WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has drawn a new accusation of bank fraud from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, according to court documents made public on Friday. Paul Manafort leaves U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., February 14, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis The new accusation, related to a property Manafort owns in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Virginia, comes on top of the indictment against Manafort last October for money laundering and failure to register as a foreign agent. In a court filing amid legal wrangling over Manafort’s $10 million bail package, prosecutors from Mueller’s office said Manafort submitted false information to a bank for a mortgage on one of three properties he is now proposing to pledge as security for his release. “The proposed package is deficient in the government’s view, in light of additional criminal conduct that we have learned since the court’s initial bail determination,” the prosecutors said in the filing, which disputes Manafort’s latest bail offer. “That criminal conduct includes a series of bank frauds and bank fraud conspiracies, including criminal conduct relating to the mortgage on the Fairfax property, which Manafort seeks to pledge.” Prosecutors said in the redacted filing that they had evidence that Manafort secured the $9 million mortgage from the Federal Savings Bank through false representations, including “doctored profit and lost statements” that overstated the property’s income by “millions of dollars.” The document does not level any new specific criminal charges against Manafort over the accusations. Manafort’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The earlier charges against Manafort stem from Mueller’s probe of allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Separately on Friday, Mueller’s office charged 13 Russians and three Russian companies with a criminal and espionage conspiracy to tamper with the election and “sow discord in the U.S. political system.” Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Lisa ShumakerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Rahul Gandhi has resigned as leader of India's main opposition Congress party, ending weeks of speculation.In his resignation letter, which he tweeted on Wednesday, he took responsibility for the party's defeat in the recent general election.He had already announced his intention to resign, but party leaders had hoped to change his mind.Mr Gandhi's father, grandmother and great grandfather were all former prime ministers. In the letter he added that while he had no "hatred or anger" towards India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), "every living cell in my body instinctively resists their idea of India" which he said was based on differences and hatred. Is this the end of the Gandhi dynasty? Profile: Rahul Gandhi He also called the impartiality of the election into question, saying that "we didn't fight a political party... we fought the entire machinery of the Indian state".The BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed to victory in the election, winning a massive mandate. The scale of victory stunned the opposition and pundits, who were expecting a much closer race.Mr Gandhi was also the face of Congress when it suffered its worst defeat in 2014, winning just 44 of India's 543 seats. This year it did marginally better with 52 seats, but many still called it a "humiliating performance".Mr Gandhi also lost his own seat in his family constituency of Amethi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, though he is still a MP because he won a second seat in the southern state of Kerala. Since it came to power, the BJP has been accused of targeting minorities and weakening state institutions under Mr Modi's powerful leadership. It has consistently dismissed such allegations. Mr Gandhi's letter has made headlines across the country and #RahulGandhi has begun trending on Twitter in India. The tweets range from sadness and anger at his decision to outright mockery.Others have begun wondering what this could mean for the future of the Congress party.

FILE PHOTO Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump, departs after a hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, U.S., April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File PhotoWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort will be arraigned on Friday following a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that lodged additional charges on accusations of witness tampering. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over Manafort’s criminal case in federal court in Washington, D.C., set the arraignment to coincide with a previously scheduled hearing over whether Manafort’s bail conditions should be revoked in light of the witness tampering accusations. Manafort is currently under house arrest and required to wear GPS monitoring devices. The indictment last week included new counts against Manafort and Manafort aide Konstantin Kilimnika, a political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, for allegedly tampering with witnesses regarding their lobbying for Ukraine. The additional charges could increase pressure on Manafort to cut a deal and cooperate with Mueller’s probe, legal experts said. Friday’s indictment marked the first time that Kilimnik, who in previous court filings was referred to only as “Person A”, was named. Mueller has said Kilimnik has links to Russian spy agencies, which Kilimnik has denied. Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Lisa LambertOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

