Several airports in California have refused to play a video featuring U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for delays due to the federal government shutdown.
The video, playing for travelers waiting in Transportation Security Administration security lines at airports across the country, comes as the government entered a third week of a shutdown after Congress failed to reach an agreement on funding legislation.
“It is TSA’s top priority to make sure you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” Noem says in the video. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government and because of this many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”
Officials at multiple airports in California say they are not playing the video at their locations. They include: John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Hollywood Burbank Airport, San Diego International Airport, San José Mineta International Airport, Sacramento International Airport, Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport and San Francisco International Airport.
Officials from Los Angeles International Airport did respond to questions on whether the video was being played there.
Some airport officials have refused to play the video, calling it inappropriate. On Tuesday, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation called for Noem to be investigated for possibly breaking the Hatch Act by asking airports to play the video.
“Recent reports indicate DHS is using taxpayer dollars and federal assets to produce and air a video message featuring Secretary Noem, in her official capacity, making political attacks against Democratic Members of Congress,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) wrote in a letter addressed to the Office of Special Counsel and reviewed by The Times. “This message is not just false; it appears to violate the prohibitions contained in the Hatch Act.”
The act, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, is to “ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion,” as well as protect federal employees from political coercion at work.
Noem’s video was received by airports on Thursday and was followed up by a verbal request from DHS officials to play it at security checkpoints, multiple airport officials told The Times.
The reasons the video is not being shown for California fliers varies.
In Orange County, airport spokesperson AnnaSophia Servin said that Homeland Security requested, to the airport’s director, that the video be played, but a final decision has not yet been made. In Burbank, political messaging is prohibited, officials said. In San José, an airport spokesperson said there have been no shutdown impacts and therefore no reason to play the video.
At San Francisco International Airport, officials determined that the video wasn’t helpful.
“SFO limits messaging at our security checkpoints to information intended to help passengers be prepared to go through the security screening process,” a spokesperson said in an email. “Any content, whether in video or print form, which does not meet this standard, will not be shown.”
When The Times asked Homeland Security officials to respond to airports not playing Noem’s video, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded with Noem’s video statement blaming Democrats.
But California airports aren’t the only locations choosing not to play Noem’s message.
“We did not consent to playing the video in its current form, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” said Molly Prescott, a spokesperson for the Port of Portland, which manages Portland International Airport, said in a statement.
Oregon law also prohibits public employees from politicking on the job.
“We believe consenting to playing this video on Port assets would violate Oregon law,” she said.
Officials in New York also pushed back against airing the video.
“It is inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials,” New York’s Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said in a statement. “The [Public Service Announcement] politicizes the impacts of a federal government shutdown on TSA Operations, and the County finds the tone to be unnecessarily alarmist.”
According to the Homeland Security website, more than 61,000 TSA employees continue to work despite a lapse in appropriations, and a lack of a paycheck to employees.
1 of 6 | Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., joins Senate republicans during a press conference after their Senate caucus luncheons on the seventh day of the government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate will hold another vote on a measure to fund the government Thursday as the government shutdown enters its ninth day.
A vote in the U.S. Senate is expected around 11:30 a.m. EDT Thursday. On Wednesday, the Senate held its sixth failed vote on two stopgap funding measures — one each from the Democrats and Republicans. The Republican bill passed in the House.
Democrats are holding fast to their demands for healthcare reforms, while Republicans want to pass funding through Nov. 21.
President Donald Trumpcontinued to threaten not to give back pay to workers after the shutdown, saying that some workers don’t deserve it.
The Internal Revenue Service announced furloughs on Wednesday for 34,000 workers, which is about half of its staff. There are now about 750,000 furloughed government workers.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he may allow votes on bills to fund parts of the government, CBS News reported. One is the defense appropriations bill, which has already passed the House of Representatives.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told callers on C-SPAN Thursday morning that Democrats are the ones keeping the government closed.
