Update: Ashcroft has issued a statement denying ever controlling the trust reported on by the BBC and the Guardian.
The Queen is also a Duke, and that Duke is in hot water.
“Dear dear dear dear.”
On Sept. 3, 2017, around 180,000 members of German far-right Facebook groups found something unusual when they logged on.
Joseph Mifsud is an enigma. The Maltese academic has admitted to The Daily Telegraph (paywall) that he is the mysterious professor at the center of Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos’s attempts to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. But he insists he has a “clear conscience” and fervently denies Papdopolous’s claim that he knew the “Russians had obtained ‘dirt’ on then-candidate Clinton.”
Trump campaign foreign-policy advisor George Papadopoulos’ relationship with a mysterious unnamed professor was at the center of the first guilty plea in special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia campaign meddling.
George Papadopoulos, a Donald Trump presidential campaign aide, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of when he learned that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton and his contact with an unnamed professor connected to Russian government officials and a woman he wrongly believed to be Russian president Vladimir Putin’s niece, according to a 14-page Statement of the Offense (pdf) issued as part of special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into 2016 campaign meddling.
Bill Browder used to be Russia’s biggest foreign investor; now he is one of its harshest critics. The Russian government tried three times between 2012 and 2015 to get Interpol, the international policing organization, to issue a global “red notice” for Browder—a request for other countries to arrest him.
Donald Trump’s love of morning show Fox & Friends is no secret (paywall). Nor is his “billionaire bromance” with media mogul and Fox owner Rupert Murdoch.
Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan didn’t mince his words last month when reflecting on why the biggest banking scandal of 2016 was caused by his firm: ”We had an incentive plan in our retail banking group that drove inappropriate behavior,” he said.
When Donald Trump’s cabinet was criticized for having more white men (paywall) than any president’s first cabinet since Ronald Reagan, his then-spokesman Sean Spicer said we should wait to see the numbers for the whole bureaucracy.
When US national security advisor HR McMaster spoke yesterday (Oct.19), press reports focused on his strained relationship with senator John McCain and details an attack in Niger that killed four US soldiers earlier this month.
With her election to the helm of New Zealand’s government today (Oct. 19), Jacinda Ardern became the world’s twelfth 30-something head of state or government.
The pattern of illegal money flowing from the developing world to the West has been well-established.
Russian independent media are having an impressive week in exposing how the country’s government allegedly tried to influence the US 2016 elections using online trolls.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of 100-plus NGOs from around the world, just won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize (Oct. 6), as the Norwegian Nobel Committee throws its weight behind the United Nations’ attempt to pass a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
As police search for a motive for Stephen Paddock’s massacre of dozens of people in Las Vegas this week, one detail shouldn’t come as a surprise—Paddock had a habit of berating his girlfriend in public.
In responding to the mass shooting in Las Vegas, police made two public pleas that likely wouldn’t have arisen 10 years ago:
The tax reform plan Donald Trump announced yesterday (pdf) is a dream for many of his wealthy Republican backers. It will likely let them keep millions of dollars away from the Treasury by eliminating the alternative minimum tax (which essentially prevents rich people from claiming too many tax breaks) and the estate tax, while slashing the rates rate paid by corporations and by the richest individuals.
Donald Trump framed his tax reform bill as “historic tax relief to the American people” in a speech in Indiana today. What the US president didn’t mention was it would deliver a much bigger dose of relief for US multinationals that have been stashing their non-US earnings offshore for years.
Update on 9:50pm ET: The Associated Press reports that Roy Moore won Alabama’s Republican senate primary Tuesday (Oct. 27) evening, defeating senator Luther Strange, who was backed by US president Donald Trump. Moore will face Democrat Doug Jones in a general election on Dec. 12.
There are signs that Mexico and Canada are increasingly less worried by the idea of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) falling apart.
Rich Western countries’ use of the UN as forum to lecture everyone else on human rights is one of the most well-worn—and valid—criticisms of the body.
US president Donald Trump’s isolationist speech at the UN general assembly yesterday has created what marketing types would call a positioning opportunity in the geopolitical space—or in other words, a scramble to be the next leader of the free world. Yesterday it was French president Emmanuel Macron. Today Iranian president Hassan Rouhani peppered his UN speech with mentions of “moderation” in contrast to Trump’s emphasis on “sovereignty.” And now Brussels is getting in on the game too.