FILE PHOTO Paul Manafort, former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump, departs after a hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, U.S., April 19, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File PhotoWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort will be arraigned on Friday following a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that lodged additional charges on accusations of witness tampering. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over Manafort’s criminal case in federal court in Washington, D.C., set the arraignment to coincide with a previously scheduled hearing over whether Manafort’s bail conditions should be revoked in light of the witness tampering accusations. Manafort is currently under house arrest and required to wear GPS monitoring devices. The indictment last week included new counts against Manafort and Manafort aide Konstantin Kilimnika, a political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, for allegedly tampering with witnesses regarding their lobbying for Ukraine. The additional charges could increase pressure on Manafort to cut a deal and cooperate with Mueller’s probe, legal experts said. Friday’s indictment marked the first time that Kilimnik, who in previous court filings was referred to only as “Person A”, was named. Mueller has said Kilimnik has links to Russian spy agencies, which Kilimnik has denied. Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Lisa LambertOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Five years ago, Tariq Abdul Haqq was one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most promising young boxers, a Commonwealth Games medallist with Olympic dreams.Now he lies dead somewhere in Iraq or Syria, buried in the ruins of the self-declared caliphate, along with dozens of his countrymen. Together they formed one of the most unlikely, and most underreported groups of fighters drawn to Isis.The tiny Caribbean nation, with a population of just 1.3 million, lies about 10,000km from the former Isis capital in Raqqa. Yet at the bloody peak of the group’s power, Trinidad and Tobago had one of the highest recruitment rates in the world.More than 100 of its citizens left to join Islamic State, including about 70 men who planned to fight and die. They were joined by dozens of children and women, the latter including both willing and unwilling companions, security officials say.By way of comparison: Canada and the US, with populations many times larger, are each thought to have produced fewer than 300 recruits who made the journey east.The power of this story – the flight from a balmy Caribbean island state rich in oil and gas to the frontlines of a desert war – was not lost on the propagandists of Isis.Their Dabiq magazine, aimed at potential recruits and sympathisers, featured a long interview with fighter Abu Sa’d al-Trinidadi – formerly Shane Crawford – in the summer of 2016. He detailed his conversion, his trip to Syria and ended threatening death to Christians and bloodshed in the streets of his former home.An unnerved Trinidad government raced to introduce new controls on travel and finance that would make the journey to any new jihadi project harder, and would track anyone attempting to return.There has never been a terror attack on the islands, a plot uncovered, or even any formal Isis threat against Trinidad and Tobago.But the country now faces the possibility that citizens trained by Isis could return to radicalise a younger generation – or that would-be recruits no longer able to make that dark pilgrimage will seek other targets for extremism.The island has a thriving international oil and gas industry, and for the US there are potential worries about a more direct threat. Trinidad’s citizens can travel through the Caribbean without visas, and a Trinidadian has already been jailed for his role in a 2007 plot to attack New York’s JFK airport.Within a month of taking office, Donald Trump called Trinidad’s prime minister, Keith Rowley, to discuss terrorism. The UK government has also recently warned of possible terrorist attacks in the country – although it issued similar travel warnings for countries including Spain and France.Trinidad’s Muslims make up around one in 10 of the country’s population, and the overwhelming majority follow moderate forms of Islam.But a tiny minority have been drawn to a more extreme creed. In 1990 a group called Jamaat al Muslimeen launched the western hemisphere’s first and only Islamist coup attempt, taking the prime minister and legislators hostage for several days.Eventually the army regained control, but the imam behind the coup, Yasin Abu Bakr, was released from jail within a couple of years under an amnesty deal and has resumed preaching.At a sermon recently attended by the Guardian, Abu Bakr argued that European nations had no moral grounds to criticise Isis beheadings, because of the use of the guillotine during the French revolution. The attorney general, Faris Al Rawi, denied that Trinidad had a particular problem with Isis recruitment or religious extremism.“The number may look larger than somewhere else, but I don’t accept for one moment that we have a problem that is much larger than anywhere else,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think that we are any more vulnerable than any other country is.”For many Trinidadian Isis recruits, religion was more excuse than driving motivation, said anthropologist Dylan Kerrigan, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies.Young men, many of them recent converts, were drawn to the caliphate mostly by promises of money and a sense of community – an appeal similar to that of gangs in an increasingly violent country, he said.“[A gang] provides a family, male role models, social order and it promises access to what many young men might think they want: money, power, women, respect,” said Kerrigan who has researched extremism for UN counter-terrorism units.“[One] imam told me that instead of joining a local gang, some see traveling to the Middle East as like joining another gang.”Al Rawi said a string of new measures, including intelligence sharing with the US, UK and Israel, mean it will be very hard for those who have left to slip back into Trinidad undetected.People who knew some of the Isis volunteers say most of them – and some of their dependents – are dead. The only Trinidadians known to have returned to the island were a family group picked up from a Turkish refugee camp, after apparently trying and failing to reach Isis-held territory. They are now under close surveillance, Faris said.He dismissed concerns about further radicalisation, arguing that many of those who travelled to Syria were simply criminals looking to return with an extra edge over rivals.“There are many people who are willing to make a trip to a war-torn area just to say you have been there – for the ‘cred’,” he said. “You have to disaggregate the genuine jihadi – who may potentially die as a martyr for a cause – from a pure criminal borrowing the look and persona of terrorism.”Joining Isis may also have offered a practical escape to those facing the law. Before he was lionized in Dabiq, Shane Crawford, was a petty criminal who had been detained several times including on suspicion of planning to assassinate the then prime minister. He travelled to Syria with two friends who had been released from jail pending an investigation.But some members of prominent families were drawn in too – perhaps none more high-profile than boxer Tariq Abdul Haqq. His aunt, Pamela Elder, is one of the country’s most respected lawyers and his father Yacoob Abdul Haqq had been a senior boxing official until his 2012 death.Abdul Haqq was also an acquaintance of Fuad Abu Bakr, the son and heir apparent of the 1990 coup leader Abu Bakr. The schools, clinics, soup kitchens and factories that filled Jamaat al Muslimeen’s compound were mostly destroyed after Abu Bakr senior’s arrest, but the government spared his large, airy mosque, where both father and son now teach. There is space for hundreds of men to pray from the main floor, and dozens of women to gather on a balcony to hear Friday sermons.A preacher and politician, Fuad appears to have inherited his father’s extreme religious views along with his imposing height and charisma.In an interview with the Guardian he described the men who went to fight for Isis in glowing terms, and slammed a new law banning child marriage as a violation of religious rights. He dismissed reports of Isis brutality, denied that the jihadi group’s widely documented revival of sexual slavery was real, and compared the organisation’s self-declared caliphate to Israel and the Vatican.“They want independence and an Islamic State, and they have the right to self-determination … so how can you say to these people that you cannot have an Islamic State because that is not an acceptable political status? There is a Jewish State, there is a Catholic state.”Bakr said he knew several of those who travelled to Syria. Saying that he had to choose his words carefully when discussing their journeys, to avoid violating Trinidadian laws against supporting terrorism, he was still open in his admiration.“They are not bad people, they are some of the most excellent people I knew, some of them,” he said. “People from all walks of life, businessmen, who just decided this is the right thing to do.”Then, in an extraordinary invocation of one of the greatest champions of non-violent resistance, he paraphrased lines from a 1963 speech by Martin Luther King Jr in tribute to the Trinidadians who signed up for Isis’s project of extreme violence.“Martin Luther King said a man who is not willing to die for something is not really fit to live, and I respect someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of their fellow man, and that is what those individuals think they are doing.” Topics Trinidad and Tobago Islamic State Religion Islam Americas features