“The Democrats are the ones that are preventing you from getting a check,” he said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are preventing your family from getting the care they need, not Republicans, and my heart goes out to you.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., joins Senate Republicans during a press conference after the Senate caucus luncheon during the seventh day of the government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Congressional Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a spending deal after meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Published On 30 Sep 202530 Sep 2025
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United States Vice President JD Vance has warned that the US is heading towards a government shutdown after a meeting between the White House and Congressional leaders on Monday failed to make headway on a federal spending bill.
US President Donald Trump and Vance met with leaders from both parties to try to hammer out a deal.
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“I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vance told reporters after the meeting, flanked by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Democrats and Republicans have until 12:01 am Wednesday (04:01 GMT) to reach an agreement, or government offices will start shutting down. Some federal employees will also be put on furlough until a deal is reached.
Republicans want to pass a bill extending federal funding at current levels until November 21.
Democrats have demanded concessions to extend healthcare subsidies and for Republicans to reverse cuts to programmes like Medicaid, which helps fund healthcare for low-income Americans.
They have proposed a short-term spending bill to keep the government running to give both sides time to negotiate, according to CBS News.
Faced by a minority in both houses of the legislature and a Republican president who governs through executive order, spending is one of the few areas Democrats have leverage, CBS News reported.
Vance accused Democrats of using that leverage to hold the government hostage.
“You don’t put a gun to the American people’s head and say unless you don’t do exactly what Senate and House Democrats do, we’re going to shut down your government,” he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they were trying to help Americans adversely affected by cuts made by Trump’s sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill” earlier this year.
Jeffries told reporters that changes needed to be made to healthcare spending before health insurance premiums rise for 2026.
“We believe that simply accepting the Republican plan to continue to assault and gut healthcare is unacceptable,” he said following the meeting on Monday.
Schumer said a government shutdown could be avoided if Trump and Republicans accepted bipartisan input.
“If [Trump] will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for, on healthcare and on rescissions, he can avoid a shutdown, but there are still large differences between us,” he said.
Despite failing to reach an agreement on Monday, Schumer still spoke positively about speaking directly to Trump after a lengthy delay.
“We laid out to the president some of the consequences that are happening in healthcare, and by his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time,” Schumer said.
President Trump blamed the over-the-counter drug acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, as a significant factor in the rise of U.S. autism diagnoses on Monday, at a news conference in which he offered often inaccurate medical advice for the nation’s children and pregnant women.
“Taking Tylenol is not good. I’ll say it. It’s not good,” Trump said, flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
In a series of rambling, error-filled remarks that touched upon pain relievers, pregnancy, vaccines and the Amish — who he inaccurately said have no autism prevalence in their communities — Trump also said that the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine should be broken up into multiple shots and that children defer until age 12 the hepatitis B vaccine series now started at birth.
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“I’m just making these statements from me, I’m not making them from these doctors,” he said. “It’s too much liquid. Too many different things are going into that baby.”
The announcement was met with dismay from autism researchers and advocates who said that research thus far into causal links between acetaminophen and autism has turned up minimal evidence.
“Researchers have been studying the possible connections between acetaminophen and autism for more than a decade,” said Dr. David Mandell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The Trump administration, he said, “has cherry-picked findings that are not in line with most of the research.”
Physicians and researchers also took issue with Trump’s insistence that there was “no downside” to women avoiding fever-reducing drugs in pregnancy. In fact, studies show that untreated fever in pregnancy is associated with higher risk of heart and facial birth defects, miscarriage and neurodevelopmental disorders — including autism.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will initiate a safety-label update for Tylenol and other acetaminophen products and send a letter to physicians about potential links between the drug’s use and autism, Kennedy said.
The actual text of the letter is much milder than Trump’s impassioned critique.
“In the spirit of patient safety and prudent medicine, clinicians should consider minimizing the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy for routine low-grade fevers. This consideration should also be balanced with the fact that acetaminophen is the safest over-the-counter alternative in pregnancy among all analgesics and antipyretics,” states the letter, signed by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
Monday’s announcement followed weeks of speculation that Kennedy planned to publicly link Tylenol usage to autism, which prompted multiple medical associations to release statements clarifying that any evidence of a causal relationship between the two is limited, and that the drug is safe to take during pregnancy with medical advice.
