far.
The British government has confirmed that two of its fighter jets and a tanker were involved in responding to Iran’s firing of a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday, although they “did not engage any targets.”

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon UK Israel

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Russian man jailed for burning Qur’an charged with treason

Updated 03 October 2024
Reuters
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Russian man jailed for burning Qur’an charged with treason

  • Russia’s prosecutor general’s office said that 20-year-old Nikita Zhuravel was accused of sending footage of a freight train carrying warplanes
Updated 03 October 2024
Reuters

MOSCOW: A Russian man jailed in February for burning the Qur’an has been charged with treason by prosecutors who accuse him of passing video footage of military movements to Ukraine.
In a statement, Russia’s prosecutor general’s office said that 20-year-old Nikita Zhuravel was accused of sending footage of a freight train carrying warplanes, and information about the movements of a car linked to a Russian military base to a representative of Ukrainian intelligence.
It said Zhuravel had volunteered himself to send the Ukrainian intelligence officer the data.
Reuters was not immediately able to identify a lawyer representing Zhuravel in the treason case.
Zhuravel is serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted under Russia’s law against offending religious believers, for publicly burning a Qur’an in his home city of Volgograd.
His case drew international attention last year when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov published a video in which his son Adam was shown beating and kicking the defendant while he was in prison awaiting trial.
Russian investigators had earlier transferred his case to Chechnya. The Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, said this was because they received many messages from residents of the heavily Muslim region asking to be designated injured parties.

Topics: Russia

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Armed assailants kill four in attack on Mexico rehab center

Updated 03 October 2024
AFP
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Armed assailants kill four in attack on Mexico rehab center

  • The attack took place in Salamanca in the central state of Guanajuato on Tuesday night
  • Guanajuato is Mexico’s most violent state, according to official homicide statistics
Updated 03 October 2024
AFP

CELAYA, Mexico: Armed assailants attacked a drug rehabilitation center in Mexico, killing four people and wounding five others, local authorities said Wednesday.
The attack took place in Salamanca in the central state of Guanajuato on Tuesday night, the municipal government said in a statement.
Police and the National Guard “initiated a chase to find those responsible,” but the attackers escaped by throwing down metal spikes to puncture the tires of security forces in pursuit, it said.
Police said three bodies of those killed were found inside the rehab center while a fourth was found in the street.
No suspects have been arrested yet.
Disputes between drug gangs have led to rehab centers being targeted in several attacks in Mexico.
Authorities say some rehab centers are used as safe havens by suspected members of criminal groups, who are attacked by their rivals when found.
Guanajuato is Mexico’s most violent state, according to official homicide statistics, due to fighting between the local Santa Rosa de Lima cartel and the powerful Jalisco New Generation.
Mexico has recorded more than 450,000 murders since December 2006, when a controversial military anti-drug operation was launched.

Topics: Mexico

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Six migrants including Pakistanis shot dead by Mexican troops near Guatemalan border

Updated 03 October 2024
AP
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Six migrants including Pakistanis shot dead by Mexican troops near Guatemalan border

  • Soldiers opened fire on truck carrying migrants from Egypt, Nepal, Cuba, India, Pakistan, one other country
  • Soldiers then approached the truck and found four of the migrants dead and 12 wounded
Updated 03 October 2024
AP

MEXICO CITY: Six international migrants are dead after Mexican soldiers opened fire on a truck carrying a group near the border with Guatemala, Mexico’s Defense Department said Wednesday.

The department said in a statement that soldiers claimed they heard shots as the trucks and two other vehicles approached their position late Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas, near the town of Huixtla.

Two soldiers opened fire on the truck, which was carrying migrants from Egypt, Nepal, Cuba, India, Pakistan and at least one other country. Soldiers then approached the truck and found four of the migrants dead, and 12 wounded.

Two of the wounded later died of their injuries. There was no immediate information on the condition of the other 10.

Local prosecutors confirmed all the victims died of gunshot wounds. The Defense Department did not say whether the migrants died as a result of army fire, or whether any weapons were found in the truck.

There were 17 other migrants in the truck who were unharmed. The vehicle was carrying a total of 33 migrants. The area is common route for smuggling migrants, who are often packed into crowded freight trucks.

The department said the two soldiers who opened fire were relieved of duty pending investigations. In Mexico, any incident involving civilians is subject to civilian prosecution, but soldiers can also face military courts martial for those offenses.