HONG KONG/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia has banned Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] from supplying equipment for a 5G mobile network citing national security risks, a move the Chinese telecoms gear maker criticized as being “politically motivated”. The ban, announced on Thursday, signals a hardening of Australia’s stance toward its biggest trading partner at a time when relations between the two have soured over Canberra’s allegations of Chinese meddling in its politics. This is also in line with measures taken by the United States to restrict Huawei and compatriot ZTE Corp (000063.SZ) from its lucrative market for similar reasons. Australia said in an emailed statement on Thursday that national security regulations typically applied to telecom carriers would now be extended to equipment suppliers. Firms “who are likely to be subject to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government” would leave the nation’s network vulnerable to unauthorized access or interference, and presented a security risk, the statement said. The statement did not identify the Chinese firm, but an Australian government official said the order was aimed at Huawei and precluded its involvement in the network. Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications network gear, shot back on Friday saying the 5G ban was “politically motivated” and that it had never been asked to engage in intelligence work on behalf of any government. “Chinese law does not grant government the authority to compel telecommunications firms to install backdoors, listening devices, or engage in any behavior that might compromise the telecommunications equipment of other nations,” it added. Huawei, already a supplier of 4G network in Australia, also pointed out that there was no fundamental difference between 4G and 5G architecture and that the latter provides stronger guarantees around privacy and security. Western intelligence agencies, however, have for years raised concerns about Huawei’s ties to China’s government and the possibility its equipment could be used for espionage. While there is no evidence to back this suspicion, Chinese law does require organizations and citizens to support, assist and cooperate with intelligence work. “That’s what you get when you have the aligned strategy of a Chinese company with the Chinese government,” said John Watters, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer of cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc (FEYE.O). “(Australia) basically made a decision to spend more money to have more control over their national communication system, because they’re up against a competitor that will sacrifice near-term margin for long-term intelligence advantage.” China expressed concern over Australia’s Huawei 5G ban and said Canberra should not use the excuse of national security to erect barriers and conduct discriminatory practices. “We urge the Australian government to abandon ideological prejudices and provide a fair competitive environment for Chinese companies’ operations in Australia,” foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news briefing on Thursday. The commerce ministry said Australia had made a wrong decision that would negatively impact companies in both nations. Australia had previously banned Huawei from providing equipment for its fiber-optic network and moved to block it from laying submarine cables in the Pacific. But Huawei’s exclusion from the mobile network comes at a time of particularly strained relations between Australia and China, which outgoing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had two weeks ago sought to reset with a conciliatory speech. A Huawei shop is pictured in Singapore August 8, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su“It is ... out of step with this attempt to reset the relationship,” said James Leibold, Associate Professor of Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe University. “They’re not going to forget Turnbull’s earlier strident language anytime soon,” he said. Turnbull will be replaced as prime minister by Treasurer Scott Morrison who won a Liberal party leadership vote on Friday. Reporting by Tom Westbrook and Byron Kaye in SYDNEY; Additional reporting by Sijia Jiang in HONG KONG, Jonathan Barrett in SYDNEY and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Darren Schuettler, Alexandra Hudson and Himani SarkarOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The first trailer has landed for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, a fact-based drama about an undercover cop infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan in the 1970s.The film stars former American football player and Ballers star John David Washington as black detective Ron Stallworth, who worked together with a white cop, played by Adam Driver, to take down the Colorado arm of the racist organization. Stallworth eventually became the head of the local chapter.“Ron Stallworth is reading the paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Klan put an ad in the paper that they needed new members,” Lee explained in a recent Tribeca film festival panel. “Ron Stallworth thinks that it’s a goof so he calls up and, thinking it’s a joke, leaves his real name and phone number on a voicemail – and the Klan calls back. They say, ‘We want you to come down.’ Since he’s an African American, he can’t really show up for the interview. He has to get a white police officer to play him, and that’s Adam Driver.”The film is premiering in competition at the Cannes film festival and is based on Stallworth’s memoir. It’s produced by Jordan Peele, who won the Oscar for best original screenplay for his hit satirical thriller Get Out.“I was just blown away,” Peele said to the Hollywood Reporter when he first heard the story. “I couldn’t believe I had never heard about it. It’s one of these pieces of reality that almost plays like social satire. So, I was immediately obsessed with this story.”Pre-production on the film began as events in Charlottesville took place last year and Peele said the timing couldn’t be any more “urgent” for this story to be told. The US release date of 10 August also coincides with the beginning of James Fields Jr’s trial, the man Lee refers to as “the motherfucker psychopath who plows his car down through a crowded street and killed Heather Heyer”.It’s Lee’s first traditional feature film since 2015’s Chi-Raq, having directed theater/cinema hybrids Rodney King and Pass Over since. He also remade his 1986 comedy She’s Gotta Have It as a Netflix series in 2017. BlacKkKlansman will be released in the US on 10 August and in the UK on 24 August. Topics Spike Lee Adam Driver Race Drama films Jordan Peele BlacKkKlansman news

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Russian intelligence officer who worked with U.S. President Donald Trump’s former top campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates was communicating with Gates late in the 2016 presidential campaign, according to court records filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. The connection between Gates and the former intelligence officer, identified only as “Person A” in the records filed late on Tuesday, is significant because criminal charges brought against Gates and Manafort relate only to their lobbying work for Ukraine prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and do not delve into their activities during the campaign. “The fact that an official who had an important role in the Trump campaign alongside (Paul) Manafort was dealing with an individual who he knew was tied to Russian intelligence is a big deal, as is the fact that Mueller decided to put that card face up on the table at this time,” said a person familiar with Mueller’s investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “He’s playing chess, and moving that piece now suggests that no matter what Trump is saying about no collusion, that part of the investigation is still very much alive.” The Russian government has denied meddling in the 2016 election, and Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign. Gates pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI and conspiring to defraud the United States, and he has agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether there was any collusion with Moscow by Trump’s campaign. An attorney for Gates did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to charges in two indictments filed by Mueller’s office. The charges range from bank fraud and filing false tax returns to conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent when he lobbied for the pro-Russian government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Lawyers for Manafort are seeking to dismiss the charges, arguing they have nothing to do with Russian interference and fall outside the scope of what Mueller is supposed to investigate, among other things. A spokesman for Manafort, who is prevented by a court-imposed gag order from talking to the media, declined to comment. FILE PHOTO: Rick Gates, former campaign aide to U.S. President Donald Trump, departs after a bond hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua RobertsGates’ alleged communications with the former intelligence officer were revealed in a sentencing document for former Skadden Arps attorney Alex van der Zwaan. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Gates and the former intelligence officer and is to be sentenced on April 3. In the document, prosecutors said Gates and van der Zwaan were in touch with the ex-Russian intelligence officer, who also worked for Manafort’s lobbying firm in Ukraine, in September and October 2016. The presidential election was in November 2016. They also said that when van der Zwaan was interviewed by the special counsel’s office, he “admitted that he knew” about the Russian connection because Gates had told him about it. The description of Person A in the court records appears to match that of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukrainian who worked for Manafort. In the past, he has denied having ties to Russian intelligence services. Reuters was not able to locate contact information for Kilimnik, and his whereabouts are unknown. The revelation that Gates knew Kilimnik had been a Russian intelligence officer could prove to be the most significant turn in Mueller’s investigation to date, said a person familiar with the probe into whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Kilimnik also acted as an intermediary between Manafort and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In July 2016 Manafort, then chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign, emailed Kilimnik asking him to offer Deripaska “private briefings” about the campaign, according to the Washington Post. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort departs from U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., February 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas Deripaska has since filed a civil lawsuit in New York state court against Gates and Manafort that accuses them of defrauding him out of an investment deal. The lawsuit claims that Kilimnik graduated from the Military Institute of the Defense Ministry in Moscow. It also says that Kilimnik worked for 10 years in the Moscow office of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. government-funded nonprofit. Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Makini Brice; Additional reporting by John Walcott, Mark Hosenball and Nathan Layne; Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia OstermanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