“All of us in the advocacy community, and all of us who have children with autism, had very high hopes that RFK and the President were serious when they said they wanted to find the causes of autism,” said Alison Singer, co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation. “The problem is that so far, what we’ve heard has not been gold-standard science.”
The administration also said it would fast-track the labeling of leucovorin, a generic drug currently used to reduce side effects of chemotherapy, as a treatment for autism-related speech deficits. Also known as folinic acid, leucovorin is a form of the B vitamin folate. Research into its effect on autistic children is still in its early stages, researchers said. The few studies that have been published had small sample sizes and found only minimal improvements in symptoms of concern, Mandell said.
“I want to see a large, rigorous, independent trial. In the absence of that, to tout this as a cure is reckless,” he said. “Families deserve better.”
Autism spectrum disorder is a complex neurological and developmental condition. Symptoms cluster around difficulties in communication, social interaction and sensory processing, and the condition can manifest in many different ways based on co-occurring disabilities and other factors.
Diagnoses in the U.S. have risen steadily since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking data in 2000, thanks in large part to a broadening definition of the disorder and increased efforts to identify children with ASD.
Today one in 31 U.S. 8-year-olds has been identified as having autism spectrum disorder, according to the most recent CDC data, up from one in 150 in 2000.
Kennedy has long asserted that’s due to an external environmental cause, often using inaccurate statements to describe both the condition and the research around it.
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Most experts believe genetic links and changing diagnostic criteria play a significant role in the trend. In April, Kennedy dismissed such research and arguments as “epidemic denial.” He said he was certain an external factor was to blame.
“We know it’s an environmental exposure. It has to be,” Kennedy said. “Genes do not cause epidemics.” He said at the time that the administration would find an environmental cause by September.
Research into causal links between acetaminophen and autism have not found strong evidence.
Last year, a team of researchers from the U.S. and Europe reviewed records of 2.5 million babies born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. At first glance, it did seem like children exposed to acetaminophen in the womb were 5% to 7% more likely to be diagnosed with autism than those who weren’t. But when the researchers compared those children to their siblings, they found that kids from the same parents were equally likely to be diagnosed with autism, whether their mother took acetaminophen during pregnancy or not.
“If you actually do an apples to apples comparison, you see absolutely zero effect. The association flatlines. In other words, there’s no real risk that’s attributable to acetaminophen,” said Brian K. Lee, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University who was on the study team. “A large elephant in the room is being ignored, and that’s genetics.” Hundreds of studies over the years have explored the complex genetics of autism, with both inherited and spontaneous genes contributing to the condition.
The paper also noted that women who took acetaminophen while pregnant were, unsurprisingly, more likely to suffer from the kinds of ailments for which the medication is indicated, like fevers or chronic pain.
They were also more likely to have diagnoses of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders, to have pre-existing mental health conditions or to be taking other prescribed medications, the team found. Their results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“People don’t take acetaminophen for fun. They are taking it for a health condition,” Lee said.
He compared the correlation between Tylenol exposure and autism to the correlation between ice cream sales and drownings. Both of those things tend to increase at the same time each year, he said, not because ice cream is deadly but because both rise during hot summer months. In other words, the underlying health causes that women are taking acetaminophen to treat could be more likely linked to autism than the pain reliever itself.
“This is just such a shame when there are so many things we could do to help autistic children and adults, and the negative consequences — making parents feel guilty about taking Tylenol during pregnancy and newly pregnant women afraid — are real,” said Catherine Lord, a clinical psychologist and autism researcher at UCLA. “Just sad all around.”
The Russian president defends the military campaign in Ukraine, blaming NATO and Western policies for the conflict.
Published On 1 Sep 20251 Sep 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the West for igniting the war in Ukraine, insisting Moscow’s assault was provoked by years of Western provocations.
Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Monday, Putin accused NATO of destabilising the region and dismissed claims that Russia triggered the war.