It is not the first time Mexican forces have opened fire on vehicles carrying migrants in the area, which is also the object of turf battles between warring drug cartels.

In the same area in 2021, the quasi-military National Guard opened fire on a pickup truck carrying migrants, killing one and wounding four.

Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist who has frequently accompanied caravans of migrants in that area of Chiapas, said he doubted the migrants or their smugglers opened fire.

“It is really impossible that these people would have been shooting at the army,” Mujica said. “Most of the time, they get through by paying bribes.”

The UN agency for refugees in Mexico, known as the ACNUR, wrote that it “expresses its concern about the events in Chiapas,” noting “people in migration are exposed to great risks during their journey, and that is why it is indispensable they have legal means of access, travel, and integration to avoid tragedies like these.”

If the deaths were the result of army fire, as appears likely, it could prove a major embarrassment for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office Tuesday.

Sheinbaum has followed the lead of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in giving the armed forces extraordinary powers in law enforcement, state-run companies , airports, trains and construction projects.

Topics: Guatemalan border Mexico

Taiwan shuts down for second day as Typhoon Krathon to land

Updated 03 October 2024
AFP
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Taiwan shuts down for second day as Typhoon Krathon to land

  • Krathon packs sustained wind speeds of 126 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 162kph
  • Across Taiwan, nearly 10,000 people had been evacuated as of Thursday
Updated 03 October 2024
AFP

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan: Taiwan shut down schools and offices for a second day Thursday as Typhoon Krathon pounded the island before its expected landfall, leaving two dead and more than 100 injured.
Krathon, packing sustained wind speeds of 126 kilometers (78 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 162 kph — was 30 kilometers southwest of southern Kaohsiung at 10:00 am (0200 GMT), according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA).
“The center of the typhoon is forecast to make landfall around noon, near southern Tainan, Kaohsiung or Pingtung. The time has been delayed as it’s moving very slowly,” forecaster Chang Chun-yao said.
While CWA chief Cheng Chia-ping said Wednesday that the typhoon was expected to weaken rapidly after landing, residents of Kaohsiung were urged to take shelter.
“There will be winds of destructive force caused by typhoon in this area. Take shelter ASAP,” the CWA said in a warning sent three times to residents’ mobile phones Thursday.
Kaohsiung’s mayor, Chen Chi-mai, told reporters the city was experiencing “the strongest winds” and that he expected the typhoon to make landfall by 1 pm.
“We urge residents not to go out unless necessary,” he said. “So far, Kaohsiung has recorded 356 disaster cases, mostly falling trees and advertising signs.”
Torrential rain and powerful winds unleashed on the island have already left at least two people dead, two missing and 123 injured, said the National Fire Agency.
A 70-year-old man was rushed to hospital on Tuesday after he fell while trimming trees in eastern Hualien county and died in hospital the next day.
And a 66-year-old man, hospitalized in nearby Taitung on Monday after his truck hit a huge rock that had fallen onto the road, also died Wednesday.
Krathon has disrupted traffic, causing all domestic flights to be suspended for a second day and the cancelation of around 240 international flights.
Across Taiwan, nearly 10,000 people had been evacuated as of Thursday, according to the interior ministry.
Krathon has caused mudslides and flooding, and damaged houses and roads in some areas as it slowly moves toward Taiwan, officials and reports said.
In Kaohsiung, strong gusts swept three motorcyclists to the ground as they were driving, while swaying buildings, shattering windows in some buildings and uprooting trees.
Powerful waves pounded the coast of nearby Pingtung county, with some seawater spilling onto a road and causing it to collapse in two places, TV footage showed.
In New Taipei city in the island’s north, where rain and wind was intensifying, a mudslide sent a large rock tumbling down onto a temple near a slope, partially smashing its roof, SET TV reported.
Taiwan is accustomed to frequent tropical storms from July to October, but experts say climate change has increased their intensity, leading to heavy rains, flash floods and strong gusts.
In July, Gaemi became the strongest typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in eight years, killing at least 10 people, injuring hundreds, and triggering widespread flooding in Kaohsiung.
The storm was approaching Taiwan after slamming into a remote group of Philippine islands, where it cut power and communications and damaged “many” houses, according to a local mayor.

Topics: weather Taiwan typhoon

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