One of Donald Trump’s lawyers discussed the possibility of presidential pardons for two former aides as the special counsel Robert Mueller built cases against them in his investigation into Russian election meddling, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, eventually made a deal with Mueller, pleading guilty to lying to the FBI in exchange for cooperation. Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, maintains his innocence on charges including money laundering and tax and bank fraud.Two other former Trump advisers, the foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos and Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, have entered plea deals.The Times said John Dowd, who resigned as head of Trump’s legal team last week, discussed potential pardons with lawyers representing Flynn and Manafort.Such discussions could raise questions regarding the obstruction of justice, the paper said, although it said there was no evidence Dowd had broached the subject with Trump.Citing three anonymous sources, the Times also said Trump had asked aides about the extent of his pardoning power.A spokesman for Manafort declined to comment. The White House denied the report. Dowd told the Times: “There were no discussions. Period. As far as I know, no discussions.”At the daily press briefing, the White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders repeatedly referred to a statement from Trump’s attorney Ty Cobb.“I have only been asked about pardons by the press and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the White House,” Cobb told the Times.Dowd resigned shortly after calling for the Mueller investigation to be shut down and having to clarify that he was not speaking for the president.Sanders said she was not “aware of any specific actions” Dowd may have taken that may have displeased the president. Trump has struggled to appoint new lawyers to his team dealing with the Mueller inquiry.Sanders also repeated Trump’s denial of collusion with Russia in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 election in his favour.It has been reported that Mueller, who has also indicted 13 Russian nationals, is concentrating on whether Trump has attempted to obstruct justice.Mueller was appointed after Trump fired James Comey as director of the FBI, a move the president told NBC was made in part because of “this Russia thing” and which Comey has testified came after the president pressed him to drop an investigation of Flynn. Mueller is also reported to be interested in the president’s role in drafting a misleading statement about a meeting between aides including Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Manafort, and Russians promising compromising information on Hillary Clinton at Trump Tower in June 2016.On Wednesday afternoon George Conway, the husband of Trump’s aide Kellyanne Conway who was considered for the role of solicitor general, said of the Times story: “This is flabbergasting.” Topics Trump-Russia investigation Robert Mueller Paul Manafort Michael Flynn Donald Trump Russia Europe news

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his deputy, Rick Gates, were in contact during the 2016 presidential campaign with a business associate known to have ties to Russian military intelligence, according to court documents.The documents, filed late on Tuesday night by the special prosecutor Robert Mueller, also state that Gates had admitted knowing that the associate was a former officer with Russian military intelligence, the GRU.The description of the associate, referred to as Person A in the court papers, closely matches the Russian manager of the Ukraine offices of Manafort’s former lobbying business, Konstantin Kilimnik. Previous court documents filed by Mueller’s team have described Person A as “a longtime Russian colleague … who is currently based in Russia and assessed to have ties to a Russian intelligence service”. These court papers go further, explicitly naming the GRU, and stating closely that the ties remained active during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Kilimnik has denied ties with Russian intelligence, but served in the army and attended a military foreign language university which is widely viewed as a training ground for GRU officers. Manafort was in touch with Kilimnik during the 2016 campaign, offering to provide briefings to Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-backed Russian oligarch.Manafort has pleaded not guilty to money-laundering and fraud charges related to work his business did for Moscow-backed politicians. Gates, who was Manafort’s right-hand man in the Trump campaign and in the lobbying business, has struck a plea deal, admitting conspiracy and lying to the FBI, and agreeing to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation into Trump campaign links with the Kremlin.The court documents are a sentencing memorandum in the case against Alex van der Zwaan, a London-based lawyer who carried out work on behalf of Manafort’s lobbying efforts in Ukraine. He has pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts in 2016 with Gates and Person A.The Mueller memorandum states: “That Gates and Person A were directly communicating in September and October 2016 was pertinent to the investigation. Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents assisting the special counsel’s office assess that Person A has ties to Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”The document adds: “During his first interview with the special counsel’s office, Van der Zwaan admitted that he knew of that connection, stating that Gates told him Person A was a former Russian intelligence officer with GRU.” Topics Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort US politics Trump administration Donald Trump news

The far-right frontrunner to become Brazil’s next president has insisted he will not moderate his combative rhetoric or become a “peace and love” candidate as he continues his push to become leader of Latin America’s largest democracy.Jair Bolsonaro, a pro-dictatorship former army captain, secured nearly 50m votes in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday – about 46% of the total and just short of the outright majority needed to claim victory. The 63-year-old populist will now face off against the runner-up, the Workers’ party candidate, Fernando Haddad, in a second-round runoff on 28 October.Experts predict political pyrotechnics between now and then as the two men lock horns on their dramatically different visions for Brazil. In a 20-minute interview with the Brazilian radio station Jovem Pan on Monday, his first since the previous day’s triumph, Bolsonaro said he hoped to return to active campaigning soon, after his recent near-fatal stabbing, and would continue to insist on being tough on crime and tough on the left.“Our discourse will basically stay the same – one of union. We need to unify Brazil, to pacify it,” he said. “We have flirted too much with the left over the past 20 years. It’s time to move to the centre-right.”Asked whether he would continue his “conservative preaching” or lean towards the centre ground to attract new voters, Bolsonaro said: “I can’t just suddenly become ‘Little Peace and Love Jair’ … I’ve got to carry on being the same person.“Of course, we sometimes use synonyms,” he said of his reputation for making incendiary and offensive comments about Brazil’s black and gay communities and women. “I used to use swear-words now and again. I don’t any more.”Glauco Peres, a political scientist at the University of São Paulo, predicted that in the absence of concrete policy proposals, fear would remain Bolsonaro’s main weapon as the second round approached.“I think Bolsonaro will carry on doing what he’s doing. I don’t think he has to change much,” Peres said. “He’ll keep hammering away at this idea of fear … that the PT [Partido dos Trabalhadores or Workers’ party] represents a step backwards into corruption scandals and having criminals in government.”The far-right candidate did precisely that on Monday, as Haddad travelled to southern Brazil to meet with his political patron, the jailed former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to discuss his second-round strategy. “It’s up to you,” Bolsonaro tweeted to his 1.6m followers. “You can be governed by somebody who is clean, or by the stooge of someone who is in prison for corruption!”Experts and supporters say one of Haddad’s most urgent tasks, if he is to roll back what one newspaper called Bolsonaro’s “conservative tsunami”, is to build an anti-Bolsonaro alliance stretching across the political spectrum.“In order to achieve the miracle of turning this around, Haddad’s mission is now to form a democratic front,” Ricardo Kotscho, a veteran journalist with ties to Lula and the PT, wrote in an essay pondering how Brazil might be saved from the “tragedy” of “Bolsonarismo”. “If everyone comes together, it will be possible to reverse Sunday’s reactionary wave,” and prevent Brazil returning to “the uniformed darkness of the past”.To do that, Kotscho said Haddad needed to have “the grandeur to seek the support of all those who didn’t leap into the Messianic captain’s boat … in order to expand his electorate and isolate the far right.”On Sunday night, Haddad signalled immediately that he would look to build such a bloc. “We want to bring together Brazil’s democrats,” he told supporters in a speech that concluded with the rally crying: “Long live Brazil! Long live democracy!”But securing that support may not be straightforward – or even effective.“I just don’t think it will work,” said Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly. “If a huge group of well-known politicians lines up behind Haddad, all Bolsonaro has to do is point at them and say: ‘See! The corrupt establishment is with him’ – and it’s over.”“People [have] decided to deposit their hope in Bolsonaro. They see in him the promise of an end to the chaos of the last four years. And in that mindset, Bolsonaro becomes the future and Haddad is the past.”Monica de Bolle, the director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, said she expected Bolsonaro to come under heavy fire from Haddad and other defeated presidential candidates over the coming weeks, above all for his disdain for democracy.“But attacks on Bolsonaro have tended to strengthen him,” she added. “So I’m not quite sure how that works.” Topics Brazil Jair Bolsonaro The far right Americas news