“This crisis was not triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin told the gathering of regional leaders. He was referring to the 2013-14 pro-European uprising that toppled Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia responded to the revolution by annexing Crimea and backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, leading to a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and devastated large parts of the country.
Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 escalated the fighting, prompting sweeping sanctions from the United States and the European Union and deepening Russia’s isolation from the West, though not from the rest of the international community.
Putin said Western efforts to draw Ukraine into NATO were a key driver of the war, reiterating that Russia’s security concerns must be addressed before any peace deal can be reached.
“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” he said.
The Russian president highlighted talks he held with US President Donald Trump in August, describing the discussions as “opening a way to peace”. He praised diplomatic efforts from Beijing and New Delhi, saying their proposals could “facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”.
Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday to discuss Ukraine and said he would expand on those talks in bilateral meetings with leaders on the sidelines of the summit. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are also attending.
Moscow and Beijing have promoted the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led alliances, with Putin arguing the world needs a “system that would replace outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models”.
Despite repeated calls from Trump for Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate, peace efforts have faltered. Russia has rejected ceasefire proposals and demanded that Ukraine cede more territory, conditions Kyiv has dismissed as unacceptable.
“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” said Putin.
Part of the source of the conflict “lies in the ongoing attempts by the West to bring Ukraine into NATO”, he said.
Putin also held talks with Modi and Erdogan, and is expected to meet Pezeshkian later on Monday as he seeks to bolster diplomatic backing amid the drawn-out conflict.
A BELOVED car garage with hundreds of thousands of fans has been forced to close its doors.
The garage is shutting down after nearly six years, after its famous owner battled with “rising costs”.
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An iconic garage is sadly closing its doors after six yearsCredit: facebook/BerrowMotors
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Joe Betty runs the popular Shifting Motors YouTube channelCredit: instagram/shifting_metal
Joe Betty first set up his famous garage Berrow Motors in 2020, in the sleepy town of Burnham-on-Sea.
During that time, he slowly built up his customer base and started posting videos about motors online – quickly racking up millions of views.
His YouTube channel Shifting Metal takes viewers behind the scenes of his high-flying lifestyle, as he buys and trades luxury vehicles including Porsches, BMWs and Jaguars.
However, after becoming one of the most famous motor influencers in Britain, Joe has been forced to close the garage which helped launch his career.
The petrolhead and influencer says that rising costs are to blame for the sudden closure of Berrow Motors.
He said: “We’ve had nearly six fantastic years here.
“We’ve won awards, gained over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and raised over £30,000 for local causes — but have decided now is the time to move on.”
“The cost of running a business is constantly rising and has certainly played a part in my decision, but I also wish to focus more time on fundraising and other business ventures.”
He added: “I want to thank all of our wonderful customers for their business over the last few years and of course the team members who made Berrow Motors what it was.
“I really hope another motor trader takes over the site and makes a success of it – you couldn’t ask for better landlords than the Welland family.”
Fans flooded the comments section on Shifting Metal’s social media, as Joe broke the news.
One wrote: “sorry to hear that the business is closing down. I wish you and your family all the very best for the future”
Others said they would miss Joe’s hilarious challenges that he would set himself on YouTube.
In one video, he flipped a coin to set the price of a luxury land rover and, in another, he bought and sold a Mercedes C63 for an eyewatering £35,000.
After letting go of the garage, Joe says that he is going to be focusing on producing even more “car-centric” content online.
The news comes as even major car brands struggle to stay afloat.
Nissan has been forced to accelerate the closure of two of its factories in Mexico, as it slashes its number of global factories from 17 to 10.
The crisis-hit brand has been battling rising debt, which it is hoping to remedy through its Re:Nissan plan.
One Day in Southport detailed one teenage survivor from the horrifying Southport stabbings in July 2024 which saw three young girls stabbed at a Taylor Swift themed dance party
An individual who was injured in the Southport stabbing sobbed as she recalled the terrifying ordeal(Image: Channel 4/One Day In Southport)
Channel 4’s One Day in Southport aired tonight, leaving viewers shaken by its unflinching portrayal of the tragic events of July 29, 2024. The documentary revisits the devastating day a Taylor Swift-themed dance class at Hart Space in Southport was turned into a crime scene when 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana launched a brutal knife attack.
The film follows the story of one young survivor and her family, using raw testimony from victims, witnesses, and community members to discuss how violence, disinformation, and extremism collided.
Rudakubana fatally stabbed three young girls called Bebe King (6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Alice da Silva Aguiar (9), and injured ten others, most of them being children.
He was arrested at the scene, later pleaded guilty, and received a life sentence with a minimum of 52 years.
Elsie Dot Stancombe was just seven when she was murdered (Image: AP)
False claims that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker spread rapidly online, fuelling a wave of riots across the UK. One of the most violent incidents occurred in Middlesbrough on August 4, when a planned protest spiralled into destruction.
More than 1,000 people gathered as shopfronts were smashed, homes vandalised, and cars torched.
The documentary struck a chord with viewers, with many taking to social media to describe it as “devastating,” “urgent,” and “impossible to forget.”
One particularly heartbreaking scene saw the focus survivor of the attack break down in tears after she blamed herself for not being able to save the three little girls – one of whom was her little sister’s best friend. The teenage survivor, only identified by her eyes, told the story from her memory as she detailed how she was stabbed both in the arm and in the back.
The teen broke down in tears(Image: Channel 4/One Day In Southport)
“I felt like I was dying,” the survivor shared in the heartbreaking admission. She then broke down after confessing that she blames herself for not being able to save the girls – despite having been stabbed herself.
“I regret it every day that I wasn’t able to save her. That I wasn’t able to get her out,” she sobbed.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, after watching the chilling stories of the victims unfold, viewers shared their heartbreak. “This poor girl has to live with this trauma for the rest of her life. It’s so sad that she blames herself even in the slightest. Absolutely devastating.”
The teen sobbed after her little sister’s best friend was stabbed(Image: Channel 4/One Day In Southport)
“I am truly sick to my stomach watching this. How did this happen to such innocent little babies? Bawling my eyes out and thinking of their poor families,” another viewer shared. Another echoed: “God, this is such a hard watch, but so important too.”
Another Channel 4 viewer typed: “Those poor little girls must have been terrified. To think they had their whole lives ahead of them. Such a powerful documentary. Fair play to Channel 4.”
“So heartbroken watching this. Tears streaming down to the ground omg,” someone else shared. While another viewer voiced: “It just shows how unsafe the UK has become. Nobody is safe. Not even innocent little girls.”
Karnataka state authorities singled out RCB, its partners and the state cricket for their mismanagement of stampede.
State authorities have blamed the management of India’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket team for last month’s deadly stampede during celebrations for their first Indian Premier League (IPL) title.
Karnataka state authorities singled out the RCB, its partners and the state cricket association for their mismanagement of the event in a report made public on Thursday.
Eleven fans were crushed to death and more than 50 wounded in a stampede near the M Chinnaswamy Stadium after hundreds of thousands packed the streets in the southern city of Bengaluru on June 4, to cheer their hero Virat Kohli and other RCB team members.
The report said organisers had not submitted a “formal request” or provided enough detail for permission to be granted for the celebrations.
“Consequently, the permission was not granted,” it said.
The team went ahead with its victory parade despite police rejecting RCB’s request, according to the report.
The RCB did not offer any comment on the report.
An ambulance moves following the stampede outside the cricket stadium in Bengaluru on June 4 [Reuters]
Four people, including a senior executive at RCB, representatives of event organisers DNA, and the Karnataka State Cricket Association, were detained by police in the days following the stampede.
Players were parading the trophy near the stadium a day after their win over Punjab Kings in the final in Ahmedabad when the stampede occurred.
The dead were aged between 14 and 29.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it “absolutely heartrending”, and Kohli, who top-scored in the final, was “at a loss for words” after it unfolded.
India coach Gautam Gambhir said he was never a fan of roadshows, and the authorities should not have allowed the mass celebrations if they were not prepared.