Frustration among opposition protesters in Hong Kong boiled over on Monday, with one group laying siege to the legislative council building and tens of thousands of others marching through the city to demand expanded democracy on the 22nd anniversary of the former British colony’s return to China.

(Reuters) - An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday narrowly recommended prescribing the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone, along with addictive painkillers. FILE PHOTO: The drug Naloxone sits on a table during a free Opioid Overdose Prevention Training class provided by Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York, U.S., April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew KellyThe panel voted 12-11 in favor of labeling changes for opioids that recommend co-prescribing the overdose antidote, concluding a two-day discussion on ways to make the potentially life-saving drug readily available. The recommendation underscores concerns about the growing opioid overdose epidemic that claimed more than 49,000 American lives last year. When administered quickly, naloxone helps reverse the effects of an overdose and saves lives. The prescription of naloxone could facilitate a healthy dialogue between patients and the healthcare provider, Maryann Amirshahi, a panel member who voted in favor, said. But co-prescribing naloxone to all patients who are prescribed painkillers could increase annual healthcare costs by $63.9 billion to $580.8 billion, according to FDA studies. “I think co-prescribing is an expensive way to saturate the population with naloxone. The at-risk population is not necessarily the ones that are being prescribed new narcotics,” said Mary Ellen McCann, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, a panelist who voted against the decision. “I’m concerned about a person going in with a broken arm and ending up with $30 of a codeine product and a (naloxone) autoinjector at $4,000 plus.” Branded versions for treating opioid overdose include Adapt Pharma’s Narcan nasal spray and Kaleo Inc’s Evzio autoinjector. Robert Kramer, chief operating officer of Emergent BioSolutions Inc (EBS.N), which bought Adapt Pharma this year, said the FDA’s cost estimates were “inflated”, adding the number includes the price of Narcan and Kaleo’s Evzio, which has a list price of over $4,000. The list price is not necessarily what patients actually pay and “out-of-pocket” costs vary depending on the duration of the treatment and individual healthcare plans. A pack of Narcan containing two doses lists at a price of $125, while generic naloxone retails at around $40 per dose. “A fully implemented co-prescription program targeting opioid prescription associated with the highest risk of opioid overdose would cost an estimated $115 million per year as opposed to the $64 billion number,” Kramer said. Kaleo announced last week an authorized generic of Evzio, which will be available at a list price of $178 for a pack of two doses. Naloxone is currently made available through distribution and prescription programs in pain clinics and opioid treatment centers, as well as “take-home” programs among high-risk patients. Reporting by Saumya Sibi Joseph and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel and Sriraj KalluvilaOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

20:03 | 06/15/18 | NR | CC 2 people fall 34 feet from derailed roller coaster; Kansas family may need to pay for $132,000 after son topples statue Continue Reading

WASHINGTON/PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to close the U.S. border with Mexico next week, potentially disrupting millions of legal border crossings and billions of dollars in trade, if Mexico does not stop immigrants from reaching the United States. “There’s a very good likelihood that I’ll be closing the border next week, and that will be just fine with me,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump has repeatedly said he would close the U.S. border with Mexico during his two years in office and has not followed through. However, this time the government says it is struggling to deal with a surge of asylum seekers from countries in Central America who travel through Mexico. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials warned that traffic with Mexico could slow as the agency shifts 750 border personnel from ports of entry to help process asylum seekers who are turning up between official crossing points. “Make no mistake: Americans may feel effects from this emergency,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. Nielsen said the personnel shift would lead to commercial delays and longer waiting times at crossing points. Some of those delays were already being felt on both sides of the international border. On Friday afternoon, the wait was longer than usual on the Mexican side of the crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, with long lines of freight trucks carrying goods from Mexican factories into the United States, according to a Reuters witness. One driver said she had been stuck in line for three hours on her way to her job in the United States. Nielsen and other U.S. officials say border patrol officers have been overwhelmed by a dramatic increase in asylum seekers, many of them children and families who arrive in large groups fleeing violence and economic hardship in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Related CoverageTrump says it is very likely he'll close border with MexicoAfter Trump border threat, Mexico says doesn't act on threatsMarch is on track for 100,000 border apprehensions, DHS officials said, which would be the highest monthly number in more than a decade. Most of those people can remain in the United States while their asylum claims are processed, which can take years because of ballooning immigration court backlogs. Nielsen warned Congress on Thursday that the government faces a “system-wide meltdown” as it tries to care for more than 1,200 unaccompanied children and 6,600 migrant families in its custody. Mexico played down the possibility of a border shutdown. “Mexico does not act on the basis of threats. We are a great neighbor,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter. Mexican Senator Ricardo Monreal, who leads President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s party in the chamber, said in a statement on Friday he would seek to send a diplomatic note to the U.S. Congress criticizing what he called Trump’s “xenophobic attitudes.” It was not clear how shutting down ports of entry would deter asylum seekers because they are legally able to request help as soon as they set foot on U.S. soil. But a border shutdown would disrupt tourism and commerce between the United States and its third-largest trading partner, with trade totaling $612 billion last year according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A general view shows vehicles queued to cross the Cordova-Americas international border crossing bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez“We’d be looking at losses worth billions of dollars,” said Kurt Honold, head of CCE, a business group in Tijuana, Mexico, in response to Trump’s threat. “It’s obvious he’s not measuring what he says.” A shutdown could lead to factory closures on both sides of the border, industry officials say, because the automobiles and medical sectors have woven international supply chains into their business models. “We are Siamese twins - we are so entangled together,” said Alan Russell, chief executive of the Tecma Group, an outsourcing firm. Lean hog futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell 5.7 percent on worries that the border closure would disrupt exports to the top U.S. pork market. U.S. ports of entry recorded 193 million pedestrian and vehicle-passenger crossings last year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. As president, Trump has legal authority to close particular ports of entry but he could be open to a legal challenge if he decided to close all of them immediately, said Stephen Legomsky, a former chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump is trying to convince Congress to sign off on a revised trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that his administration negotiated last year. Trump launched his presidential bid in June 2015 with a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, saying Mexico was sending rapists and drug runners into the United States. He said on Friday Mexico should do more to prevent Central American migrants from reaching the United States. Slideshow (13 Images)“It’s very easy for them to stop people from coming up, but they don’t choose to do it,” he said. Lopez Obrador said on Thursday tackling illegal immigration was an issue chiefly for the United States and the Central American countries to address. Trump has so far been unable to convince Congress to tighten asylum laws or fund a proposed border wall, one of his signature policies. He has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for building a wall. Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by David Alexander and Andy Sullivan in Washington, Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, Karl Plume in Chicago and Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso, Jose Luis Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s former election campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was sent to jail pending trial on Friday after being charged with witness tampering, the latest episode in his long fall from grace. Manafort, a long-time Republican operative and businessman, is a target of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election, and has been indicted on mostly financial-related charges, including conspiring to launder money and defraud the United States. He pleaded not guilty on those charges and had been on home confinement in Virginia, required to wear an electronic monitoring device. Mueller last week charged him with witness tampering in the case. Manafort pleaded not guilty to that charge on Friday but U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington revoked his bail, sending him to jail. “I have no appetite for this ... But in the end, I cannot turn a blind eye,” she said. “You’ve abused the trust placed in you.” Manafort turned around briefly to wave to his wife before heading out a door at the back of the crowded courtroom, witnesses said. Manafort’s spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on the decision. Manafort’s legal defense fund asked in a Twitter post, “Why is he the target of a partisan investigation?” echoing a theme of Trump and his supporters that the Mueller inquiry is a political witch hunt. Trump said it was unfair to send Manafort to jail. “Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort,” Trump wrote on Twitter even though Manafort has not been sentenced - he has not been convicted on any of the charges. “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob,” Trump wrote. “Very unfair!” Mueller, whose investigation has overshadowed Trump’s presidency, is looking into whether any Trump campaign associates coordinated with Russia and if Trump unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe. Moscow denies U.S. intelligence agency allegations that it interfered in the election and Trump denies collusion. Manafort is due to go on trial in Washington in September and faces another trial on related charges in Virginia in July. None of Manafort’s charges refer to the allegations of Russian meddling and largely pre-date the two months he worked as Trump campaign head during which the businessman and former reality TV star won the Republican Party nomination. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives for arraignment on a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S. June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstManafort has ties to a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. The charges against him in Washington include failing to register as a foreign agent for the pro-Russia Ukrainian government under former President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort resigned in August 2016 following a news report he had received possibly illegal payments from Yanukovych’s political party. Hours after Manafort’s bail was revoked on Friday, Mueller’s office told the court it would introduce evidence at trial that Manafort sought to circumvent Ukrainian public procurement law by masking the size of payments to a U.S. law firm that wrote a report aimed at discrediting Yanukovych’s chief political rival. A June 8 indictment accused Manafort and a longtime aide, Konstantin Kilimnik, with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine. Kilimnik, whom Mueller’s office says has ties to Russian intelligence, could not be reached for comment. The indictment accused them of attempting to call, text and send encrypted messages starting in February to two people from a political discussion group - the so-called Hapsburg Group - that worked with Manafort to promote Ukraine’s interests in a bid to sway their testimony. Manafort’s lawyers have argued that the evidence suggesting he tampered with witnesses is thin. Mueller’s filing said he may also introduce evidence showing that Manafort falsely represented business expenses on his tax returns and that Manafort, his business partner Richard Gates and Kilimnik structured loans between Cypriot companies they controlled to avoid recognizing those funds as taxable income. Slideshow (5 Images)Legal experts say Mueller wants to keep applying pressure on Manafort to plead guilty and assist prosecutors as Gates did and is cooperating with the probe after cutting a plea deal. “Either he can double down in his resolve to fight it or it’s the last straw and it breaks his will and he decides to work out a plea bargain,” Michael Zeldin, a former federal prosecutor, told Reuters. Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Warren Strobel; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Jonathan Landay; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

For years, Facebook has made the pitch to customers that its wealth of user data — from birthdays to favorite television shows — allows it to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time. These capabilities helped Facebook, along with its rival Google, to take in most of the more than $100 billion in annual online ad spending.But Facebook’s access to the data that powers this revenue model may be starting to dry up. Last year, a new rule in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation, forced internet companies to comply with stricter safeguards in handling user information. And as customers become more hesitant to share their own data, Facebook and other digital-media companies are moving to regain their trust through additional protections.Now, some of Facebook’s efforts to appease critics who complain of discriminatory practices may further chip away at the model.In the interview, Ms. Sandberg conceded that the changes could make advertising on Facebook less efficient for some customers who had used the targeting practices “in a very fair and nondiscriminatory way,” but added, “We believe that that was a cost well worth bearing.”Under the new approach, Facebook will require advertisers in the areas of housing, employment and credit to use a separate portal that will not include gender or age as targeting options. It will also preclude selecting an affinity group of people interested in a race, ethnicity or religion. The company has generally allowed advertisers seeking to reach members of a race or religion to aim at such affinity groups.The company will continue to allow advertisers in other areas to deliver ads on the basis of age, gender or any affinity groups.Even in the less sensitive areas, advertisers can’t exclude groups associated with race, religion or ethnicity from seeing ads. They can only affirmatively aim ads at them.