R. Kelly collapsed in prison Friday and had to be hospitalized outside prison walls, then didn’t get care that hospital staff said he needed, his attorney alleged in a Monday court filing.
The disgraced R&B singer’s attorney said federal prison officials attempted to kill Kelly by drug overdose Friday, two days after a previous motion was filed stating that the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer was in danger from an interstate plot involving prison authorities and the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang.
Authorities are allegedly trying to prevent Kelly from spilling compromising information about misconduct by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons, per court documents filed on Kelly’s behalf and reviewed by The Times.
The federal government dismissed the intentional overdose allegations, filing a response Tuesday that characterized the idea of a prison murder plot as “fantastic” and “fanciful.”
Kelly, 58, is serving 30-year and 20-year federal sentences that are largely concurrent at the FCI Butner prison facility in North Carolina after convictions in Illinois and New York for child sex crimes and racketeering.
Last week, attorney Beau B. Brindley filed an emergency furlough request on the singer’s behalf, stating that he was the target of a Bureau of Prisons-related murder plot involving a member or members of the racist Aryan Brotherhood being told to order his killing. The filing included a sworn declaration from Brotherhood honcho Mikeal Glenn Stine, who has been incarcerated since 1982 and said he chose to come clean to Kelly about the alleged plot because he is “a dying man” with terminal cancer and wanted Bureau of Prisons officials to be held accountable for decades of using inmates for their own purposes.
The solution? Brindley asked that his client to be sent to home detention for an unspecified amount of time until the threat is gone. The filing insisted that time was “of the essence” in a plot that allegedly was hatched in February 2023.
That threat, he said in the Monday filing, loomed larger than ever after Kelly was taken to solitary confinement early last week with medicines for sleep and anxiety in his possession, then was given additional medications by prison officials along with instructions on how to take them. Brindley said he filed the initial motion alleging the murder plot two days after that, on June 12.
“In the early morning hours of June 13, 2025, Mr. Kelly awoke,” the additional Monday motion said. “He felt faint. He was dizzy. He started to see black spots in his vision. Mr. Kelly tried to get up, but fell to the ground. He crawled to the door of the cell and lost consciousness. He was placed on a gurney. Prison officials wanted him to be taken to the on-site medical facility, but staff there could not assist him. Consequently, Mr. Kelly was taken by ambulance to nearby Duke University Hospital. While in the ambulance, he heard one of the prison officers with him state: ‘this is going to open a whole new can of worms.’ ”
Kelly learned at the hospital that he had been given a life-threatening overdose amount of medication, Brindley said in the Monday motion. The singer was hospitalized for two days for treatment.
“[W]ithin two days of the filing of his [initial] motion, Bureau of Prisons officials administered an amount of medication that significantly exceeded a safe dose and caused Mr. Kelly to overdose, putting his life in jeopardy. They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,” the Monday motion said.
In a response to the Kelly team’s initial filing from last week, prosecutors said Tuesday that the singer was asking the court to let him go home indefinitely “under the guise of a fanciful conspiracy.” They argued that the district court in Illinois doesn’t have jurisdiction over Kelly’s request for a change in his sentence and therefore need not consider the request.
“The government disputes the fantastic allegations in Kelly’s motion,” U.S. Atty. Andrew S. Boutros wrote. “Kelly is in prison because he is a serial child molester whose criminal abuse of children dates back to at least President Clinton’s first term in office — decades before Kelly was taken into federal custody.”
Kelly’s legal team doubled down on its allegations Tuesday in a reply to that government response, alleging that “the Federal Bureau of Prisons is taking active steps to kill Robert Kelly” and had “overdosed Mr. Kelly on medications and nearly killed him,” then “took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention.”
The blood clots reference was related to an allegation that Kelly had been seeking medical care for a swollen leg but had been denied.
“The government doesn’t care if R. Kelly is killed in the Bureau of Prisons,” Brindley said in his Tuesday reply. “They don’t care if he dies in solitary confinement. That is obvious. The smug and sanctimonious tenor of their briefing makes that plain. But there is nothing sanctimonious about what is happening to Mr. Kelly.”
A Chinese national flag flies in front of a new, modern business complex in Beijing on August 15, 2013. China’s construction boom could be stalling out, according to Societe Generale, which sounded a warning last week that recent softening in demand for cement and earth-moving equipment could be an early warning sign. UPI/Stephen Shaver | License Photo
May 28 (UPI) — The Czech Republic accused China on Wednesday of being responsible for a “malicious cyber campaign” that targeted an unclassified network of the foreign ministry.
Little information about the cyberattack was made public, the Czech government said it began in 2022, affected an institution designated as Czech critical infrastructure and that it was perpetrated by well-known China-backed hackers APT31.
“The Government of the Czech Republic strongly condemns this malicious cyber campaign against its critical infrastructure,” the Czech foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.
“Such behavior undermines the credibility of the People’s Republic of China and contradicts its public declarations.”
APT31, which stands for Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31, is a collection of China state-sponsored intelligence officers, contract hackers and support staff that conduct cyberattacks on behalf of the Chinese government.
Seven Chinese nationals were charged in the United States in late March for their involvement in APT31, which federal prosecutors said has targeted U.S. and foreign critics of the Chinese government, business, and political officials over the last 14 years.
The Czech government said Wednesday it tied APT31 to the cyberattack through an “extensive investigation,” which “led to a high degree of certainty about the responsible actor.”
“The Government of the Czech Republic has identified the People’s Republic of China as being responsible,” it said.
NATO and the European Union — both of which Czech is a member of — were quick to condemn China following Prague’s revelation.
“We stand in solidarity with the Czech Republic following the malicious cyber campaign against its Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the security alliance said in a statement.
NATO did not blame China but acknowledged the Czechs’ accusation of Beijing for the attack and said that it has observed “with increasing concern the growing pattern of malicious cyber activities stemming from the People’s Republic of China.”
Similarly, the EU did not directly point the finger at China for the attack on the Czech Republic, but said there have been cyberattacks linked to Beijing targeting EU and its member stats.
“In 2021, we urged Chinese authorities to take action against malicious cyber activities undertaken from their territories. Since then, several Member States have attributed similar activities at their national level,” the EU’s high representative, Kaja Kallas, said in a statement.
“We have repeatedly raised our concerns during bilateral engagements and we will continue to do so in the future.”
Armenia has long relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Russia’s top diplomat has blamed the war in Ukraine for affecting the supply of arms to Armenia, and has expressed concern that Moscow’s longstanding ally would now look to the West for military support instead.
Speaking in Yerevan on the second day of a two-day visit to Armenia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that some of Russia’s weapons contracts with the former Soviet republic had been delayed or reassigned due to the pressures created by the war in Ukraine.
Armenia has long relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan, against whom it has fought a series of conflicts since the late 1980s.
“We are currently in a situation where, as has happened throughout history, we are forced to fight all of Europe,” Lavrov said, in a barbed reference to European support for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
“Our Armenian friends understand that in such conditions, we cannot fulfil all our obligations on time.”
As Russia has failed to deliver on weapons contracts paid for by Armenia, Yerevan has increasingly turned to countries like France and India for military supplies.
Lavrov said that Russia would not oppose these growing ties, but said that they raised concerns about its traditional ally’s strategic intentions.
“When an ally turns to a country like France, which leads the hostile camp and whose president and ministers speak openly with hatred toward Russia, it does raise questions,” he said.
Armenia has strengthened its ties with the West amid recent ongoing tensions with Azerbaijan, fallout from the last major eruption of conflict and Russia’s role in that.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist enclave in Azerbaijan with a mostly ethnic Armenian population that had broken away from Baku with Armenian support amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect the more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled the region, fuelled by decades of distrust, wars, mutual hatred and violence, after Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover.
Yerevan also suspended its involvement in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a Russian-led security umbrella of ex-Soviet countries, last year, saying it would not participate or fund the alliance.