A Republican political consultant linked to Paul Manafort and Cambridge Analytica has admitted to funneling $50,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch to Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration committee.Sam Patten used the money to buy tickets for the oligarch and a Russian associate to Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, according to a plea agreement made public on Friday. The inauguration fund was not allowed to accept money from foreigners.The disclosure came as Patten pleaded guilty to illegally lobbying in the US for pro-Russia politicians from Ukraine. As part of his plea deal, he agreed to cooperate with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating links between Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian interference in the 2016 election.Patten, 47, admitted causing the Ukrainian funds to be paid to the inauguration committee, and to lying to a Senate committee investigating Russian interference in an attempt to cover this up. He was not charged for these actions.He pleaded guilty to one count of working as an unregistered agent for the oligarch’s Ukrainian political party, Opposition Bloc, which also employed Manafort, the former chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Patten was released on bail by judge Amy Berman Jackson following a hearing in Washington.The charge was brought by the US attorney’s office in the capital, which took over the case following a referral from Mueller’s office. The court filings indicated that Patten had been in discussions with Mueller’s office for at least three months.A spokesman for the US attorney’s office said the charge against Patten was a felony punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and also carried potential fines. Stuart Sears, an attorney for Patten, declined to comment.A spokeswoman for Thomas Barrack, the chairman of Trump’s inauguration committee, did not respond to requests for comment.The filings recounted how Patten formed a consulting company in the US with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian political operative with alleged ties to intelligence services. Kilimnik, identified as “foreigner A” in the filings, has also worked extensively with Manafort, who was a consultant to Opposition Bloc in Ukraine.After discovering foreigners were barred from giving money to the inauguration, Patten enlisted another American to buy four tickets. The oligarch paid $50,000 to Patten and Kilimnik’s company from an account in Cyprus. Patten then wrote the American “straw purchaser” a $50,000 check and the American used these funds to buy the tickets the following day. The tickets were used by Patten, Kilimnik, the oligarch and another Ukrainian.Patten then lied about this arrangement during testimony to the Senate intelligence committee in January 2018, he admitted on Friday. He failed to provide requested documents, gave misleading evidence and then after his interview deleted files relating to his work for the Ukrainians.In all, according to the court documents, Patten’s firm was paid about $1m for advising Opposition Bloc and lobbying US politicians on its behalf. Patten worked to set up meetings for Kilimnik and the oligarch with state department officials and members of Congress, including senators on the foreign relations committee and House members on the foreign affairs committee.Patten admitted that he knew he was required to register as an agent for a foreigner but failed to do so after the Ukrainian oligarch said “he did not want them to” until an unspecified future date.Patten also drafted opinion articles for the Ukrainian oligarch and succeeded in having at least one published by a national American media outlet in February 2017.The Ukrainian figure and media outlet were not identified in the charging documents. A pro-Trump article was published by US News & World Report in February 2017 under the byline of Serhiy Lyovochkin, an Opposition Bloc MP who was a senior official in Ukraine’s former pro-Kremlin administration.Enxhi Myslmi, a spokeswoman for US News & World Report, said: “To our knowledge, no one at US News has been contacted by law enforcement regarding the publication of this piece.”Lyovochkin’s office declined to say if it believed he was the oligarch described in the court documents. In an unsigned email, it said: “Mr Lyovochkin was indeed invited to the inauguration and had the honor to attend. At the same time, he did not pay for that.”Earlier this month, Manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud arising from the Mueller investigation. During the trial, a former colleague testified that Manafort received payments from Lyovochkin and disguised them as loans to avoid paying tax.Kilimnik is charged alongside Manafort in a separate criminal case brought in Washington by Mueller.Patten also carried out work for Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct consultancy that is under scrutiny for its work on Trump’s 2016 election campaign. A page on Patten’s website that has since been removed said he “worked with one of London’s most innovative strategic communications companies to introduce new technologies and methodologies” during the 2014 US election.During an interview last year with a British academic researcher, Patten said: “I’ve worked in Ukraine, Iraq, I’ve worked in deeply corrupt countries, and [the American] system isn’t very different.” Topics Paul Manafort Republicans Cambridge Analytica Ukraine Russia US politics news

Enlarge this image Friday is the deadline for the special counsel to submit to federal court in Washington, D.C., a document spelling out how former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly violated his plea agreement. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Friday is the deadline for the special counsel to submit to federal court in Washington, D.C., a document spelling out how former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly violated his plea agreement. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Friday is shaping up as a busy day in the Justice Department's Russia investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller faces deadlines in two federal courts in cases involving two former Trump insiders, a former FBI director treks up to Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview, and a onetime Trump campaign adviser gets out of prison.Here's a quick breakdown of what's on tap for the day:Mueller's office to detail Paul Manafort's alleged liesFriday is the deadline for Mueller's team to submit to federal court in Washington, D.C., a document spelling out how President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly violated his plea agreement. Manafort pleaded guilty in September to two conspiracy charges in Washington and agreed to cooperate "fully" and "truthfully" with federal prosecutors, including Mueller's team in its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. National Security Trump: Manafort Pardon Not 'Off The Table' After Briefings From Manafort's Lawyer But last week, the special counsel's office said that Manafort had repeatedly lied to prosecutors since agreeing to cooperate, which it says violated his plea deal. Mueller's team did not provide any details on how Manafort may have breached the agreement or what he allegedly lied about.That information is expected to be made public Friday, when Mueller's team is to submit to Judge Amy Berman Jackson a document detailing Manafort's alleged "crimes and lies," including those it says he committed after he signed his cooperation agreement. National Security Special Counsel Says Paul Manafort 'Breached' Plea Deal, Lied to FBI Manafort's lawyers have rejected the government's allegations. They say Manafort met several times with investigators and provided what he believed to be truthful information.Under his agreement, Manafort cannot withdraw his guilty plea.Jackson has set a tentative sentencing date of March 2019 for Manafort, who was convicted by a federal jury in a separate case in Virginia in August. Manafort, 69, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.Leniency for Cohen?As Manafort's plea deal appeared to collapse last week, another one came together for Mueller. Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about efforts well into 2016 to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. National Security Michael Cohen Admits Trump Tower-Moscow Talks Continued Well Into 2016 Campaign Cohen admitted that his work for the Trump Organization on the proposed Moscow real estate deal ran through at least June 2016, deep into the presidential race. He also said that he kept Trump and Trump's family regularly informed of his efforts and that he had a 20-minute phone conversation with a Kremlin official to try to enlist the Russian government's help in securing land and financing for the project.Cohen had lied about all three of those things in his 2017 testimony to Congress, according to court papers. He lied, the filings say, for two reasons: to minimize links between the Moscow project and Trump and to give the "false impression" that the project ended before the Republican primaries began in order to limit the ongoing Russia investigation. Enlarge this image Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to President Trump, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 12 in New York by Judge William H. Pauley. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Drew Angerer/Getty Images Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to President Trump, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 12 in New York by Judge William H. Pauley. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Cohen's plea agreement indicates that he has met with the special counsel's team at least seven times. His lawyer, Guy Petrillo, says Cohen is prepared to continue that cooperation, as needed. Law Donald Trump's Attorney And Fixer Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty To 8 Federal Counts Cohen, who also pleaded guilty earlier this year to eight counts of financial crimes and campaign finance violations, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 12 in New York by Judge William H. Pauley. In a court filing last week, Cohen's attorneys requested leniency in sentencing, asking the judge for time served. They say Cohen has taken responsibility for his actions and cooperated fully with the special counsel's office. He also has voluntarily provided assistance to New York state investigators, Cohen's lawyers say. Cohen met with the New York attorney general's office regarding its suit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation and provided information and interviews to the state's Department of Taxation and Finance.Cohen has cooperated, his lawyers point out, despite the president's attacks on the special counsel's office, as well as Trump's salvos against Cohen himself."In the context of this raw, full-bore attack by the most powerful person in the United States, Michael, formerly a confidante and adviser to Mr. Trump, resolved to cooperate, and voluntarily took the first steps toward doing so," his lawyers write. National Security Michael Flynn Has Provided 'Substantial Assistance' In Russia Inquiry, Feds Say Mueller's office is expected to file a memo with its recommendations for Cohen's sentencing on Friday. If the special counsel says it believes the sentencing should be lenient — as it did earlier this week for Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn — that would suggest that the former Trump fixer has been a helpful witness.Welcome back, Comey Enlarge this image Ousted FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before the Senate intelligence committee in June 2017. Comey had fought for an open hearing this month before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Ousted FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before the Senate intelligence committee in June 2017. Comey had fought for an open hearing this month before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Former FBI Director James Comey is set to return to Capitol Hill for a transcribed interview behind closed doors with the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Friday. For a time, though, it appeared that the interview might not happen. Comey originally contested a subpoena from the Judiciary Committee's Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte. The former FBI chief said he would gladly meet for a public hearing, but he did not want to come in for a closed-door interview because of concerns over "selective leaking and distortion." Politics James Comey To Testify Privately To The House Judiciary Committee Comey ultimately withdrew his legal challenge to the subpoena and agreed to appear, although the committee has agreed to release the transcript as soon as possible afterward. Politics The James Comey Saga, In Timeline Form The interview is likely to be among the last gasps of the panels' Republican-led investigations into decisions made in 2016 by the FBI and the Justice Department. Democrats take control of the House in January, putting them in charge of setting the investigative agenda.Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has also been issued a subpoena to appear. Papadopoulos to exit federal prisonNot to be outdone, George Papadopoulos, the man whose barroom chatter helped trigger the Russia investigation, wraps up his two-week prison sentence Friday. He has served his time at a medium security federal prison in Oxford, Wis.Papadopoulos, who worked as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign. He agreed to cooperate with investigators.Prosecutors with Mueller's office requested a sentence within the guideline range of zero to six months. They said his lies hampered the investigation. He also did not provide substantial assistance to investigators despite agreeing to cooperate, prosecutors say. After sentencing, Papadopoulos asked the court to delay his prison time until a separate case challenging Mueller's appointment had concluded. Those requests were denied. In recent months, Papadopoulos has attacked the Russia investigation on Twitter. He has suggested that he was set up as part of a conspiracy targeting Trump.Once he emerges from federal prison on Friday, Papadopoulos is not entirely off the hook. He still faces a year of supervised release.

Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil and the X-Men, who has died aged 95, was an outspoken advocate of equality and of the value of comics as an art form.Here are some of his greatest quotes.“I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realise: entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you’re able to entertain people, you’re doing a good thing.” – Marvel’s tribute page“I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes. We live in a diverse society – in fact, a diverse world, and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other.”“I never thought that Spider-Man would become the worldwide icon that he is. I just hoped the books would sell and I’d keep my job.” – interviewed in 2006“If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn’t be as worthwhile an art form as anything on Earth?” – Stan Lee: Conversations“Let’s lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them – to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are.” – Stan’s Soapbox“I don’t have inspiration. I only have ideas. Ideas and deadlines.”“Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people’s well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them – even if there is no chance of a reward. That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.”“What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say ‘I want to rule the world,’ and there’s nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four’s greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!” – Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe“I don’t really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.” – interviewed in 2006“I’m no prophet, but I’m guessing that comic books will always be strong. I don’t think anything can really beat the pure fun and pleasure of holding a magazine in your hand, reading the story on paper, being able to roll it up and put it in your pocket, reread again later, show it to a friend, carry it with you, toss it on a shelf, collect them, have a lot of magazines lined up and read them again as a series. I think young people have always loved that. I think they always will.” – Brandweek, 2000“America is made of different races and different religions, but we’re all co-travellers on the spaceship Earth and must respect and help each other along the way.”“It’s geeks who really make or break a TV show or movie or videogame.” – Washington Post, 2010“My theory about why people like superheroes is that when we were kids, we all loved to read fairy tales. Fairy tales are all about things bigger than life: giants, witches, trolls, dinosaurs and dragons and all sorts of imaginative things. Then you get a little bit older and you stop reading fairy tales, but you don’t ever outgrow your love of them.”“For many years we’ve been trying, in our own bumbling way, to illustrate that love is a far greater force, a far greater power than hate. Now we don’t mean you’re expected to go around like a pirouetting Pollyanna, tossing posies at everyone who passes by, but we do want to make a point. Let’s consider three men: Buddha, Christ, and Moses ... men of peace, whose thoughts and deeds have influenced countless millions throughout the ages -- and whose presence still is felt in every corner of the earth. Buddha, Christ, and Moses ... men of good will, men of tolerance, and especially men of love. Now, consider the practitioners of hate who have sullied the pages of history. Who still venerates their words? Where is homage still paid to their memory? What banners still are raised to their cause? The power of love - and the power of hate. Which is most truly enduring? When you tend to despair ... let the answer sustain you.” – Stan’s Soapbox“With great power there must also come ... great responsibility!” – Spider-Man“I’m a frustrated actor. My goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I’m going to try to break his record.” – interviewed in 2006“Some people will say, ‘Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it’s showing you.’ The only answer I can give is, ‘You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn’t want to see it on the stage?’” – Denver Post Online“For years, kids have been asking me what’s the greatest superpower. I always say luck. If you’re lucky, everything works. I’ve been lucky.”“I don’t analyse things too closely. I find the more you analyse, the more you get away from spontaneity. I have only one rule: I just want to write a story that would interest me – that’s the only criterion I have. Am I eager to see how it ends? If these characters really existed, would I want to see what happens to them? … If I like something, there are bound to be millions of people who like it, too. And if they don’t, shame on them.”“You know, my motto is ‘Excelsior.’ That’s an old word that means ‘upward and onward to greater glory’. It’s on the seal of the state of New York. Keep moving forward, and if it’s time to go, it’s time. Nothing lasts forever.” – Playboy interview, 2014 Topics Stan Lee Comics and graphic novels Marvel news